A Michelin-starred Coral Gables property Shingo is a 14-seat restaurant with $275 seasonal tasting menus and an interior that was built in Kyoto before being dismantled, transported and rebuilt at its final location in Florida. Shingo, which specializes in omakase featuring ultra-premium nigiri and signature items such as eel with caviar, is positioned as a high-end Japanese restaurant in Miami.
But for their next restaurant, chef Shingo Akikuni and partner Kenzie Motai are aiming for something more accessible. wait, will launch its daytime service in Coral Gables on Thursday, June 4, with 24 seats. the cafe focusing on hammers, bento boxes and shio pans alongside matcha and coffee.
“When you grow up in Japan, café culture is huge, and those bakeries are everywhere,” Motai, who was born in Tokyo, told the Observer. And in every kind of Japanese house, you have shokupan, Japanese milk bread, inside the house.
For Motai and Osaka-born Akikuni, Stand is about returning to their roots and the food they enjoy eating every day.
“It’s always been a part of us,” Motai said of his love affair with Akikuni in Japanese cdie “We were trained in good food, but, as people, we are not free. We wanted to create something accessible. Shingo is expensive and it is not a concept that you can go to every night. So our goal is to continue to create more Japanese food concepts and present some Japanese food and our culture to the people of Miami. We just celebrated three years of Shingo Neighbors, and we just celebrated a few years of Shingo Neighbors. I can have sandos and onigiri and bento at a time noon.”
Wait, which will also have its own private label matcha from Japan and private label coffee from Guatemala, while offering specialty drinks such as matcha and strawberry puree, inspired by both Japanese kissing culture and shop fare. But this new restaurant is, of course, taking a chef-driven approach to its daily meals.
Chef de cuisine Lania Andrade, formerly Shingo’s pastry chef, leads the team that bakes its shokupan in-house. The R&D of dairy bread was a difficult process. Andrade, Akikuni and Motai went to Japan last summer and tasted a different shokupan. Motai, who spent the last part of his childhood in New Jersey, also received help from his parents.
“I sent them the shokupan from acdie that I grew up with.” “In New Jersey and New York, there are many Japanese people and Japanese bakeries as well cdie There’s something very real there too.”
After six months of testing Stand’s subtle milk bread, Motai is convinced that Stand’s shokupan is just as authentic. The shokupan at the Stand is the base for sandos filled with egg salad, chicken katsu, wagyu and other options. I cThe afé also has toasts with flavors like pizza and sweet potato.
And Stand uses the same shio pan dough (salted bread with butter) with options including chocolate, sausage and curry.
“Curry is a staple food in Japanese households, and curry pan is something I probably ate every day growing up,” Motai said.
Beyond Stand’s grab-and-go options, which include onigiri, the restaurant offers made-to-order sandos, salads and bento boxes (with seasonal proteins, sides, rice and miso soup). The stand keeps things affordable with shio pan starting at $3.50, sandos starting at $12 and bentos available under $20.
“It seems that interest in Japanese food is at a high level,” said Motai. “We feel a responsibility to give people a very authentic experience. We are very happy and excited to be able to share that food in an accessible and affordable way. We feel like we are the ambassadors of Japan here in Miami. It’s about having those authentic products that we grew up with and really enjoy eating every day.”
The stand starts out as a daytime walk. The location will add dinner service, with reservations available, in the fall. That will be in the form of a dimly lit izakaya with a menu to be decided, which may include Japanese staples like karaage and ramen paired with sake, beer and wine.
“We are bringing a chef from Japan to make it at night,” said Motai. “I think an izakaya allows us to explore a lot of different types of food. And if something comes out and becomes really popular, we might look at that and say, ‘Hey, maybe we should open something based on that.’
The stand is located at 98 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, FL 33134, and will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
