Going to Zuma is a bit like slamming your own fingers in a car door – an awful slow-motion premonition that you’ve just done something devastating to yourself, followed by the crunch which happens in a rush of noise and fury, followed by pain, recrimination and regret. I advise you, in the ten or so days that it takes to get a table, to take heed of those premonitions that tell you that Zuma will never live up to its reputation, that no restaurant is worth an automated call response system, that it will be full of high-fiving, cheap-suit-wearing real estate brokers and the over-seventies in sequinned dresses (it was). If you are sensible, you will stop reading here, cancel your booking and go to Doraku, or the River or, god forbid, cook. Otherwise, something like this will probably happen:
The first thing that greeted us was a rush of freezing air from the aircon, aggressive even for Miami. The welcome from the front desk was equally arctic, and they refused to seat our incomplete party until we were all present and correct which I found intensely irritating. We couldn’t have a drink at the bar as we had a kid with us, so were relegated to the hotel lobby, like a bunch of children waiting to see the headmaster. Just a thought, Zuma management, but should you be treating paying customers as annoyances?
The restaurant itself is undeniably lovely – high ceilings with lots of beautiful wood, huge glass windows opening out onto the marina and the yachts beyond, open kitchens with batteries of intense chefs, a gorgeous glass bar. But they’ve squeezed far too many tables into the room and the resulting tight spaces mean that the legions of waiters had to deal with constant traffic jams as well as causing more breakages and spillages than is conducive to relaxed dining. And all that wood and glass results in some ludicrous acoustics – writing the morning after, it feels like I worked my way through twenty Malboro Red last night. We all were shouting ourselves hoarse just to be heard at our table of eight, and everyone in the restaurant was doing the same.
Our waiter was efficient and smiley, but service as a whole is completely impersonal. It is set up to be “family style”, i.e. plates bashed down in the centre of the table to share. This just doesn’t work for larger groups of diners, unless you’re dining with the least fussy eaters on the planet or just noshing to soak up the booze. Smaller parties can quickly coordinate a good selection of dishes from all around the menu, working out what to share and what to avoid. But for eight people on a round table at these decibel levels, everyone ends up ordering for themselves. Since dishes then arrive in waves (starters/sushi/skewers/fish/meat), some people got all their (starter-centric) food straightaway, and some (the wagyu steak eaters) had to wait nearly to the end of the meal. Also, when dishes arrived it was nearly impossible to hear what they were thanks to the noise level, meaning that someone at the other side of the table snaffled my king crab in error (and I still haven’t paid proper homage to Sig and the boys).
With hassles like these, the food has got to be truly special. Presentation was – the plates are rough ceramics in earth tones that contrast with the delicate, precise morsels on them. Portions, too, were spot on – i.e. enough for about one or two people, or for everyone to have a little taste.
Unfortunately what was on the plates – meh, not so much. Certain dishes were fantastic, some flashes of brilliance that reminded me of early meals at Zuma and its sister restaurant Roka in London. Highlights at my end of the table were the seabass sashimi with truffle and salmon roe, the tuna/salmon tartare box and the robata skewer of aubergine with miso and sesame. The wagyu also elicited good noises.
But most dishes were just ok. A tuna/seabass roll, rock shrimp tempura, tiger prawn skewers, all the desserts – I’ve eaten things like this far better at Doraku for a fraction of the price and the hassle. A couple of things were downright yucky: lobster came smothered in garlic and butter and I’d be willing to bet they don’t serve that in other branches of Zuma – it was an oddly American plate that was completely out of tune with everything else. The chicken skewer was completely underdone and although tasty, I have to say I wouldn’t have eaten it so pink.
The bill, when it eventually came, was predictably monstrous: on with the pain, recrimination and regret. For this food, at this price, with this service and ambiance – well, I won’t be back just to eat a bit of nice miso sesame eggplant, that’s for sure.
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