Review: Oro on Miami Beach Goes for the Gold
★★★☆☆
By Eric Barton | Feb. 16, 2025
Miami is a city where gold accents and edible gold leaf and servers in gold ball gowns are everywhere.
Oro is the goldiest of all, just quite nearly every surface painted or plated in the stuff of wedding bands.
Does it prove itself worthy of all that gold? The half-in, half-outside dining room is a stunning space that’s something to behold. But the dishes run the gamut from gold-star-worthy to a bafflingly odd dessert that just might be the strangest thing I’ve ever eaten at a restaurant.
Oro is accessed right from Lincoln Road, where a Trumpian golden escalator carries guests up to the second floor dining room. There’s a lot to look at everywhere: a fluttering mobile above the escalators, gold-painted dancers adorned in golden flowers, and a retractable roof outdoors that shows off the stars. Unst music plays constantly, but it never escalated to full-blown, dance-on-the-tables party like some clubstaurants. It really is nearly all gold, everywhere you look, and while that may sound tacky in concept, it’s a handsome dining room that would impress the hell out of a couple Midwesterners getting on a cruise tomorrow.
The menu just might be the most conceptualized concept perhaps in the rich history of high-concept Miami restaurants. It promises a meal “orchestrated into six movements,” including PRELUDE, EUPHORIA, AQUA, TERRA, HARVEST, and SYMPHONY. There’s also a dessert section that’s titled DESSERT. On the night I was there, we were given a simpler menu with just three of the six movements, although I do think that’s probably enough movements for one night.
Will Miamians, who know gold-plated concepts, be impressed by the food? A full accounting of everything I ate is below, from the so-so start, to the stellar middle movements, to whatever happened there in the end.
Charred Avocado, $25
Often times it seems like the first dish at the restaurant is going to set a tone for the rest of the meal, and here I was thinking things weren’t going to go great the rest of the night. This is just simply a not-impressive salad, something you could largely make at home right now probably with things in your fridge. The well-charred avocado comes partially obscured in a gold leaf shield, sitting on a bed of fairly simple greens and a fairly simple hummus below. There’s not a lot of texture, and there’s too many earthy flavors for one dish. It just simply doesn’t match a room adorned everywhere in shiny things.
Tom Kha Crudo, $32
Things improved here with our second starter—or PRELUDE, if you’re following the movements. They’d cured pieces of yellowtail in Kombu before artfully arranging them like a rose bud, served over a pretty arrangement of radishes. The server added a coconut broth dotted with finger lime oil that was all quite flavorful, salty hits here and there from the bits of caviar dotting the top.
Halibut, $52
The entire EUPHORIA section of the menu was missing the night we were there, so we moved on to the AQUA movement, which admittedly sounds like a class at the YMCA pool. The crust of potato on top provides a nice textural difference to the flaky halibut, and the pumpkin curry below is worthy of being scooped up with the serving spoon. The dungeness crab gets overpowered by the curry, and the salad garnish a bit stringy after dropping into the hot broth. But overall this golden dish is worthy of this palace of gold.
Okinawa Gnocchi, $36
I don’t know what makes this item from the HARVEST movement section of the menu Okinawan, but I’ll tell you this is a pretty fantastic dish. The gnocchi have a nice al dente texture, with the squash inside not too sweet. The bechamel is delicately cheesy, and and there’s more chunks of roasted squash for texture. With the edible flowers garnishing it, this is a darling dish—and also a nice color contrast to all that’s shimmering around it.
Black Angus 1855 Filet $60
We’ve headed onto the TERRA movement with this steak dish, that continued the near-perfect round of entrees. The filet is nicely charred and pink, yet hot all the way through, the sauce a rich, earthy accompaniment, and the potatoes creamy and decadent. The only complaint is that the mâitre d' butter got hidden on a slice below, so that we didn’t know it was there until my final, very buttery bite of the dish.
Tzatziki Pavlova, $18
If you’re the type of person who secretly enjoys watching strangers get caught in the rain from the comfort of your seat in the coffee shop (and who wouldn’t?), this is the part of the review you’ve been waiting for, where I describe to you the single oddest dish I’ve ever eaten at a restaurant. Technically this is from DESSERT, but nobody would be all that surprised to get this way back in the PRELUDE movement. The oniony cucumber relish, the dill jam, the not-sweet yogurt, and the chunks of semi-candied blood orange all conspire to create a bite that's just downright baffling. Sure, I’ve had dishes at restaurants that were undercooked or unsauced or just downright not edible. But what was so baffling about this dish is that it got through the tasting the kitchen surely did at some point with the investors and servers and everybody said, yeah, let’s make that a dessert.
Look, they’re shooting for something here, taking risks that a lot of restaurants aren’t willing to take. Just around the corner from Oro is Mila, not just one of the most popular restaurants in Miami but one of the most profitable restaurants in the country. They’re not trying things like this at Mila. While that might help make them tens of millions, you also have to hand it to the chefs at Oro for trying something bold. It didn’t work. But considering they’re still new, Oro just might grow into a place worthy of gold.
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