By Volo on Thursday, 20 July 2023
Category: Miami Restaurants

Tambourine Room by Tristen Brandt on Miami Beach

This is my experience of visits to one of my top 3 restaurants for Miami restaurants, the problem is I have trouble remembering who the other two favorites are after a meal here. A recently awarded Michelin star restaurant off Collins Avenue roughly in the mid-northern part of Miami Beach, this restaurant is located in the Carillon Wellness Resort right on the water. The staff is a small dedicated group of folks who know their stuff and it is evident in the presentation and precision of the dishes.  The restaurant is located next to the resort bar and resort restaurant where you can have drinks while you wait to be seated.

The food is described as modern French with an Asian twist.​ The menu is supposed to change with every season and the next menu is due around mid-October.

Restaurant Interior

The inside of Tambourine room is elegant and stunning. What strikes me the most about it is the size, it is a good cozy size of maybe 25 capacity, with mostly 2 seaters and a large 6 seater table.

Green Goat Cheese, Salted cod with mushroom and potatoes and Fried oxtail sandwich.. Pecan curry nuts.

The sandwich was served atop a glass globe that emitted a smoke when lifted. Recommended order of consumption per the chef was green goat cheese, salted cod, then the oxtail sandwich. The dish is lovely and complements your taste buds with the earthy goat cheese that builds to fried fish and ends with the savory oxtail. What a great way to start a meal.

Amuse Bouche

With caviar, soft egg, parmesan foam and gold flakes on top. It has a nice earthy flavor to it. I love when chefs offer amuse bouche dishes as it is pretty much creative license for what will add to the meal.

Red Snapper Ceviche, Avocado and Mango prepared in Tiger's Milk

Served with red pickled onions and mango on top. Many who sample this, myself included, are not familiar with Tiger's milk not realizing that it is a sauce used to create the ceviche. It was a wonderful dish that had the slight acidic taste of the tiger's milk and pickled onion to balance the fish. The mango on top was a nice sweet flavor to balance the rest of the dish.

Sourdough and Rye mixture bread with honey butter

Not too strong of a sourdough or a rye flavor but in between both, it is a good warm freshly braked bread.

Beef Tartare with caviar and cream fraiche and kimizu

Beef tartare with caviar on top served with a sour cream fraiche and kimizu (an egg yolk and vinegar sauce). Served with sourdough chips and on a bed of a vinagrette sauce. This was an absolutely delicious dish!

Introducing the Beef Tartare

​Digging into the Beef Tartare

Beetroot Coffee and Citrus

Grapefruit infused foam covers a surprise of beetroot and coffee crumbs. The dish has a nice beetroot flavor and the coffee crumbs gives a nice texture and balance.

Veal cheek with potato and truffle sauce

Veal cheek with truffle sauce and creamy potatoes and potato strings above it to give it a good texture. The rye grain bread (on the right side of the dish) soaked in beer and stock has a nice meaty flavor to it.  If I did not know any better I'd have thought I was eating meat. The black dots on the plate are truffle sauce. The crosses are sweet potatoes cut to resemble carrots.

Palate Cleansing dish -- Frozen Greek sorbet with Japanese yuzu

A refreshing palate cleanser for the upcoming lighter dish. I love a nice light fruity frozen ice cream and the yuzu hit the spot.

​Ora King Salmon with Sorrel and juniper

Slow cooked Ora King Salmon with sorrel vinaigrette served with a slowly reduced and thickened cream with junipers. It had pickled rashes on top. The salmon  was delicious and the sourness of the vinaigrette

The plate is almost licked clean by the end of this dish.

​Pasta Parmesan with Truffle shavings

​Fresh pasta, fresh parmesan, fresh truffle shavings, parmesan foam, what more can you ask for? Perhaps a little bit of egg yolk inside all to be mixed together.

​Guinea Fowl with pepper and eggplant

 Guinea fowl prepared two ways with dark meat pressed together to form the cube of meat at the top of the dish that is in the puddle of guinea fowl jus. The breast meat is horizontally in the center has a piece of roasted skin laying vertically a top of it. The red and yellow pepper cream sauce criss-cross the dish and end in a small puck sized slice of pepper at the bottom of the dish. A side of eggplant-miso mash is on both sides of the dish. The flavor of the eggplant-miso is good, the miso is not spicy at all but gives an off flavor so as not to be purely eggplant. The star of this dish is of course the guinea fowl.

The interesting part of this dish is the guinea fowl prepared and presented in several different ways as well as the pepper cream sauce which is understated but there to provide an offset to the eggplant miso.

Pre-Dessert

With pop rocks, juniper berry and a mold of a tambourine on top of it.

Pop rocks is a candy I truly enjoyed as a child and this pre-dessert takes me to my child hood, not in the coming home to apple pie way but in the mischievous eating things I shouldn't be eating way, which is how you should enjoy a dessert... or in this case, a pre-dessert.

Rhubarb raspberry with elderflower

Raspberry mouse ball with raspberry sauce over ball of rhubarb sorbet with shell with a base of rhubarb jam and pistachio slices on the bottom. This presentation steals the show. The flavors are very sweet and will satisfy anyone's sweet tooth.

With a memorable experience, every good show has an encore where the artist will perform several more acts. The petits four wraps up desert with the encore..

Petit Four

By the end of the meal my head was spinning from all the flavor combinations and textures from the dishes that I didnt realize that my petit four consisted of five desserts until I was writing this.

Toasted coconut covered marshmallow cube with coffee inside , miniature key lime tarts, Canelés bourdeeux style with rum and vanilla, macha cakes with berry on top, miniature canoli with pistachio

What a great conclusion to a great meal. As I sit and observe a full dining room, I am impressed the staff was able to everyone on the same track despite some order extra courses, some getting up to go to the bathroom and some just eating slower. I never felt rushed and always felt well cared for. 
in a confession of sorts this article is a culmination of a few visits and each time I vary on what my favorite dishes are. In truth I like ALL the dishes at this restaurant and my favorite top three dishes are the veal cheek with the amazing rye bread that tastes like meat, the salmon with sorrel vinaigrette and the guinea fowl.  Both the pasta dish and the beef tartare was heavenly. 

I am not generally a desserts person and will often go to restaurants and just order more savory dishes rather than dessert at all. However to do so at this restaurant would be a true shame as they have a Pastry Chef on staff dedicated just to deserts.

I can not wait for their new menu in October.

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