Maple & Ash, a Modern Steakhouse, Opens in Miami

Maple & Ash, a new-school steakhouse with a playful attitude and plenty of over-the-top flourishes, dominates its birthplace of Chicago and has a thriving location in Scottsdale. Now, the restaurant is making its move in South Florida, opening in Miami on Thursday, March 13. And Miami already feels like home for a restaurant that’s sourcing wagyu at Japanese auctions, offering a 2,500-selection wine list, serving dramatic fire-roasted seafood towers and making theatrical cocktails like an Old Fashioned with Glenfiddich 21-year and 24-karat gold.

“Miami and Maple were kind of made for each other, in the sense of the celebratory nature of it and playing outside the normal boundaries,” Maple & Ash chef Danny Grant tells Observer. 

The Old Fashioned with gold, for example, is called the IDGAF Old Fashioned. It’s fitting for a steakhouse that serves Grant’s “I Don’t Give a F*@k” tasting menu in addition to meaty à la carte feasts.

“The ‘I Don’t Give a F*@k’ menu is about the guests not having to care or worry about what their food is going to be, and that they’re in our hands and we’re going to take good care of them,” Grant says. “Guests latch onto that and become part of our family.”

That’s a pretty bougie family to join, given that the tasting menu features luxuries like caviar, truffles and a sizzling seafood tower alongside Maple & Ash classics like a wedge salad and steak prepared in an open kitchen with a wood-burning hearth.

But Maple & Ash also wants to accommodate your more low-key evenings.

“It’s really important for me that we’re not just a celebratory restaurant and are also a restaurant when you just need a simple piece of fish or a beautifully cooked piece of steak and a glass of wine on a Tuesday,” Grant says. “We put a ton of energy into cooking perfectly.” 

This downtown steakhouse at the Miami Worldcenter development hasn’t even opened to the public yet, but Grant has been living in a whirlwind. Over the weekend, he hosted two nights of friends-and-family dinners for more than 300 guests each evening, and then cooked for a Kevin Love Fund charity event at Maple & Ash that raised $500,000 for mental health initiatives and brought in a crowd that included Pat Riley and Alonzo Mourning.

“Opening a restaurant is an incredible amount of work and hours, and you go through phases of being a little bit delusional,” Grant says. ”And I found myself walking around the other day, and being like, ‘Wait, what restaurant am I in?’ There are little parts of Maple in Miami that feel like Chicago and other parts that feel like Scottsdale. Obviously, I figured out where I was. But I think we did a great job of being able to take some of the pieces from our restaurants that have worked really well in other locations.”

Like its siblings, the Miami Maple & Ash is very much a hearth-driven steakhouse. But being in sunny South Florida, where Maple & Ash features an artistic centerpiece that reimagines a palm tree and was created with 10,464 crystal beads, means making some adjustments.

“When we first were doing the R&D for this Miami menu, it was up in Chicago with all my corporate chefs,” Grant says. “They’re like, ‘This is light. This is delicate and will be great.’ But it was 8 degrees outside in Chicago. When I got to Miami and started to produce these dishes, they didn’t seem as light. So we wanted to further lighten things and make things a little bit more delicate and in line with how warm it is here. We have a handful of crudos, including a hamachi crudo, that really let the fish be the highlight of the show. One of the Dover sole dishes that started in Chicago has become more delicate and refined in Miami.”

And for dessert, there’s what Maple & Ash calls the orange dreamsicle, which is bright, cold and refreshing with different textures and notes of orange, yuzu, lime and basil.

Grant looks forward to evolving both his à la carte and tasting menus as he determines how hard he should push things in Miami.

“As we spend more time in the market, we’ll start showcasing new dishes,” he says. “I view it very much as a playground for us to express ourselves both food-wise and hospitality-wise. It’s [about] being able to balance volume with creativity and refinement.”

There’s a lot of room for Grant and his team to get playful. Maple Hospitality Group has opened Maple & Ash in a two-story, 22,000-square-foot space, and plans to add Eight Bar and an exclusive-to-Miami private destination known as The Studio to its portfolio here.

‘I think my overall goal with Miami is to become part of the community,” Grant says. “We all know that going to dinner is not cheap. You should feel wowed and taken care of and that you’re special and appreciated. It’s really important for me to make my guests feel that way as we further integrate ourselves into the Miami community.”

Maple & Ash, at 699 NE 1st Ave. in Miami, will be open from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5:30 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday.