Fresko: A Caracas Kitchen That Learned to Roll Sushi

A plate of tequeños lands at eleven in the morning, white cheese sealed inside a spiral of fried dough that stretches when you pull it apart. Two tables over, a sushi pizza is going out. Behind the counter a blender works through the juice orders and the espresso machine barely rests, because breakfast here runs from half past eight and the late morning is the busiest stretch of the day. This is Fresko on NE 29th Avenue in Aventura, an all day dairy kitchen where a Venezuelan snack and a spicy tuna roll come off the same pass, fifteen years after it opened.

Abraham Getzel opened Fresko in May 2011. He came to Miami from Venezuela, and the restaurant he built was never meant to pick a side between where he came from and where he landed. The name says as much: fresko is the Spanish word for fresh, and the K stands for kosher. What arrived on NE 29th Avenue was a dairy kitchen willing to serve Venezuelan cheese sticks next to arborio risotto next to a nigiri plate, an unusual combination for a kosher room in South Florida in 2011.