Glatt Miami: The Sabbath Table, Set on Collins Avenue

Friday afternoon, and the kitchen at 4747 Collins Avenue is working to a clock that no other Miami Beach restaurant keeps. Challah is coming out of the oven. Gefilte fish is being sliced, salmon is being glazed in five different ways, soup is going into trays, and the delivery runs to Hollywood, Boca Raton and Orlando are being staged before candle lighting. Glatt Miami does not open at five and seat the walk in crowd. It cooks for Shabbat and the festivals, and it plans its entire week around the Thursday order cutoff. The result is a restaurant with a rhythm closer to a family kitchen than to a dining room, and a menu that reads like the table of a large Ashkenazi household that happens to have a Collins Avenue address.

The seated meal at the Mimosa Miami Beach venue is a buffet, and the order of it follows the Sabbath meal exactly. Wine for kiddush comes first, then fresh baked challah, then three types of fish alongside a spread of dips and salads. Soup follows, and after it the main course of meat and chicken with side dishes, then desserts, drinks, coffee and tea. It is a structure designed for lingering, and it takes the pressure off a large table, because nobody has to wait on a kitchen pass.