"Major Food Group — the team behind Miami’s most buzzed about new restaurant, Carbone — is expanding their footprint in the Magic City with the debut of ZZ’s Sushi Bar (151 NE 41st Street) in the Miami Design District. The two-story restaurant is a hybrid version of the group’s popular ZZ’s Clam Bar and a sushi and private members club. The focal point of the first floor dining areas is a custom-marble sushi counter overseen by chefs Masa Ito and Kevin Kim, who earned a Michelin star at New York’s Sushi Zo. The adjacent dining room boasts a modern Japanese menu with a range of raw and cooked dishes, including the largest offering of wagyu beef in the United States served in a variety of ways from wagyu katsu sandwiches with truffles to steak cooked over custom-built charcoal grills. There are also a selection of ZZ’s favorites — from the toast topped with trout roe and honey to the carpaccio of tuna, foie, uni, and scallop — as well as dishes developed just for Miami like lobster dumplings, crispy snapper, and stone crab cucumber salad. The dessert menu, from pastry chef Stephanie Prida, offers dishes like Japanese ice cream sandwiches, chocolate matcha bombs, and key lime pie. The space, which previously was the home for Ember, was designed by Ken Fulk and showcases curving bentwood banquettes with a malachite finish, teal cheetah print rug, antique furnishings, brass palm pendant lights, and vintage clamshell dining chairs. For the ground floor patio, Fulk’s design inspo was “tiki bar on acid,” with wicker furnishings in a banana leaf print with modern shapes. Upstairs, the space channels “80s disco” with custom banquettes, fringed stools, and cocktails tables, in metallic leather, animal prints, rose gold shattered mirror, velvet, and neon. As for drinks, they are created by longtime bartender Thomas Waugh. Appearing on the menu upstairs is the popular Pistachio Cocktail with gin, honey, and lemon. In the dining rooms, guests can sip on Japanese-inspired takes of classics like the Dashi Martini, Hojicha Old Fashioned, and a Japanese Rum Highball. ZZ’s Sushi Bar is now open Tuesday to Sunday from 5 p.m. to midnight. This marks the 26th Major Food Group outpost in the world, and the second in Miami with additional restaurants forthcoming in Brickell and the Miami Design District." - Olee Fowler