Brian Slattery Photo
Bun Lai at his soon-to-open spot.
Miami Beach, Fla.— If you’re looking for New Haven’s celebrated chef Bun Lai, you need to head south. Way south.
Lai, the force beyond the popular dining spot Miya’s on Howe Street in New Haven, is busy opening a new pop-up restaurant Prey.
“The double entendre is intentional,” he said. “Yes, it’s about the food chain. But it’s also about how our relationship with food is spiritual. It’s not just about vitamins and nutrients.”
Prey is slated to run from Feb. 24 to Apr. 30. In Miami Beach.
The new pop-up will be on the roof of 1 Hotel South Beach, one of the many hotels in Miami Beach engaged in a design arms race to see who can make the hippest place on the planet. This race has led to Miami Beach’s transformation in the past 20 years from a place of chipped facades and empty storefronts to an aesthetic mecca that has attracted people from around the world to gawk, eat, and party when they’re not baking in the sun. The first floor of 1 Hotel South Beach already has a destination restaurant in celebrity chef Tom Colicchio’s Beachcraft.
With Prey, the hotel management is hoping to have another hit — and asked Lai to give it a shot.
Lai has been approached before to open a restaurant outside of New Haven, by Mohegan Sun and Carnival Cruises.
“People see me as a diamond in the rough,” he said, “but if I was going to do anything other than Miya’s, it had to be a good fit, ethics-wise.”
1 Hotels proved to be that fit, combining beauty with an effort toward sustainability. 1 Hotel South Beach is a certified green hotel. The wood through the building in South Beach is salvaged; the building itself is designed to be energy efficient.
Closer to the Miya’s mission, 1 Hotels also already tries to source its food from local or sustainable sources.
Also like Miya’s, the hotel tries to show that environmental concerns and luxury don’t have to be opposed.
“It’s not often that you get the idea of sustainability coupled with luxury, good taste, and fun,” Lai said.
This past Saturday, Lai was energized, joking around with his soon-to-be kitchen staff, and ready to bring his food to Miami Beach’s audience. The menu, at least as of this writing, will consist of “some of the best recipes I created at Miya’s over the past 20 years.” Invasive species of catfish and kingfish will be on offer, as well as wild deer sashimi, cricket dishes, and feral pig — “one of the top ten most destructive species in America, and deee-licious,” Lai said.
As with Miya’s, Lai has involved New Haven-area artists Vasilisa Romanenko and Silas Finch in helping creating the look of Prey. They will work alongside the designers and other staff at 1 Hotel South Beach.
“I get to collaborate with a world-class team of visionaries,” Lai said.
Opening Prey is taking a monumental amount of energy, and the new restaurant — along with possible book and TV projects — has taken Lai away from Miya’s for the immediate future. He’s currently staying in Miami Beach. In his absence, the Miya’s menu has been streamlined (in case you were wondering why that happened), with some old favorites like ginger tofu brought back from the restaurant’s early years..
Lai isn’t leaving New Haven, “the town that laid the golden egg for us,” behind, however. He plans to “circle back to Miya’s because we think the menu’s way too simple. We got to bring it back to being balls to the wall again.” This reporter wouldn’t bet against him.
Be careful my friend. In the context of Miami, (the capital of South America) a fashionable pop-up could be more or less a vehicle for a guy like Tom Colicchio to steal your mojo and rebrand it as his own.