Plenty of new Miami restaurants are aiming to open in time for the December social season, with Art Basel being a prime target. Cengiz Cohen Owners Mark Rose and Meade Abros have a different perspective on December.
“For Cengiz Cohen, we are trying to open in time for Christmas,” Rose tells Observer.
Genghis Cohen, a beloved New York-style Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, will open its Miami Beach location at 1801 Purdy Street in the Sunset Harbor neighborhood. Rose and Abrus, both former New Yorkers, know that Christmas is the main event for Genghis Cohen. This is the restaurant where guests come to circle around the lazy Susans as they eat crowd-pleasing egg rolls, baby turkey (Genghis Cohen’s signature dumplings with spicy soy sauce and coriander), crab rangoon, salt and pepper tofu and playfully nicknamed classics like Duck With No Name, and nothing special than the sizzling beef and General Tso’s music known as the Queen’s Chicken.
“It’s a nostalgic Chinese-American menu with all the dishes that many of us grew up eating,” says Rose. “I think it’s a menu that also represents a lot of what people in South Florida grew up eating. Fort Lauderdale and Miami had a ton of these type of restaurants in the ’80s and ’90s, and a lot of them have disappeared. It’s just like what happened in Los Angeles and New York.”
Rose and Abros, who Call my mom The hospitality collection also includes Sinatra’s former hangout La dolce vita In Beverly Hills, they are students of history. Genghis Cohen was born in 1983, and Rose and Abrus took over in 2015 to maintain a very specific kind of time capsule food and throwback vibe that they kept close to their hearts. Last year, Rose and Abrus made headlines when they moved Cengiz Cohen to a new address a few blocks south of Fairfax Street after they were unable to extend their previous lease.
The Miami location is Cengiz Cohen’s first expansion outside of Los Angeles.
“I think the intention is to continue the story of Genghis Cohen,” Rose says. “We’re going to have our big booths. Whether it’s red or not, we’re not sure at this point. There’s going to be a saturation of all the elements that make you feel transported when you walk into Cengiz Cohen. Of course, there’s going to be an aquarium. Maybe the aquarium will be bigger. Maybe it’s saltwater instead of freshwater. What we want to do is represent Cengiz Cohen, but we also understand that we’re not in Fairfax. We’re also going to be in the heart of Miami Beach in Sunset Harbor and we want to reflect that as well.”
Genghis Cohen is also known as the “Tiki-inspired”Foo Foo Cocktails“, and the drinks could become more tropical and more theatrical in Miami.
“I think we’re going to kind of get out guns blazing on the cocktail side of things and amplify what we’re doing here in L.A.,” Abros tells the Observer.
Let’s be clear, though. You can visit Genghis Cohen for three small martinis or a zombie so strong that the restaurant sets a limit of two per customer, and you can order a dish called volcano chicken that is lit on the side of the fire table. But this restaurant is not a great party destination like Papi Steak or sexy Fish.
Cengiz Cohen is a seven-nights-a-week venue designed around low-priced family feasts (volcano chicken is $20 in Los Angeles). Rose and Abrus expect to do a lot of takeout and delivery in Miami. They are excited to grow their menu using Florida produce and seafood, and to see how it goes with the first outdoor space Cengiz Cohen has ever owned.
Rose and Abrus are teaming up with an old friend, hospitality mogul Jason Pomeranke, to open the new Cengiz Cohen. Pomeranke is best known as a hotelier, but Miami Beach’s Cengiz Cohen is an independent venture. This, like Brooklyn-born Locale’s Miami Beach outpost, also located in Sunset Harbor, is designed to be a neighborhood restaurant with a layered backstory.
“I think Cengiz Cohen is really a community place,” Abros says. “It’s a place that’s open year-round, and it’s never closed. It’s a trusted place that really caters to the local community, and Sunset Harbor is really a place that people go year-round.”
For Rose, who spent many vacations in South Florida as a child with his grandparents who later became South Beach residents, Cengiz Cohen is about channeling old memories while celebrating new moments.
“Miami will always have a special place in my heart, and it’s so exciting to relive some of my childhood and spend more time in a city with colors that make you smile,” says Rose, who spent nearly five years searching for a location in Miami with Abros.
Cengiz Cohen has been around for more than four decades, and Abros says he was thinking about the restaurant’s next 40 years.
“I think it starts with our love of history,” Abrous says. “We love heritage. We love places that have stories. In many ways, our mission is to make memories and make stories. We couldn’t be happier about bringing this style of restaurant to Miami. It’s vibrant. It makes people feel good in so many ways.”
