WGM Weekender: Luca North Beach, Orlando Staycation Secrets, & Au Revoir Love Loaf
+ the Art of the Staycation, Orlando
North Beach is having a moment, and it's the kind of moment that comes with both a ribbon cutting and a goodbye. This week we've got a new trattoria landing from one of the city's best chefs, a beloved bakery packing up for one block over, and a staycation field report, an honest one, on how to survive Orlando with your kids, your marriage, and your bank account intact. Let's get into it.
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What’s Going to Be Good: Luca Trattoria North Beach
Every great neighborhood needs a trattoria, or a bistro, the kind of place you can go for lunch, for a night out, for a celebratory dinner, for a glass of wine with your wife or your friends on a random Tuesday. North Beach has never had one. That’s about to change.
Chef Giorgio Rapicavoli, a two-time James Beard semifinalist behind the original Luca Trattoria in Coral Gables, is bringing Luca north. A second location is landing in the old Las Vacas Gordas space this fall, and it’s the kind of expansion that actually makes sense: not a brand chasing scale, a chef bringing his register to a neighborhood that’s been asking for exactly this.
Rapicavoli’s food has always lived at the intersection of his Italian and Argentine roots. Years spent in Piedmont show up on the plate, but nothing here reads as an import. The Gables location built a loyal following on food that’s “rooted in tradition while pushing boundaries,” and North Beach, a neighborhood having a genuine moment right now, was overdue for something with this much of a point of view. Announced with a sneak peek on Instagram this week.
Opening soon. We’ll be there week one. North Beach continues to rise and become Miami’s next great neighborhood and we are loving every minute of it.
King of the North Take: Long live Luca. South of Fifth can keep its $28 Aperol spritzes. The North just got a trattoria, and the North always remembers.
Au Revoir: North Beach’s Beloved Love Loaf Closes
