La Moderna – Italian cuisine in Miami

Who doesn’t love Italian food? I know I sure do. A nice big bowl of cheesy pasta can cure anything! When I learned about La Moderna I was pretty excited to check it out, plus it’s location is perfect for a quiet outing. I went during the week and it was pretty packed with people trying to offer some Happy Hour cocktails. That was a good sign.

We started with an appetizer, the tartare di tonno. Fresh sushi-grade tuna served with guacamole, all over a light, chilled soy sauce. I love tuna tartare and was excited to try this one. The presentation was elegant and delicately topped with a crostini. Overall the appetizer wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I would order the tuna tartare at an Italian restaurant again.

Next came the PASTA! I couldn’t wait for these dishes to come out. I made sure to come hungry. We first got the tagliolino all’ astice. This dish had homemade tagliolini pasta and came with cherry tomatoes, thyme, and shallots. Let’s not forget about the generous portion of lobster in the dish, half a lobster! And if that wasn’t enough, it came beautifully decorated! This was one of my top dishes of the night. So flavorful, so rich! I would definitely order this again and highly recommend it.

The other pasta we got at La Moderna was the fettuccine porcini e tartufo. The best dish by far! Homemade fettuccine pasta with imported porcini mushrooms and grated truffle. My god…. the truffle….. I think my taste buds were overwhelmed with everything going on. It was just to amazing! This dish was made for me. It may not look like much but I would come to La Moderna just for this dish. If you get anything from here this is the dish you cannot leave without trying.

Finally came the dessert. First up was the Mille-Feuille, a special of La Moderna. The dish had a puff pastry filled with chantilly cream and fresh berries. After the heavy pasta dishes, this was a great compliment to the end of dinner. A light and fluffy dessert, not too sweet but sweet enough to curb that sweet tooth.

We also got the tortino al cioccolato. Chocolate lava cake filled with bufala ricotta cheese, and served with a scoop of caramel ice cream. This was definitely a rich dessert. Although I was pretty full from the pasta and wine, you can always make room for dessert. Loved this lava cake, and the caramel ice cream complimented the cake perfectly.