By Connie Ogle
When it comes to tribute dinners, chef Michelle Bernstein would rather be in the kitchen cooking for the honoree than sitting at the head of the table being praised. Even at her Coral Gables restaurant Sra. Martinez, she prefers to be among the pots and pans, chopping and stirring and sauteing, leaving the greeting of the guests to her husband and partner David Martinez.
“I’m not even comfortable in my own dining room,” she says, laughing. “I’d like to be in the kitchen all the time.”
But hiding in the back is not an option for Bernstein at this year’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary Feb. 19-22 with dinners, walk-around events, parties, seminars and events hosted by celebrity chefs, even a club-night kickoff with DJ and music producer Diplo with VIP tables and bottle service.
Along with Sacha Lichine, owner of rosé powerhouse Château d’Esclans and its popular Whispering Angel brand, Bernstein is the being honored at the festival’s tribute dinner. Master of ceremonies Bobby Flay will lead the festivities, which includes a dinner created by such chefs as Timon Balloo of The Katherine, Thomas Buckley of Nobu Miami Beach, Scott Conant of The Americano Atlanta and Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo of Jon and Vinny’s.
The tribute dinner marks the first time the festival has honored a local chef, which seems impossible until you realize the honorees have always been the internationally famous, like chefs José Andrés, Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse and Marcus Samuelsson.
Bernstein, who was born and grew up in Miami in a Jewish-and-Argentine family, shrugs off the omission.
“Maybe I didn’t deserve it 10 years ago,” she says. “I think the festival needed these world-renowned people in the beginning. They put us on an international stage, and that got attention.”
Festival founder Lee Schrager said honoring a Miami chef was long overdue.
“I knew for the 25th we would honor someone local, and Michelle has been with us every single year since year one,” he said. “She pours her heart into everything she does. There’s something special about her. I wish I could bottle it and give it to people who aren’t as special.”
A former ballet dancer who fell in love with cooking, Bernstein has indeed been with the festival from its start as a one-day event at Florida International University’s Biscayne Bay campus, before its big move to South Beach in 2002. She has been involved with events each year throughout her career, from her time at Azul at the Mandarin Oriental to the opening of Michy’s in the MiMo neighborhood in 2006 (for which she earned a James Beard Award).
She was part of the festival through other milestones, too: Opening the original Sra. Martinez and its little sister, Crumb on Parchment, in the just-developing Design District. Partnering with Dan Binkiewicz and the late John Lermayer for Sweet Liberty in Miami Beach, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. Opening La Cañita at Bayside Marketplace, then replicating it in Kendall and Miami Beach. And, of course, introducing Miami to Café La Trova in Little Havana with Martinez and master cantinero Julio Cabrera.
Bernstein says that Cabrera, whom she and Martinez met in Mexico decades ago, was the real force behind La Trova, which draws locals and tourists with its upbeat celebration of Cuban food, cocktails, music and culture.
“I think he was the one who really saw it clearer than we did,” she says. “We wanted to make that dream of his happen for all of us, but mainly for him. This was his love letter to his father’s bar in Cuba. We never thought it would be what it is, but it’s been fun watching it happen.”
Opening the popular spot wasn’t a breeze, though.
“Our first year was a disaster,” Bernstein admits. “We hit Covid. We became a soup kitchen. I was plating food in the dining room. I had lines of people outside waiting to be fed. I thought that’s what La Trova was going to be forever. We were all really scared, but we kept on doing it, which is what we do. My husband is my partner in everything, especially life, and we just dig our heels, and it makes us work harder.”
The tribute dinner and the food and wine festival arrive at a time that has been rough for Miami restaurants. After a brutal summer, which many restaurant owners and chefs called the worst ever, restaurants continue to face higher costs, from products to labor to rent. Add to that a tourist scene that has seen fewer international visitors — Bernstein says she’s seen a drop in Latin American tourists in particular — a labor shortage, and the fact that locals say they aren’t dining out as much, and many Miami restaurants are facing trouble.
Bernstein’s new Sra. Martinez, which just celebrated its first anniversary in December 2025, is not immune from the struggle. Like many restaurateurs, Bernstein signed the lease for the space at 2325 Galiano St. in Coral Gables almost three years ago, unaware how dramatically the culinary landscape would shift in that time.
“No one had the foresight to see that this was going to happen,” she says. “We’re a little taken aback. We’re not really sure what to do. We’re trying to pivot. I’ve always pivoted my whole career. Now, I’m never trendy, because that doesn’t last very long. But this restaurant has been especially challenging, because this neighborhood likes what they like.”
Another issue for Miami restaurateurs has been competition, with deep-pocketed national and international spots crowding into town with investor money that allows them to pay bills mom-and-pop spots can’t.
Bernstein acknowledges that succeeding can be hard in an already-complicated industry, especially if you’re competing without the big investor support.
“How many of us are going to fail? Probably a great percentage, as restaurants always do,” she says. “I’ll never forget my first day of culinary school and learning that there’s a 90 percent failure rate in restaurants. It’s pretty crazy, right? That’s insane. It’s also insane to go into this career to begin with. But, yeah, it’s more challenging than ever.”
None of this, of course, is going to keep Bernstein and her team from trying. Besides, another result of the popularity of Miami as a dining destination is that despite the somewhat obscene numbers of Italian spots and steakhouses, more types of cuisine are available now than ever.
“We never had great Israeli food, and we do now,” Bernstein says. “We never had much Asian food other than Chinese, and we do now. I love seeing Turkish food in a few places. I love seeing more honesty. If you do food from Beirut and you put that out there, some people might not get it, but, God, I find that so appealing. I love that we are open to so many things, like the guys from Tam Tam doing Chinese food.”
Besides, Bernstein loves being in the kitchen. The dancer who ended up in culinary school to supplement a nutrition degree arrived used to competition and being told she wasn’t good enough to succeed. So when a co-worker at Mark’s Place in North Miami, her first restaurant job after graduating from Johnson & Wales, told her she should get out of the business because she could never be a chef, she ignored the advice.
“I got used to being told when I was a dancer: ‘You’re not thin enough, you’re not tall enough, you’re not good enough,’ ” she says. “I was the worst student at Johnson & Wales. I didn’t know how to hold a knife. I didn’t know how to use it. I didn’t know how to hold a saute pan. I was this close to walking out, but I came back the next day three hours early, my hair plastered back with as much hairspray as could be so I looked like any other guy, and I got to work. I came to work early for years.”
It was there at Mark’s Place from chef Mark Militello, one of the Mango Gang who redefined Miami dining in the 1980s, that Bernstein had her first real triumph in the kitchen. Kitchen staffers were allowed to create the amuse-bouche, and Bernstein whipped up her own version of the Thai pork dish Nom Sad using her own tropical flavors.
After that, the criticism faded.
“They just kind of accepted me without telling me they accepted me, and I started understanding food better,” she says.
These days, Bernstein still loves perfecting a dish to reach its fullest potential. She’s always trying to think of ways to improve the bouillabaisse she made working at Redfish Grill in Matheson Hammock decades ago. The oxtail paella at Sra. Martinez — a jaw dropper served with melting bone marrow and crisp rice — is even better now than it was when the restaurant opened, she promises.
That optimism that things can always get better is part of what fuels her hope for her culinary future — and Miami’s.
“I have always had this blind, very optimistic way of thinking,” she says. “Everything gives me hope. When I see the young people that I’ve trained turning into these great chefs, that gives me hope. When someone comes in and says, ‘Oh, my God, this meal is fabulous,’ and then they go home and talk about this restaurant and the service that they experienced, that gives me hope. I traveled the world, not only as a vacation or tourist, but also to work, and all those experiences and all the amazing people that I meet give me hope. My son gives me hope, and so does my husband.
“I sometimes get scared and a little depressed and are shaky about the future in this industry, but it can’t keep me down, because I love it. I still want to prove myself.”
South Beach Wine & Food Festival
When: Feb. 19-22
Where: Locations in Miami Beach and Miami
Tribute Dinner Honoring Michelle Bernstein and Sacha Lichine: 7 p.m. Feb. 21, Loews Miami Beach Hotel at 1601 Collins Ave.; $569
Tickets and full schedule: sobewff.org
