Florida Continental

How old-school is Continental cuisine? Pretty old-school. An award-winning food writer reveals his undying love for Steak Diane flambéed tableside, Worcestershire sauce in everything, and after-dinner Sambucas. Join John Kessler for a meal with his elders in the corner of a Siesta Key strip mall at Miguel’s French Continental Cuisine.

Words by John Kessler | Photos by Erika Larsen

I thank the cockroaches for bringing me to Miguel’s.

Last Christmas, as my family and I settled into the midcentury ranch house I had rented in Sarasota near my mother-in-law's retirement community, one skittered across the kitchen counter. Others showed up in the sink, in the cabinets, in the refrigerator, in the dishwasher. When my wife lifted the toilet seat in the master bedroom, she screamed.

The property manager couldn't have been nicer when I called in a state of pure decompensation; she offered to move us that night to far grander quarters on Siesta Key. We repacked the car, drove to a beachfront condo and took the elevator to a top-floor duplex overlooking the Gulf. It was like Joan Rivers once lived there: acres of pink marble, gilt faucets, bronze statues in every plushly carpeted corner — a crouching monkey, an egret about to take flight, a ring of leaping dolphins. Now this is Florida, I thought.

We walked across the street to the thicket of loud bars and restaurants with their competing cover bands to pick up the dinner we had ordered from a strip-mall fish market. That place was chaotic, and the dinner far from ready. We asked the server where we could get a much-needed glass of wine, but we didn't love her suggestions: a crowded Irish pub, a rowdy bar with an open patio pumping air conditioning into the sticky night, a pizza parlor. “Well, the place in the corner has a small bar. You might like it,” she said in a tone indicating that she definitely did not. I hadn't even noticed the restaurant in the corner of the mall with its old sign hand-painted on a wooden board. “Miguel's French Continental Cuisine,” it said alongside rudimentary drawings: an olive martini, a bottle of wine, a hole-pocked wedge of Swiss cheese. Such enticement.

Have you ever opened a door and found a portal to another dimension? That was Miguel's for me. The A/C hit like a force field as I tried to make sense of all the information overloading my brain. It was infinite: a mirrored warren with no beginning or end, mustard walls, and potted devil's ivy hanging from the ceiling as far as I could see. It was busy but not loud: Murmuring folk used their inside voices between thick carpet and black ceiling tiles. It was erupting in blue flames: Bananas Foster prepared on a butane burner on a rolling cart went whoosh, to the delight of all. It was crammed with booze: bottles topping every railing, bottles slotted in racks lining every wall, bottles stacked sky-high behind the bar, unpacked crates and boxes on the floor. Châteauneuf-du-Pape here, Southern Comfort there. A woman edged her walker past us as I stood agape at the door. “Can I help you?” asked the hostess in the bottle-crammed vestibule. She was a perfectly coiffed baby boomer wearing a sweater set and a silk scarf.

“We'd just like to sit at the bar for a glass of wine,” said my wife. The hostess looked to the man behind the bar, who nodded and waved us over, clearing away bottles to make room at the four-seat bar. He was a friendly fellow with kind, liquid brown eyes and a full beard. When we asked for Chablis, code for any acceptable dry white, he disappeared briefly, returned with an actual classified-growth French Chablis and proceeded to treat us with 8-ounce pours. “Most other restaurants give you four glasses from a bottle. We do three,” he said proudly.

I didn't know how to process all this. Where were we?

That night and the next, when we returned to sip glasses of red Burgundy at the bar, we heard the story of Miguel's, of the changing fortunes of south Siesta Key and even of the lifecycle of Continental cuisine — once the lingua franca of fine dining but now a fractured, disappearing vernacular.

A server sets up the back dining room for the early-bird special.

Miguel Garcia opened his namesake restaurant in 1983. Originally from Spain, he worked in restaurants in southern France and then Toronto, where he met his wife, Bette Glover. The two opened and closed a tapas bar in Columbus, Ohio, before deciding Florida would be a much better place to live. Miguel and Bette got jobs running the Surfrider, a restaurant in a condo complex on Siesta Key. 

There Miguel — a handsome man with an aquiline nose and black, wavy hair so glossy it caught the light in old photos — discovered his gift for service, that instinctive mix of perfectionism, anticipation of need, and quick humor that turned diners into regulars. (If customers said, “We love this restaurant. Don't change a thing,” he answered, “Well, I change my shirt every day.”) During their eight years at the Surfrider, the couple had three boys, Miguel Jr., Dan, and Gabriel. And when an L-shaped strip mall a couple of blocks away was under construction, Miguel and Bette were ready to go into business for themselves. They bought the first two units for their restaurant.

Back then, this southern part of the island, now called Crescent Beach, was “a little more of the seedier part of Siesta Key,” according to Leah Lapszynski of the Sarasota County History Center. “There were extended-stay motel rentals, industrial-storage facilities for boating equipment, a couple of dive bars, and a 24/7 lounge where 'dancing ladies' could get in free.” Outside the business district was “a sleepy little beach town” where locals lived in shotgun houses and small cottages. There were no high-rises. 

The mall was the beginning of a new era and soon attracted a video store, a flower shop, a real estate office. Snowbirds cottoned to the low prices of the nearby coastal properties. Seasonal tourists, however, flocked to the northern end of the key, where a boisterous knot of daiquiri bars, fried fish restaurants, and T-shirt shops spelled “fun in the sun.” The village was also near the public Siesta Beach, a wide expanse known for its fine white sand formed of 99 percent pure quartz. So reflective is this sand that you can walk barefoot on it in blazing sun and not burn your feet.

In 1983, the island was home to much more wildlife. “We had armadillos skittering around everywhere,” recalls Lourdes Ramirez, a 25-year resident. “There were also bobcats — one used to hang around Siesta Beach and everyone called him Siesta Bob.” When the walking trails by the beach were torn out for parking, the bobcat disappeared.

As the village lured an ever-burgeoning tourist trade, the south side started cleaning up but kept its native spirit, and Miguel's largely served locals from throughout Sarasota for whom a nice dinner out meant a filet and a stiff drink. That the place was just over the Stickney Point Road bridge — the back way in that tourists didn't know about — made it even more enticing. They loved the Caesar salad made tableside, the beef tartare, the perfectly mixed Grasshoppers. They loved Continental cuisine, even if the term was already a source of derision in larger cities. New Yorker food bard Calvin Trillin had quipped a few years earlier that “Continental restaurants … are modeled, an unwary traveler can discover, on the continent of Antarctica, where everything starts out frozen.” Yet for these people Miguel's evoked the grand and glorious restaurants where they'd fallen in love with dining — Delmonico's, The Pump Room, Nikolai's Roof — places where the food tasted racy and rich, pounding with flavor, a pure indulgence. For them this kind of cuisine wasn't tired or dated, it was their youth.

Admission: I loved — love — Continental restaurants, too. Yes, I know most are bad, but my earliest memory of pure delight in a dining room was of devouring escargots at Chez Jean-Michel in Bethesda, Md., while my parents sat agape. I was 6 and had never experienced fresh garlic or real butter. Many years and escargots later, my wife and I had our first date at a ridiculous Continental restaurant in a Falls Church, Va., strip mall. As we watched a paunchy, sweaty waiter flambé Steak Diane tableside, we kissed. I love the Continental glop principle, which states that any piece of meat is better if it swims in cream or butter. I love the way Worcestershire sauce is in everything; for enterprising chefs of 50 years ago, it was the rare umami enhancer in the kitchen. I love the old scotch cocktails and want a Rusty Nail. Does Miguel's still stock Drambuie? “We always stock Drambuie,” says Dan Garcia.

The adjective “Continental” was first applied to cooking in Georgian England to describe the foods introduced by transnational royal marriages. German-born Queen Charlotte introduced many of her native dishes (cured ham, sausages) to the English diet. In America, grand old hotel dining rooms from the turn of the 20th century used the term to signify European refinement. Yet it wasn't until the post-WWII period that restaurateurs, primarily European emigrés, began using the term to soften the foreignness of their cuisine and integrate the trendy dishes of the era into their menus — dishes like the namesake salad created by Italian-born restaurateur Caesar Cardini in Tijuana, or the Bananas Foster the Brennan family first whipped up in New Orleans. Their restaurants were German and Continental or French and Continental: The descriptor, now capitalized, had earned its status as a proper noun. These owner-operators steered the ship from the front of the house, where they greeted guests. The notion of a chef-owned restaurant would've been preposterous to their notion of hospitality — the tail wagging the dog. This was Miguel.

The Garcia boys grew up in the restaurant. Miguel Jr., the eldest, didn't follow in the family business and instead became a fireman, rising through the ranks of the Sarasota County Fire Department. Gabriel, the youngest, went to cooking school and eventually took over the kitchen. Dan, the middle son, was our host standing behind the bar.

Dan remembers going outside to play, opening the back door of the restaurant to the wilds of cabbage palm, mangrove, beach sunflower, and dune grass. “There was a field of trees where the parking lot is now. Mom would come out and scream for us to come back in.” The clogged streets of today were empty. “You'd come out here in the summertime, and there was no traffic. You could walk down the middle of Midnight Pass Road and not see a single car.” 

That road, which extends down the narrow southern end of the key, once abutted an inlet called Midnight Pass, which separated Siesta Key  from Casey Key. Ocean water poured through the pass into Little Sarasota Bay, the body between the key and the mainland, and created a fishermen's paradise. In 1984, just a few months after the opening of Miguel's, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bulldozed the pass shut, part of the extension of the Intracoastal Waterway along Florida's Gulf shoreline. Mainland homes and pleasure craft got protection from the elements as the sea life in the bay was slowly decimated.

Most evenings, Dan and his brothers did their homework in the office tucked behind the kitchen. Every now and again they were invited out into the dining room to say hi to regular customers. Their dad would be bartending and working the room, and their mom would be at the front door, entertaining guests who had to wait for a table. If there was seating available, the kids were treated to dinner off the menu. Dan always got duck and rice.

Miguel knew how to build a staff, assemble a team, and create esprit de corps. One of his first hires was Mike Hammond, an experienced Continental chef who patiently showed everyone on staff how to make Caesar dressing, starting with not one but two garlic cloves, slivered, then mashed into a wooden bowl the size of a baptismal font. George Kordell, a Vietnam vet who had health problems because of Agent Orange exposure, had no fine dining experience but knew carpentry and helped Miguel build the bar, small but essential, a focal point in the restaurant and the source of its merriment. When he went to work as a waiter, his wife would often babysit the Garcia kids. He turned out to be a great showman, a master of flambé, and invented Miguel's signature Strawberries Acapulco, flamed with Sambuca and rum and finished with a healthy grinding of pepper from a 4-foot-long wooden mill. (This mill, long broken, stands affixed to the wall in memoriam, as does a plaque for George Kordell.)

After they took the helm at Miguel’s, Gabriel and Dan Garcia experimented a bit with their dad’s much-loved formula. They learned some things in the process – chiefly, that their customers don’t want Miguel’s to change. And the brothers are hep to the demographics, right down to providing tags for the elderly patrons’ walkers when they come in.

Miguel's was booming, and so was Siesta Key. With development unchecked, high-rises sprouted up and down the coastline, even on the once sleepy south side. Sarasota County passed an ordinance in 1989 that froze density because officials felt the key had become unsafe in case of a hurricane evacuation or other natural disaster. The story goes that a man  had a heart attack on the key and couldn't get lifesaving treatment on the mainland because the two bridges were perpetually backed up with traffic. The bridges were widened, but the influx continued. TripAdvisor named Siesta Beach the No. 1 beach in America. This was only good news for Miguel's, which had developed a fan base among tourists, snowbirds, and new residents. Maybe the bumper-to-bumper traffic getting on the key was too big a hassle for some mainlanders to consider, but I'm guessing the woman who owned our condo rental loved it.

Once Dan finished college in Orlando, Miguel began training him, first as a bartender, then as a busser, a server, and eventually a manager. Miguel introduced him to the by-now legions of regulars, many of whom had weekly reservations at “their table.”  Because Dan had a more tentative, earnest personality, Miguel made sure he had some quips in his back pocket. When a guest says, “This is my favorite restaurant,” the only correct response is, “Me, too. I come here every night.” Gabe graduated from Johnson & Wales, the prestigious cooking school in Providence, Rhode Island, and after long apprenticeships the two brothers took the helm in 2004. By 2008, Miguel felt confident enough to step back.

Dan and Gabe had plenty of ideas, some good, some not so good. They redid a few booths that became such hot properties that regulars leveraged their seniority to claim them like club memberships. They designed and commissioned stained glass panels depicting sailboats and sunsets to brighten the room, but left the walls adorned with the faïence plates Miguel brought back from his yearly trips to Spain. They installed fresh white ceiling tiles only to watch them get singed by leaping flames and replaced them with black. Gabe brought some fresh ideas from cooking school, but switching up the menu proved trickier. Nobody wanted a charcuterie board, and the prosciutto went in the garbage. Yet a warm spinach salad with maple vinaigrette, candied pecans, and blue cheese tossed tableside proved a winner. “Regulars know they can get a tableside [Steak] Diane if we're not too busy,” says Gabe, a hale fellow who doesn't seem to pay much attention to the fervent demimonde of restaurant trends or check out the competition. “My wife keeps pressing me to go to Victoria & Albert's at Disney,” he laughs. “One of these days.”

Miguel's didn't attract many entertainment celebrities, but sports celebrities were all over it. Of all the big names who've walked through its magic portal — Monica Seles, Al Unser Jr. — the one that left the half-Canadian Dan starstruck was NHL coach Scotty Bowman. “He was just so humble and kind,” Dan recalls.

The brothers learned that running a restaurant by the Gulf shore means weathering storms that knock the power out in a flash. Miguel's closes only on Super Bowl Sunday, so the owners have worked through just about every storm to hit Sarasota. “Once it was a monsoon outside,” Dan says, “and we were doing Caesar salads in the dark. We had candles lit everywhere.” (Stray thought: Man, I wish I'd been there for that.) 

They also learned some moves designed for the demographic that was establishing itself as a core clientele. When a van from a nearby retirement home (the one where my mother-in-law lives) would pull up and disgorge a score of regulars, luggage tags were at the ready to check all the walkers. “We've had a few heart attacks,” Dan says matter-of-factly. “A good customer had one, but luckily there were six nurses at the table next to him. Also, I've had to perform the Heimlich five times.” This was the shift: Miguel and Bette delighted their own generation with food and hospitality that felt classic rather than trendy; Dan and Gabe had to learn to cater to an aging guest list that wanted to hold tight to their memories.

Another shift was happening all around them. In 2010 the foundation for a new 30,000-square-foot home was laid just across the street and down a couple of blocks. It would, over several years, rise into a Beaux Arts mega-mansion designed to ape Marble House — the Vanderbilt summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. It's hard to describe just how incongruous this temple of wealth — with its imposing second-story portico and balustrade — looks towering over its neighborhood of two-star motels and beach cottages. The mansion's owner, Dr. Gary Kompothecras, is one of Sarasota's richest and best-known denizens for his business setting up accident victims with doctors and lawyers. His ads in the local media market are so pervasive that everyone calls him the “Ask Gary guy.”

Kompothecras had plans for Siesta Key beyond his gilt-and-marble shorefront temple with seven bedrooms, an infinity pool, and a bowling alley. His vision of its next iteration looked a lot like a baby Fort Lauderdale. In the antics of his son, Alex, and his very rich, very pretty friends, he saw the makings of a reality TV melodrama along the lines of “Vanderpump Rules.” In 2017 “Siesta Key” premiered on MTV, with Gary as executive producer and Alex, who led the cast, invariably pictured shirtless on a speedboat. The show filmed a date scene at Miguel's, Dan recalls, with a couple on the verge of breaking up or hooking up in the best booth, the crew flanking them, and the regular clients looking on in puzzlement from their tables. Dan, who's ever tactful, can't recall who was there or in what episode it aired. He doesn't seem to be a fan.

Dr. Gary Kompothecras’ gilt-and-marble shorefront temple.

The pandemic hit during the height of the season. Dan and Gabe, often working alone, doubled down on their dad's customer-first ethos. They dusted off their package license and sold every bottle at a $5 markup. They created a four-course dinner for carryout and personally delivered dinners to their regulars. When COVID sanctions lifted, Miguel's bounced back and then some. Lines formed out the door for the early bird menu. Fans assumed their old tables, and Dan welcomed them back with a treat. “I'd pop something nice and have a glass with them,” he says. “My dad did that a lot with his old clientele.” More and more newcomers started coming post-pandemic, first-timers who had heard about this amazing old restaurant in a strip mall on Siesta Key.

“What do you call them? The hipsters?” Dan asks. I nod. “I've been bartending for 20 years, and the drinks go in circles. They like those old drinks I used to make all the time like Grasshoppers, Stingers and Golden Cadillacs. And Old Fashioneds, but they're really particular about their bourbon.” 

That may explain the cognitive dissonance I was feeling as I examined the bottles behind the bar — the Buffalo Trace and Castle & Key small-batch bourbons crashing a party where six bottles of Chambord were holding court over an army of crèmes. (Scratch that Rusty Nail, I think I'll have a Kir Royale.)

As the hipsters abandoned the Sniki Tiki and the newest branch of the local Daiquiri Deck chain for the retro-cool vibe of Miguel's, Gary Kompothecras and other developers successfully petitioned Sarasota County to grant them permission to build three huge luxury hotels on Siesta Key. 

Kompothecras had bought the Crescent Club just up the street from Miguel's, one of the last remaining dive bars, dating to 1949. He replaced its front parking lot with that A/C-pumping patio bar to siphon off some of the tourists crowding the open-air Sniki Tiki next door. With the bar came a plot of land out back where he envisioned a 120-room luxury resort hotel the likes of which the area had never seen.

Activists and residents — Lourdes Ramirez among them — fought hard to reinstate the former density ordinance. “They were trying to sanitize Siesta Key,” she says. “They'd turn it into Miami Beach, and it would lose that family mom and pop feel.” In 2023, they got their wish, and all high-rise developments are on hold. For now.

Dinner at Miguel's is, of course, a trip. The food is exactly what you'd want it to be if you can remember the Continental age, exactly what you'd expect it to be if you don't. The garlic bread comes with a relish tray: pitted ripe olives, raw onions, cream cheese, and duck liver pate. The Caesar salad, prepared by a 12-year veteran of the dining room who supports his family with this job, is a grand production for $20 and could feed four. Oh, and let me tell you about the duck! It isn't today's rosy, rare duck, it's yesteryear's duck — steamy hot, so tender it shreds, and covered with skin that is nothing but crackling crunch. You dip it into the sweet-as-jam orange sauce and don't want to change a thing. As we dine, a nearby table of four erupts in laughter and pure glee when their desserts arrive in the kind of goblets generally reserved for jumbo margaritas.

“Don't order dessert!” they call out to us, cackling. “It'll kill you!” We'll take our chances: Soon we have our goblets of vanilla ice cream as our waiter tips a pan of Strawberries Acapulco, and whoosh.

Dan arrives with snifters and joins us for an after-dinner Sambuca. It is delicious, like alcoholic Good & Plentys. “In some people's eyes, we're outdated,” he muses, “but this is what we are.” Something eternal, like the blue flames leaping from that pan.  ◊

John Kessler spent 18 years at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he wrote about food and served as the newspaper’s dining critic. He graduated from Williams College, lived in Japan for two years, and attended L’Academie de Cuisine culinary school near Washington, D.C. He worked for several years as a restaurant cook and chef in Washington and Denver, where he got his start as a food writer at the alternative newsweekly Westword. His writing has received many awards, including a National Headliner Award and a James Beard award. His essays, columns and food features have been anthologized 11 times in Best Food Writing.

Erika Larsen is a transdisciplinary storyteller and photographer who is known for her intimate essays about cultures that maintain strong connections with nature. She immerses readers in cultures through her visual storytelling.