We have in the Miami dining scene lots of iterations of the same things: the corner Italian trattoria, the Cuban café, the order-at-the-counter healthy bowl spot that we should probably visit more often. What we don’t have, and what The Oyster Bar at Eva is trying to solve, is a simple place for a pre-party.
It makes sense, considering the Oyster Bar’s location, just literally a mosaic-tiled bar tucked into the back of the recently reborn CocoWalk. It’s the epicenter these days of Miami’s hottest restaurant neighborhood, a place where Miamians willingly travel beyond the end of I-95. It's where you go when you arrive a few minutes early and you need a spot for a drink, a snack, or a little something to take the edge off before that dinner with the in-laws.
From the same folks behind Ariete and Brasserie Laurel, the Oyster Bar similarly goes for something fancier, passing over the crowd-pleasers found at most bars. The clam dip is a creamy affair broken up by chewy bits of meat. The street corn comes covered in cotija with a smoked oyster butter. The conch salad is a ceviche-like winner with tomatillo and what might be the world's best tostones. There's also a snapper dog, which is a pork and snapper sausage with a garlic-fennel slaw, something that might sound like a terrible idea but just might be your favorite thing here.
There are oysters, of course, but even those are meant to challenge the palates of the pre-party crowd, deliberately not offering the see-them-everywhere Bluepoints and instead serving more briny and delicate West Coast varieties. They come with no cocktail sauce that will overpower them and instead a mignonette with crunchy pikliz, or Haitian pickled vegetables.
Drinks, too, skip the traditional old fashioneds and martinis for original creations like the Rye Tai (rye whiskey, pineapple and orgeat) and a spicy, smoky ass-kicker called El Séquito (tequila, mezcal, lime, grapefruit soda and a habanero tincture).
After a round or two here and a few polished-off plates, there’s no telling where your night is going from here. But at least you’ve gotten a mighty fine start.