How the single-item menu became a hot Miami dining trend
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The Milanese at the Cotoletta Coconut Grove location. Photo: Courtesy Cotoletta
Andrea Fraquelli was 19, working at a restaurant in Paris, when he noticed how many other eateries in the city offered only steak and chips.
- He asked his father for advice: Could a similar concept work, but serving only Milanese? "He came up with 100 ideas" for why it wouldn't, Fraquelli recalls.
Why it matters: Cotoletta, Fraquelli's Coconut Grove restaurant known for its single-item menu, is a hit — and it's about to open another location in South Beach. Its popularity and growth underscore how Miami's restaurant scene welcomes unique concepts, so long as the product delivers.
- The restaurant serves only cotoletta alla Milanese, a traditional Italian breaded veal chop.
- "There's something to be said about [specialization], being known for something and doing it well," Fraquelli tells Axios. "We want to be that company."
The big picture: Since opening Cotoletta in October 2024, 84 Magic Hospitality, which Fraquelli runs with friends and business partners Ignacio Lopez Mancisidor and Mattia Cicognani, has opened two other highly specialized restaurants.
- San Lorenzo, in the Little River neighborhood, the group's most upscale concept, requires diners to choose between a meat and a seafood route (there's no menu).
- At 3190, a small restaurant just down the street from Cotoletta, it's lasagna or bust (though folks can opt for a vegetarian version).
The expansion to other dishes proves that the "concept of a one-item menu is more powerful than the dish itself," Fraquelli says.
- He says the concept's success is no surprise, recalling how, at a prior restaurant he owned in London, there were just a few dishes that kept regulars coming back.
- The more folks returned, the narrower their choices became. He became convinced a restaurant could exist with just one item, because "frequency breeds familiarity, which breeds consistency" and, later, community.
What's next: There's no set open date for Cotoletta in Miami Beach, but Fraquelli says he's "all in for a 2025 opening."
- None of 84 Magic Hospitality's restaurants offer takeout or delivery services, but that's something Fraquelli hopes to change, so long as those at home can "experience the same [level of] hospitality."
The bottom line: "We're very clear with who we are, and that means some people won't like it, [and] that's OK," Fraquelli says.
- "We have weekly guests and thousands of people who've been multiple times," he adds. "It's my great pleasure that they eat in other restaurants when they want other dishes and eat in ours when they want our dish."