Chef Evan Funke’s restaurant serves Roman cuisine centered around handmade pastas and brick-oven pizzas
December 3, 2024
Chef Evan Funke has become a heavy hitter in Los Angeles’ dining scene. He presides over restaurants that see waitlists before they open and draw celebrity clientele, and a recent turn on Netflix’s “Chef’s Table” conveyed his name and pasta obsessions to a wider audience. Now, he’s brought his Roman-style cuisine and pasta-making bona fides to Miami.
Mother Wolf opened in Miami’s Design District on Oct. 5. It’s the third Mother Wolf location after the original in Los Angeles, which opened in early 2022, and an outpost inside the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, which opened late last year. The chef is also behind the self-titled Funke in Beverly Hills, Felix in Venice, Calif., and Tre Dita in Chicago. This is his first restaurant on the East Coast.
The new restaurant is a partnership between Funke and Ten Five Hospitality, an investment and management company that runs a stable of restaurants and hotels in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York and is also a partner in the other Mother Wolf locales.
“I’m excited to be bringing the mosaic of culinary traditions of Rome to Miami, a city that is overflowing with culture and endless experiences,” Funke said in a statement. Dan Daley, the managing partner of Ten Five, called Miami “the most vibrant and discerning city in the country.”
The 10,000-square-foot restaurant is situated on a high-end strip that houses designer retailers like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Tom Ford. It’s similarly high-end, merging old-world Roman charm and Miami’s iconic Art Deco architecture with some good old-fashioned opulence.
The entrance features a fountain wall and custom artwork, and the 30-foot-long bar is lined with antique mirrors and terrazzo flooring. Trees add a touch of green to the dining room.
Mother Wolf opened its third location in Miami’s Design District on October 5. Photo courtesy of Michael Mundy
Unlike the Los Angeles and Las Vegas locations, Mother Wolf Miami features a glass-walled “pasta lab,” where guests can get a close-up view of the action and watch staff roll out dough and make pasta shapes by hand. The culinary voyeurism continues in round booths that face the open kitchen and pizza bar.
Funke describes the food as specifically Roman, not just Italian. The menu is centered around handmade pastas, brick-oven pizzas, and focaccia, and it’s rounded out by a handful of seafood and meat dishes.
Starters include fried squash blossoms, short rib meatballs, and a chilled octopus salad, with standout pastas including rigatoni all’amatriciana, tonnarelli cacio e pepe and linguine al limone. Pizzas are thin-crust and available in options like margherita and diavolo, while larger plates range from a whole grilled branzino to a 50-day dry-aged rib eye.
The bar features plenty of wine to pair with the food, stocking more than 400 labels, many from Italian wine-growing regions like Piedmont, Tuscany, and Sardinia. Bottles are sourced from a mix of traditional family-run producers and upstart estates, with a focus on those emphasizing organic and sustainable practices.
The cocktail menu also leans Italian and incorporates references to Roman history, landmarks, and ingredients in the drinks. There are classic aperitifs like the Aperol Spritz, but also original recipes like the R&R, made with Italian herb-infused rye whiskey, Cynar, and amaretto. Diners can end their meals with tiramisu or gelato, and then pluck something from the amari list to aid their digestion.
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