MIAReview
You’d be forgiven for assuming that Komodo is the reservation to make when you need a dinner that feels like one big red carpet.
The vaguely Asian Brickell restaurant is packed seven nights a week, stuffed to the brim both inside the dining room and on the two-story back patio, both of which are colossal spaces that feel like the Rainforest Cafe took a trip to Ibiza. Diners are dressed like extras in a Drake video, the word “truffle” is on the menu 13 times (“gold leaf” makes two appearances), and it’s all set to an untz-untz soundtrack that sort of makes the whole place feel like a nightclub’s VIP section.
Komodo is perhaps the most photographed, celebrity-frequented restaurant in Miami, which sure is saying something in a city that never stops snapping selfies or courting famous people. And the entire space pulses with an anticipatory buzz, like fidgety paparazzi aiming their cameras at a limo parked outside a movie premiere. Everyone is waiting for something to happen—something big and luxurious and once-in-a-lifetime.
But the waiting never stops, because Komodo doesn’t actually deliver that kind of experience. With the exception of the very good peking duck and the entrepreneurial men’s bathroom attendant—who might wordlessly start lint-rolling your black shirt as you bend down to wash your hands—Komodo never bothers to unroll its red carpet for you.
Instead, it sends you to the bar for ten minutes, even if you show up on time for your reservation. It offers severely underwhelming food at very overwhelming prices, like a $28 steamer basket with five truffle mushroom dumplings sporting a comically small quarter-shaving of said truffle. You can’t walk to the bathroom without getting elbowed and hip-checked by a small army of servers in what has to be Miami’s most chaotic dining room. Dinner feels somehow both rushed and boring. An automated message accompanies each reservation warning that your table is only reserved for one hour and 45 minutes, yet the meal could easily last two and a half hours thanks to slow service.
To make up for the restaurant’s lack of genuine excitement, you might hear a sporadic chorus of forced “Woos!” from surrounding tables. Guests hand their phones to servers, posing for photos to document, if nothing else, their outfits. Everyone in here sure seems ready for the party of a lifetime. Sadly, Komodo does not.