Featured Florida Chef
Chef Mark Militello
If there is one chef responsible for putting South Florida on America's culinary map, it is surely Chef Mark Militello. The award-winning 46-year-old chef creates contemporary American cuisine that's universally acclaimed and uniquely his own. Today, he oversees a quartet of superb South Florida restaurants from South Beach to Palm Beach: Mark's Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale, Mark's Mizner Park in Boca Raton, Mark's South Beach at the Hotel Nash on Miami Beach and Mark's CityPlace in West Palm Beach's dining, shopping, and entertainment destination of the same name.
Born in El Paso, Texas, and raised in upstate New York, Militello was a pre-med student at Marquette University in Milwaukee. Realizing his true love was cooking, he switched schools and careers, obtaining culinary degrees from Florida International University's School of Hospitality and Hotel Management and New York State University's Hotel and Culinary Program.
In 1988, Militello opened his first restaurant, the eponymous Mark's Place in North Miami Beach. It earned rave reviews and it wasn't long before the national food press took notice. In 1990, Food and Wine magazine named Militello one of the "Ten Best Chefs in America" and, in the years since, some of the industry's most prestigious accolades have been bestowed on him.
Militello is the recipient of the James Beard Award for "Best Regional Chef" in the Southeast; a "Distinguished Restaurant Award" from Conde Nast Traveler; two Golden Dish Awards from GQ magazine; a DiRona 25 Top Restaurants in the Country Award and Nation's Restaurant News Hall of Fame, among many others. He has been profiled in virtually every major food, travel, and lifestyle magazine in the country, including Time, Esquire, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Chocolatier, Connoisseur, Conde Nast Traveler, and Wine Spectator. Most recently, The New York Times tapped Militello for "The Chef," a prestigious eight-week series of color features with signature recipes.
