This Italian Florida Restaurant Only Serves One Main Dish

Deciding what to order at a restaurant from all the tempting options can be annoyingly difficult. Then there's the chance of regretting your choice if a dining companion's meal looks better than yours when it arrives, or you notice a dish at another table that you wish you'd gotten instead. Patrons of Italian restaurant Cotoletta in Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood never have to worry about that kind of indecision or regret, since it only serves one main dish: cotoletta alla Milanese.

The popular restaurant opened in 2024 in the city better known for Cuban food places, like the most famous spot for a Cuban sandwich in Florida. The audacious idea of offering the classic Italian breaded and fried veal dish as the lone entree has paid off, and the restaurant is opening a second location in South Beach. Cotoletta's namesake dish is made from bone-in veal that the restaurant pounds thin so it spreads out widely in a style Italians call "elephant's ear." The breaded veal is seasoned with rosemary and lemon zest, fried in butter and oil, and served with a lemon half diners can squeeze over it.

Cotoletta only has a menu for two for $80 that includes the cotoletta alla Milanese, antipasti, and two sides, as well as arancini (fried rice balls) with truffles and bruschetta as appetizers. Patrons choose from four sides: pasta al pomodoro, fried zucchini, arugula salad, and french fries. There's also wine, beer, coffee, and four desserts priced separately: tiramisu (one of the delicious Italian cakes you need to try at least once), affogato with a double espresso shot, chocolate cake, and cheesecake.

Cotoletta was the brainchild of friends and 84 Magic Hospitality co-owners Ignacio Lopez Mancisidor, Mattia Cicognani, and Andrew Fraquelli, who wanted to focus the restaurant on a perfectly done, true-to-tradition cotoletta alla Milanese. The original idea was actually Fraquelli's, who told The Adventurist about the concept and its relation to what he saw working in restaurants all his life: "People liked to eat the same thing regardless of the choices. Comfort and familiarity are one and the same."

84 Magic also operates a small eatery around the corner, 3190, that only serves meat and vegetarian lasagna and wine, and an Italian prix-fixe restaurant called San Lorenzo with slightly more selections. The friends' concept may have inspired other restaurateurs, as places have been opening elsewhere in the U.S. with a single main dish.

Cotoletta alla Milanese is one of the trademark dishes of the northern Italian city of Milan. In addition to being pounded elephant ear-style like Cotoletta's, it's also made as an inch-thick veal chop. Either way, the veal is dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, which are sometimes seasoned, and fried in butter. It's customarily served the way the Miami restaurant presents it, with a slice of lemon. Austria's very similar wiener schnitzel is also traditionally made with veal, and the country and Milan both claim credit for creating the dish. However, many historians point to a 12th-century menu for monks at Milan's Sant'Ambrogio Basilica that included breaded veal loin as its true origin.