Miami: Michael Mina Will Now Launch A Second Restaurant In The Fontainebleau

We were just interviewing chef-restaurateur Michael Mina about his brand-new Michael Mina 74 in the Fontainebleau Miami Beach when he dropped this news on us: He's agreed to take over another space in the mega-hotel on Collins Ave. We'll have the full interview with Mina next week with details about the restaurant-mixology-nightclub concept at 74, but here are a few details on the new project, which we are among the first to reveal.

Mina will open Natsusteak, a new Japanese-influenced steakhouse, in the space that formerly housed Alfred Portale's Gotham Steak. It's tentatively slated for fall 2014. "It's something that we've been working on for a long time," says Mina, who has restaurants in San Francisco, Las Vegas and DC, to name a few. "It's a steak concept that's going to have a lot of Japanese influence in it." Including, he adds, side by side cuts contrasting American and Japanese beef, plus an extensive raw fish program.

He is of course no stranger to steak, Mr. Mina. Among his growing stable of restaurants are four Bourbon Steak locations, including one he opened six years ago just north of Miami in Aventura's Turnberry Isle resort. But Natsusteak — "natsu" means summer in Japanese — will differ in that it'll have a serious focus.

"You'll have dishes liked you'd find in a traditional steakhouse, similar to Bourbon Steak, but there will be a lot of influences and inspirations from Japan," he says, "and it will really be American and Japanese and nothing else."