MIAM July 2009 : Page 58

THE RADAR | PEOPLE Prime Time? Myles Chefetz keeps building on his celeb-friendly restaurant empire in what was once South Beach’s seediest stretch, one handshake at a time | By JermaineHall | Photography by Jeffrey Irwin | Myles Chefetz is trying to get over a bad night. Seated in a white chair outside his modern steakhouse Prime One Twelve and ruminating on a nagging slip-up, he swigs from a bottle of flat Aquapanna water. Te incident involves a woman—a woman whose needs weren’t met. He stops mid-story and says his BlackBerry can tell it best. He searches frantically through the dizzying number of messages he received the night prior. Past the texts from Brian McKnight and various Kardashians. He locates the damning message, which reads: “No personal touch tonight,Myles. It’s not the same.” Chefetz’s concern with a star-less resident is off script if you believe the stories about him.Te ones that suggest he coddles celebrities and places locals low on the priority scale. But Prime One Twelve grossed an estimated $18.9 million in 2008 according to Restaurants & Institution’s top 100 list.Tat’s a lot of filet mignon, Kobe hot dogs and five-cheese truffle macaroni orders. His accessibility, he insists, has a lot to do with that number. So there is no room for personal-touch flubs, especially at a time when he’s looking to expand his brand. “I call it the big shot syndrome,” saysChefetz, 50. “Everyone wants to know the owner, and I’ve always been accessible to 58 | | July/August 2009 Clockwise from top: Myles Chefetz. Chefetz does his daily meet-and-greet with the patrons at Prime One Twelve. The “cuisine” component of Chefetz’s scene- with-cuisine formula. people to a fault. I’m having relationships with thousands of people a night. I have to see them for five seconds. ” Local personality DJ Irie, who can frequently be seen dining at PrimeOne Twelve with friends fromtheMiamiHeat, for whom he is the official DJ, attributes the restaurant’s star power with Chefetz’s touch. “Myles is the X Factor,” Irie says. “Tere are a good number of restaurants with great food on the Beach, but the influential people go to Prime not only for an amazing meal, but because they get to see Myles. He always makes you feel welcome.” Chefetz, who settled in Miami Beach’s seedy SoFi neighborhood in 1994 before real estate titan Jorge Pérez and others transformed the area into a beachfront playground with luxury condominiums, takes full responsibility for the life, or lack thereof, that he’s living. He’s taken one vacation in the last 14 years. It was a four-day trip to Aspen in the quiet month of October. Te highlights: only being noticed as that guy from Prime One Twelve a handful of times. Tat and the snow. He really enjoyed the snow. Tis is the life of an über-successful restaurateur. Before overseeing the corner of First Street andOceanDrive, the power spot that houses Prime One Twelve, whose doors opened in December 2004, and its new sister restaurant, Prime Italian, which opened this spring, Chefetz had already established branded eateries in South Beach. Tere was what many regard as the area’s first high-end restaurant, Nemo in continued...

The Radar People

Jermaine Hall

Prime Time? Myles Chefetz keeps building on his celeb-friendly restaurant empire in what was once South Beach’s seediest stretch, one handshake at a time Photography by Jeffrey Irwin Myles Chefetz is trying to get over a bad night. Seated in a white chair outside his modern steakhouse Prime One Twelve and ruminating on a nagging slip-up, he swigs from a bottle of flat Aquapanna water. The incident involves a woman—a woman whose needs weren’t met. He stops mid-story and says his BlackBerry can tell it best. He searches frantically through the dizzying number of messages he received the night prior. Past the texts from Brian McKnight and various Kardashians. He locates the damning message, which reads: “No personal touch tonight, Myles. It’s not the same.” Chefetz’s concern with a star-less resident is off script if you believe the stories about him. The ones that suggest he coddles celebrities and places locals low on the priority scale. But Prime One Twelve grossed an estimated $18.9 million in 2008 according to Restaurants & Institution’s top 100 list. That’s a lot of filet mignon, Kobe hot dogs and five-cheese truffle macaroni orders. His accessibility, he insists, has a lot to do with that number. So there is no room for personal-touch flubs, especially at a time when he’s looking to expand his brand. “I call it the big shot syndrome,” says Chefetz, 50. “Everyone wants to know the owner, and I’ve always been accessible to people to a fault. I’m having relationships with thousands of people a night. I have to see them for five seconds. ” Local personality DJ Irie, who can frequently be seen dining at Prime One Twelve with friends from the Miami Heat, for whom he is the official DJ, attributes the restaurant’s star power with Chefetz’s touch. “Myles is the X Factor,” Irie says. “There are a good number of restaurants with great food on the Beach, but the influential people go to Prime not only for an amazing meal, but because they get to see Myles. He always makes you feel welcome.” Chefetz, who settled in Miami Beach’s seedy SoFi neighborhood in 1994 before real estate titan Jorge Pérez and others transformed the area into a beachfront playground with luxury condominiums, takes full responsibility for the life, or lack thereof, that he’s living. He’s taken one vacation in the last 14 years. It was a four-day trip to Aspen in the quiet month of October. The highlights: only being noticed as that guy from Prime One Twelve a handful of times. That and the snow. He really enjoyed the snow. This is the life of an über-successful restaurateur. Before overseeing the corner of First Street and Ocean Drive, the power spot that houses Prime One Twelve, whose doors opened in December 2004, and its new sister restaurant, Prime Italian, which opened this spring, Chefetz had already established branded eateries in South Beach. There was what many regard as the area’s first high-end restaurant, Nemo in 1995. His lower-priced comfort food diner Big Pink followed in 1996 and Shoji Sushi established him as a triple threat in 2002. Although Nemo still has the cachet to attract big fish such as former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld (“I looked at his credit card, and I see that it says Advantage miles. I’m thinking, ‘Why does this guy need mileage? He’s the Secretary of Defense!’”), it is Prime One Twelve that defines his empire. Like his dishes, various ingredients contribute to the restaurant’s popularity. Chefetz simplifies it with a “scene with cuisine” tag. But the formula combines timing, sensibility and a boldface name-filled Rolodex. “I had a vision to do a stand-alone, non-chain, non-men’s club steak house, so it was sexier and appealing to women, with better food than the chain steakhouses. No disrespect to Morton’s or Ruth’s Chris [steakhouses] and those type of places, but they’re boring,” says Chefetz. (As for the rumored expansion of the Prime brand to New York and Las Vegas, Chefetz admits that the recession has forced him to scale back, putting his plans on hold, he says, “because there is even more of a need for me to be here.”) His vision has spurred a neighborhood that’s now become hot enough to merit a glitzy New York Times travel story in late May, “The Sweet Life at the Chic Tip of South Beach,” which referred to Chefetz as the “Sultan of South of Fifth.” The ’hood, with his help, has come a long way. “South Beach needed a new place,” recalls Prime One Twelve executive chef Mike Sabin, who was hired by Chefetz as a line cook at Nemo in 1995. Sabin went on to hone his skills elsewhere, including a stint at the renowned Inn at Little Washington in Virginia, then returned to Chefetz’s sphere in 2002. It was a critical time in Chefetz’s rise; he’d just bought out his partner in Nemo, Michael Schwartz, who has since gone on to national acclaim of his own with Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink. Schwartz and his representatives wouldn’t comment about the split or about Chefetz, citing his schedule, but Sabin suspects Schwartz’s unwillingness to expand Nemo’s reach led to the rupture. Dindy Yokel, who handled Chefetz’s PR from 2002 to 2007, says the relationship had run its course and it was time for Schwartz to showcase his talent as a solo act. “There comes a point where you need to move on and do things exactly the way you want to do it and I think that’s the point that Michael was at,” she says. “But it was amicable. And Michael did the right thing by opening in the Design District. He wasn’t trying to infringe on Myles’ territory.” Chefetz’s territory at the time wasn’t looking anywhere near as flashy. When he took over the Browns Hotel in 2003, it was, to put it mildly, a fixer-upper. “The place was a dump,” remembers Sabin, 38. “There were homeless people living out of it.” But he and Chefetz saw potential. At one point they envisioned a seafood establishment. Next, a steakhouse, despite Smith & Wollensky being less than five blocks away. The following months were spent doing research and development at several New York City steak staples. Returning to Miami, they renovated Browns with not-too-soft lighting, brick columns, Lucite chairs and plasma televisions, with the second floor housing the nine-room hotel and the first floor devoted entirely to Prime One Twelve. The cuisine was the easiest part of the equation. “ I think a lot of chefs love to see how they can decorate a plate with a lot of things,” says Sabin. “By the time you get it, you don’t know what it is. I’m really into good product, so I think that’s half the battle. When you use really good product, the only thing you can do to screw it up is overcooking it or undercooking it.” The porterhouses and filets are the main attractions, but Prime’s menu has an ethnic sensibility on display as well. It certainly isn’t your grandfather’s steakhouse. There’s braised boneless short ribs with buttermilk cheddar mashed potatoes, collard greens and crispy onions—a nod to Southern cooking. Then there’s the combo that makes Chefetz giddy. Talking about its origins won’t do. A visual is needed, so he calls for a menu to be brought outside and points his finger incessantly to the fried chicken and waffles with maple syrup. Nobody could accuse him of lacking passion for his business. Chefetz is lean for a man who samples garlic bread, marinara sauce and meatballs every day. His Miami Beach Golf Club Polo hangs off him. And he gives off a gentleman swagger even in beach attire. His black shorts come about three inches above his knee, his flip-flops look like they haven’t touched the sand, and his pedicure and tan show an allegiance to manscaping. He’s meticulous, a control freak and can’t help himself. So he does a line-tasting at the six-month-old Prime Italian every day. He gets his drive from his mother, who he says ran a profitable business as one of the country’s first personal shoppers. She’s just as detailed, calling Prime to complain about the lack of hold music for people waiting to make reservations. Along with his father, a gynecologist on the Homestead Air Force base, his mother preached that success wasn’t a suggestion. So he went to law school at the University of Miami, not because he had a calling to be a real estate lawyer. He just wanted to delay real world responsibilities. Chefetz worked for a Manhattan law firm after graduation, pulling in $20,000 as an associate, and working mostly with nightclub owners. He would eventually leave the firm, take his clients and start his own operation, meanwhile moonlighting as a nightlife promoter for clubs such as Studio 54. Later, he launched his own nightclubs in Manhattan and Southampton, but ultimately, he decided that his instincts would be best used in the restaurant business. More recently, such instincts led him to take over the space across from Prime One Twelve last year. He purchased the lease right before the recession, so he overpaid. Still, he insists, it’s one of the smartest investments he’s ever made. There were four steakhouses from New York bidding on the property. He predicted that their intentions were to welcome the overspill from Prime One Twelve, in addition to building their own clientele. It makes sense. If the growl of multiple Lamborghini engines didn’t impress you, or watching Bill Clinton greet Tom Brady wasn’t an attraction, a more low-key locale would have certainly leaned out Chefetz’s cash cow. “A couple comes to me and says, ‘We feel really bad that someone opened right across the street from you and is stealing all of your business,’” says Chefetz, who delivers a hearty laugh before the punchline. “So I said, ‘Don’t feel bad for me, because I’m stealing my own business.’” He hopes to steal some more of his clientele with Prime Hotel, a 14-room, three-story building crowned by a 40-foot Jacuzzi opening adjacent to the Browns sometime this year. Not that Chefetz has any Ian Schrager aspirations. The value in that venture will be increasing One Twelve’s outdoor seating with the hotel’s lounge. Working with Alison Antrobus, the architect who sculpted Prime, the space will feature less brick and aim for a black-and-white palette. If the Rat Pack and Billy Holiday shared a Jack and Coke together, this lounge, Chefetz imagines, would be their destination. Show time is nearing, so Chefetz needs to get that tasting done. He crosses the street. If asked to define his perfect night, you get the feeling doing 700 dinners wouldn’t be his answer. At least not his first. Finding that woman from last night and providing her with a better Prime experience would be higher on his list. “It’s an absolute comedy how much people want say hello to me,” says Chefetz. “But I created that world. There’s that saying be careful what you wish for.”

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