Tâm Tâm’s Intertwined Roots Anchor Miami Dining’s New Vibe

It is the kind of story that complicates what can often be a reductive lens through which chefs find their cuisine understood. Yes, they prepare food based on their origins, and yet what might once have been called “fusion” could easily be reduced to the following formula: Chef with X background brings “those flavors” to Y location. The framing isn’t malicious, but it does miss the intricacies of overlapping cultures colliding, merging, and emerging as something original.

And so, what could be a well-worn, first-generation culinary narrative in Tam’s case — “Viet flavors + Florida ingredients” — overlooks the complexity of what’s really happening. At Tâm Tâm, he has been able to play with this layering effect akin to the turning of a kaleidoscope — each rotation revealing a vibrant new configuration. Using Saigon as its culinary (and proprietary) reference, with specific threads transplanted in Miami, Tâm Tâm offers a delicious and thrilling vision of a modern subtropical metropolis. 

This balance of cultural influences, reverent but not too precious, is what makes the restaurant a revelation. We sat down with Pham and Ramhofer for a conversation about drinking food (quán nhậu), the deliciousness of Key West pink shrimp, and how Tâm Tâm came to rely on both Vietnamese and Florida pomelo as the perfect accompaniment to raw scallops with coconut nuoc cham.

Drinking and feasting. Your restaurant site says “Taking inspirations from ‘quán nhậu’ — a Vietnamese term for drinking places. In Saigon, and other parts of Vietnam, when somebody says it’s time to ‘nhậu,’ it’s a call to go drinking and feasting. At these establishments, the food helps facilitate the drinking, and the drinking ensures a great time.” Tell us about how this energy plays out at Tâm Tâm.

Tam Pham: We felt like drinking food is often more protein and vegetables, a single-ingredient focus and less carby. The idea is that you want food to not make you [too] full. Especially in Vietnam, in Saigon, they drink a lot of beer. You don’t really want to drink a lot of beer while eating rice or noodles.

[In our case] drinking food is very much whatever you want to cook, as long as it tastes Vietnamese and it pairs well with alcohol. I thought that was the most liberating way to approach the menu. It gives me a lot of creativity and space to do what I want to do without being confined and boxed into what is expected of Vietnamese food, because oftentimes, it can be very ambiguous. 

Being in Miami, we felt like we wanted to open a space that is welcoming and fun and also bustling, reflecting where I grew up, which is Saigon. You eat and dine and drink on the street with a lot of lively music and cars running by, motorcycles pass right by you. [Miami] folks, they like to party a little bit. We love to make sure that when guests come to Tâm Tâm, it feels like a special occasion without being too buttoned up.  

Harrison Ramhofer: We wanted to incorporate a good wine program with that. We consider ourselves a little bit of a wine bar as well. We have a pretty extensive wine list and it goes really well with the concept. 

We did want to introduce Miami, or America really, to another style of Vietnamese dining that’s not really represented as much. The menu that people associate with Vietnamese food here came over in the ’70s, after the war, and it hasn’t changed very much, hasn’t evolved tremendously since then.

But if you go to Vietnam, the food, we feel like that’s not being reflected in the States. 

How does your location in Miami shape the menu and dishes offered at Tâm Tâm? And Florida more generally? We spotted Key West pink shrimp, for example.

Pham: We talk a lot about if Tâm Tâm was in a different city, say Seattle, the menu would have been very different.

What we do at Tâm Tâm was not intentionally being this Florida-ingredient-driven restaurant, because Vietnamese food is already very bold. And a lot of the ingredients I have to source to reflect and to be authentic in that way are already unique, without having to add another layer of ingredients or regionality to it. 

But we were very much open about the culture of being in Miami. In the space that we used to live in, we were very close to Caribbean restaurants that had an amazing goat curry and Harry and I would go all the time. And it reminded me, goat curry is really good. Vietnamese goat curry exists. It’s not very popular, but it’s really good and I think I can bring that to the restaurant in a way that feels like my guests can understand and connect with the cuisine without it being too unfamiliar. 

The Key West pink shrimp happened because I was offered the shrimp and I thought, This shrimp is amazing. We tend to try to source locally when we can and when it makes sense. So when the Key West pink shrimp happened, Harry and I had recently tasted a similar [Vietnamese] dish and it was a shrimp, raw salad situation, and we both really loved it.

I was also always very much against sourcing ingredients from overseas because I think local Florida ingredients are already really good. A lot of the herbs and vegetables that I get, that are Vietnamese, are all grown locally.  

Ramhofer: In this area, the climate is very similar to Vietnam. There’s a lot of Vietnamese farms. Especially if you go to other Vietnamese restaurants and other counties, other parts of the state, other parts of the country, they’re probably getting their herbs from here.

So, we’re very lucky. We’re very close to that, and able to get some herbs and different vegetables that are not easy to find. With the ingredients and the menu, it’s just been by osmosis that Miami — or Florida in general — found their way in with the ingredients. We try to do it when we can, as much as we can. 

Tam, you’re a self-taught cook. What has shaped your approach to cooking Vietnamese food? Where do you draw inspiration? You’ve mentioned being inspired by your mother’s cooking, for example. 

Pham: When I first started cooking, it was mostly dishes that I really missed from my mom’s cooking. And then fast forward to when we started doing the Supper Club; I had a chance to learn more about Western cooking and techniques.

My first cooking job (at Over Under in Miami, under the tutelage of head chef James McNeal) has a lot of influence on techniques that I use at Tâm Tâm or how I run the kitchen. He’s very much into Florida ingredients and letting the Caribbean influence be the focus of his menu. That’s why I’m naturally drawn toward those kinds of flavors when it comes to food, creating dishes that are my own and not necessarily by-the-book Vietnamese food. 

I also still learn from all the chefs that I have hired and work with along the way. The learning never really stops for someone like me. I never really felt like I was a chef to begin with. It just kind of happened.  

You’ve also spoken about the regional differences in flavor for Vietnamese food: saltier, spicier, and seafood-forward along the coast; a little sweeter nearer to Saigon, with more of an emphasis on meat and coconut because it grows so well there. How do you see this reflected on the menu at Tâm Tâm, if at all? What regional distinctions do you draw?

Pham: In Saigon, naturally, in the south, the foods tend to get a little sweeter. And at the beginning of Tâm Tâm, the menu did tend to be a little sweet. I took some feedback and I also retrained my palate a little bit. The menu evolved away from the sweetness. I tend to offer dishes that are on the spicy side and also sour. 

The spiciness comes from the central region of Vietnam. They eat a lot of spicy food and things tend to be a little sour. When you move up north, they use a lot of MSG, and things are also a lot more delicate, and not as salty or spicy.

Also in northern Vietnam, they use a lot of dill. So at Tâm Tâm, we have a grilled mushroom dish that’s based on a grilled fish dish in Hanoi, and it gets loaded with dill. It has dill on top and also dill oil. 

The whole point of Tâm Tâm is to expand people’s perception of Vietnamese food. We don’t really want to say we’re trying to educate people, because that’s a really strong word, but I think it’s important. One of our missions is to introduce people to different aspects of Vietnamese food in whatever way that we can.

We’ve had dishes that utilized ingredients that our guests didn’t think they would like. We have durian ice cream at the moment, and most of the time, our guests really enjoy it. Even the ones who were skeptical, after they tasted the ice cream, they changed their mind.

Ramhofer: One of our missions has always just been, unapologetically Vietnamese in our flavors. We don’t shy away from it. And it’s worked well. 

What are some trademark dishes and ingredients people can expect at Tâm Tâm? Like, the “lamb wrap situation” is legendary. And which dishes are special to you personally?

Pham: For me, personally, the scallop and pomelo would be that dish that is kind of iconic. Everyone comes to try it if they don’t have a shellfish allergy. 

The dish came about because when we first started the pop-up, we had a fish crudo on the menu. The sauce that goes with it is this coconut nuoc cham. Nuoc cham is a traditional Vietnamese dipping sauce. The combination of coconut and nuoc cham is very much a southern Vietnamese food. 

When we first opened Tâm Tâm, we ran with the dish for a few months. At some point, I decided maybe we should switch up the protein. Being a fan of raw scallops, I thought we should do raw scallops. 

Out of nowhere, I started seeing a lot of Vietnamese pomelo, and that was not something that could easily be found in the States. If you’re not familiar with pomelo, it’s very similar to grapefruit, but it is a lot juicier and less sour, and not bitter at all. It goes really well with the brininess of the scallop. And a bright, slightly sweet coconut sauce.  

It adds a really fun texture to the dish. What I’m most proud of about that dish is that we source Vietnamese green-skin pomelo when we can, and that’s usually in the summer. 

When December comes about, Florida pomelo becomes available. So we start switching. From December to June, all of the pomelo is Florida pomelo. The reason why I love using Florida pomelo is because Florida citrus in general, specifically oranges, was recently heavily affected by this disease throughout the state. Farmers have started to grow pomelo, because pomelo is naturally disease-resistant. It’s a citrus tree that is easier to maintain and also stronger to grow. But it’s not available in the summer.

Ramhofer: You mentioned the lamb wrap dish. First off, the betel leaf is one of those herbs that we’re really excited that we get to work with. We don’t even get that from a farm, we get that from this lady that owns a kind of Vietnamese grocery slash nail supply store, and she grows it at her house and she gives it to us.

We’re really lucky that we can get that. It’s hard to get otherwise. It adds something really special to that dish. Tam chose to go with a fermented bean curd sauce that I think is really wonderful.

The escarole started out as a dish that Tam did with corn, like an elote, and then summer ended. We were having a hard time getting corn. A friend of ours who’s a chef was like, “Oh, I have a bunch of leftover escarole from an event, do you want to use it?” It was just a fantastic combination. Now it’s a staple of the menu. It’s personally one of my favorite items, with the shrimp crumbs. It’s a grilled leafy green, but it has a bitterness. When it grills, it gets a little sweet. It almost tastes like a piece of meat with all that umami flavor on there.

Not a lot of places do a steamed fish. I think we’re one of the only places in Miami you can get a steamed fish. And that’s an ode to Tam’s mom, who grew up in kind of the Chinatown of Saigon. The steamed fish has a lot of Cantonese influence in it. 

Harrison, as a sommelier, what can you share about the vision for wine at Tâm Tâm? How did you go about building your list?

Ramhofer: Pairing wine with such intense flavors is sometimes not an easy task. We went for really easy drinking wines. A lot of people go, because there’s a lot of spice, a lot of flavor, you should go with sweet Rieslings. I push against that. I say no, you want dry, zippy whites, low alcohol, that is just going to be easy to drink.

Our red wine program is actually a chilled red wine program. Miami is just so hot, and who wants to drink a big Cab on a 90-degree day? They’re all easy drinking reds, nothing super big or bold. 

The biggest wines we do have on the menu, like the Bandol, from a region in the South of France? In the summers, it’s nearly as hot as Miami. Even when I put a big red on the menu, there’s a reason why it’s still chilled. 

I would say that the majority of our wines are done with responsible farming, [sometimes] dry-farming, low intervention, natural yeasts, all those kinds of things. I’m very proud of the program. And then we have like, you know, fun things, like the big Korean beers and soju.

There’s an emphasis on social interaction at Tâm Tâm: community, big tables, unfussy preparations that invite people to get their hands sticky and devour this delicious food, eating with your hands. Why did that feel important to the two of you? How intentional was it?

Ramhofer: I think when we set out to make a restaurant, especially with food costs these days, to get somebody out of their house to eat, good food is a big part of it, but that’s not all of it. You need to give people an experience. I think that’s what we set out to do here at Tâm Tâm.

There’s an experience here. You want to be here. You want to be in the space. You want to feel the liveliness of it and go out. We have the fun music, the fun decor. We even have karaoke in the bathroom. We don’t normally like to talk about it in interviews or even post about it. We like to be a surprise for people when they come. You’ll see people coming out of the bathroom and run to their table and be like, “You’ll never believe it.” It’s a lot of fun to see that on people’s faces. 

Pham: We wanted to open a restaurant that is approachable, affordable, and fun. The fun part of it is very big. We have really lively decor here. It’s reflective of the culture, but the other part is that it’s just fun. But fun doesn’t mean that we are not service-focused. Harry and I spend a lot of time making sure that the service is good. Great to amazing. 

Ramhofer: I come from a fine-dining background. We’re a fun casual spot. We try to meet those levels of service that we get from fine dining.

We really get the sense that joy is part of the recipe at Tâm Tâm. Can you share a joyful moment you’ve experienced in the presence of Vietnamese cuisine?

Ramhofer: When I lived in Hanoi, there was the bún chả spot that was right outside my gate. Like, it was some of the best bún chả I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t even know the name, I couldn’t find it on Google, I couldn’t give you the name or anything, I just have to go to that street, and I know the streets now, and I know it’s on the second floor. You’ll never find it, but I just know where it is, and I’m going to have the best, like, fried pho, which is, like, little pillows of pho ( where noodles are compressed into a dumpling and fried) that are delicious, or the best egg coffee.

Pham: The lotus root salad is something that I can probably eat every day. It’s one of the few dishes on the menu that is very much by-the-book Vietnamese in a way that I did not feel like I needed to change or add myself to the dish. It’s exactly the way that this dish is served at a specific restaurant in Saigon that, when I was young, my parents would take me to every Sunday as a special dinner — the one day that my mom didn’t have to cook.  

That’s the salad that we always get and it’s my favorite Vietnamese salad, period. Vietnamese love salads. There are so many of them, but this specific salad is my favorite. Every time I eat it, I’m just so happy that I get to eat something that I love all the time, whenever I want to, and I’ll never get tired of it. 

Ramhofer: Tam’s cousins sometimes come and visit us. We’ll all just be at the house and they love to cook. And then all of a sudden, we’re eating something that I’ve never had before, and I’m like, “Oh, this dish is amazing. This has to go on the menu.” 

Let’s land back on the “drinking food” concept. What’s your favorite Tâm Tâm food and drink combinations, and from your respective views as chef and sommelier, why do they work?

Pham: My personal favorite on the menu right now is our new vermouth that we made in house. It’s my recipe. I’m really proud of it because Harry’s usually the beverage guy and I get to have this offer on the other side of the menu. It’s a Spanish vermouth that we steeped in pandan leaf, chrysanthemum tea, and fat washed in coconut oil overnight, and we strained it. It’s an homage to an herbal drink that I also grew up drinking a lot. 

Harrison Ramhofer: It’s funny, a lot of the local wine people come here and sometimes I just feel like I’m not gonna try to impress them with any of the wine that I have, so I’ll just do a soju and a beer for them, because that’s more traditional. Rice wine and beer. They love that, and we’ll do soju shots. Sometimes it’s just back to the basics.