Hiyakawa’s Álvaro Perez Miranda Wants Miami to Embrace Japanese Culture
For those familiar with Miami’s growing Japanese restaurant scene, destinations like Hiyakawa in Wynwood and Ogawa, Miami’s first Michelin-star omakase restaurant, are more or less mandatory stops on the circuit. What’s less evident, perhaps, is the force behind them: Álvaro Perez Miranda, the Venezuelan-born entrepreneur and art dealer, who spent 16 years living in Japan, opening dozens of restaurants with a former business partner before venturing out on his own.
The result has been an only-in-Miami sort of restaurant empire, with Perez Miranda’s background and deep appreciation of Japanese cultural practices providing a distinctive bridge to the city’s Latin culture.
It was after studying art in Florence, Italy, and Los Angeles that Perez Miranda moved to Tokyo, and while he was already familiar with Japanese cuisine, he spent his first springtime there unlocking a deeper understanding of the principles of Japan’s traditional hospitality culture.
Today, he shares these principles and sense of place in three modern Japanese restaurant concepts surrounding Miami’s Little River and MiMo. In addition to Ogawa, there’s also sushi haven Hiyakawa in Wynwood and Midorie, which is focused on the rice bowls known as donburi. All are run by predominantly Latin staff. His background in the art world has translated into immersive spaces for all the restaurants, each filled with traditional Japanese cultural elements like personalized artifacts, handmade ceramics, intricate craft tableware, and minka house-like replicas.
Perez Miranda’s influence in creating these bridges is evident: He was the first Latino in the United States to be honored as a “Goodwill Ambassador for Japanese Cuisine,” and an ambassador for Ibaraki prefecture, an agricultural area northeast of Tokyo. He recently launched a culinary mentorship program, which offers a graduating Latin hospitality or culinary professional the chance to apprentice at one of his restaurants or study in Japan under his team’s guidance.
And yet Miranda has very much acclimated to life in Miami, where he settled in the late 2010s. He often spends mornings playing backgammon at neighborhood spots like Flora Plant Kitchen and Suite Habana Cafe, later greeting guests at his restaurants each night.
“Hospitality has to be about really taking care of the customers,” he says. “The customer has to feel free and when you create that connection.” To Miranda, that has meant focusing on quality over quantity by limiting covers at his restaurants and expanding strategically. He turned 60 recently, so sustaining his commitment to excellence requires a more zen attitude. “I just want to chill,” he smiles.
Here’s how Perez Miranda’s Latinidad shapes his approach to hospitality, his focus on high-level Japanese food in Miami, and is informing his next steps.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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Resy: What brought you to Miami? And how has the reception been introducing your Japanese concepts to Miamians?
Álvaro Perez Miranda: I moved to Miami to get back in touch with my Latin roots. I opened a restaurant at the Vagabond Hotel, Vagabond Restaurant & Bar, in January 2015, and then sold the restaurant back to the hotel owners. My son Tomas had the vision that living in a dominant Latino environment, I could run a Japanese restaurant that understood and respected both cultures. I didn’t want just another Japanese restaurant. I wanted to bring good fish, so I started connecting with all the people that I knew in Japan, like a broker who chooses the fish for us to ship daily.
Many folks might be surprised to know a Venezuelan is the face of these successful Japanese spots. How does your Latinidad influence the restaurant experience?
I’m proud of my Latin heritage first and foremost. In my restaurants, it’s about keeping the [Latino] identity. I am very extroverted and I have a natural inclination for hospitality. I go behind the counter between the sushi chefs, I talk to people, and I do a kanpai (toast) with them and say, “Thank you for being here.” I bring the charm, the joking, the warmth that we have as Latin people and combine that with the structure and discipline of Japanese culture. The most beautiful things I’ve discovered have this contrast and balance.
I’m focused on changing the image of Miami as just party restaurants. I want people to be serious about gastronomy.— Álvaro Perez Miranda
Talk to me about the process of translating Japanese elements into your restaurants that are part of a transient, majority Latin city like Miami.
In Japan, I had a monk who was always teaching me that the most important part of a meal, the ritual of eating, is the connection that you have with your food. I wanted to apply that to my restaurants. I want people to feel like they’re in Japan, and for people that have been to Japan, that they come here and love it. I don’t entertain influencers or celebrities and I’m not kissing anyone’s butt. Celebrities are treated like regular people at Hiyakawa, nobody asks for pictures and nobody bothers them.
When I moved to Miami in 2018, I wanted to focus more on quality over quantity. I asked chef Masayuki Komatsu [previously of Morimoto in South Beach] to open up a restaurant with me (Wabi Sabi, later Hiyakawa). I visited him at a restaurant where he was cooking and saw how organized he was; he had an engineering mind and zero ego. We established a really good relationship. I bring ideas he executes, and he brings his own ideas. We both understand the common purpose: anything that we do, we gotta do it with excellence.
I love how tight knit your restaurant staff is. Talk to me about the team dynamic and your proudest success stories.
This is not just a job. You can go take orders and make your tips and go back home, but this [APM Restaurant Group] is something that we can grow in our own, mindful way. As a restaurateur, I’m very conscious of my employees and clients. When you come into Hiyakawa, we (our staff) open the door. When people leave, everybody goes outside and says goodbye. We build relationships and community; we actually become friends with our customers.
I want my people to grow with me. I want them to have opportunities. Every time I go to Japan, I take one of my employees with me. I open the restaurants five days a week, so everybody takes two days off. Everybody takes vacations.
At Hiyakawa, most staff have been there since the beginning. The two Miguels (Miguel Wiel and Miguel Martinez) are now in management positions, helping to develop Wabi Sabi and Hiyakawa abroad. Chef Masa started with me as an employee, now he’s my business partner at APM Restaurant Group. Luis Martinez, a sommelier, started as a waiter. He’s now the Director of Operations and also a business partner in Ogawa. Royce Appling, who started with me in Hiyakawa four years ago, is also a business partner in Ogawa.
Japanese concepts have been gaining momentum around the country. What’s your take on this moment and where do you go from here?
In Miami, there are so many omakase and sushi spots that keep popping up. Everybody does hamachi. Ogawa is the first Ibaraki-style restaurant in the U.S. We use very specific products from Ibaraki: melons, strawberries, sweet potatoes, chestnuts, Hitachi wagyu, and beautiful sake. For example, each plant yields one singular melon per season. This means that the flavor and sugars are concentrated into one single fruit.
I’m focused on changing the image of Miami as just party restaurants. I want people to be serious about gastronomy. I want you to have a good meal, a good time, and I want you to connect [with the food]. My target is to put Miami on the same level as Tokyo, New York, or Los Angeles. The food has to be about simplicity, respect for the product and tradition, freshness, tradition, and getting it right with attention to detail. I want my restaurants to be more about craftsmanship, always serving the best and not compromising the quality, even if it costs me more.
Just like a lot of great concepts are here [in Miami] from Los Angeles, New York, and Austin, I can be competitive. People can tell there is something different and special here.
Alisha Miranda is a food and travel journalist and #LatinxIndustryNight cultural producer based in Philadelphia. Follow her at @alishainthebiz. Follow Resy, too.
