Javier Ramirez is a Miami based finance professional passionate about chef-driven cuisine, culinary tourism and food photography. He writes about his tour of Casual Culinary Classics with outsider impressions by top Venezuelan food blogger Nidal Barake of yoculinario.com.

Being a culinary enthusiast and living in a popularly attractive city as is Miami means that you must be prepared to entertain relatives, friends and and friends of friends at local restaurants and also have a short list for the regular “where should we eat” prompt.

After years of experience and as someone that is truly passionate about helping people eat great food, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most effective strategy has to do with tailoring any recommendation. The more you understand the party  who you are recommending to and their expectations, the better (assuming you have also done your homework in terms of understanding the objective of each restaurant’s offering). I usually deal with the latter by asking a few questions, like how many in your party, what is the purpose of the meal, do you have a particular cuisine you prefer, etc. The former I deal with through the obvious route: visiting as many restaurants as possible and making sure I never recommend a restaurant I’ve never been to.

When I’m approached by people from out of town, their homebase is also a key factor. It’s not the same to make a recommendation to someone visiting from New York than someone from Caracas. Miami has experienced over the last 4 years a Vegas-like explosion of clone restaurants from existing ones in big cities like London, Los Angeles, Milan and New York, so it would be foolish to send someone from the Big Apple to, for instance, db Bistro Moderne or The Dutch, despite the fact that they are two of Miami’s best restaurants.