Unchained Charmer

When it comes to chain restaurants, Miami diners are like masochists at a convention of sadists.

Steak house, Mexican, Italian, Chinese. Seafood, burgers, chicken, hot dogs.

Chains are the culinary equivalent of the undead, sucking much of the quirky, weird, wonderful life out of preparing food for the nourishment and enjoyment of others and packaging it for sale as if it were this year's can't-get-out-of-its-own-way Chevy.

Which is why, even with its flaws, a restaurant like Macchiato Boutique is such an anti-chain charmer.

First, though, you've got to find the place, tucked away in the giant maw of Dadeland Station, which — if chain stores of all varieties are truly the undead — is Vlad the Impaler's castle in the heart of consumerist Transylvania. Eventually you'll wind up in a sliver of an industrial-looking space with big plate-glass windows; mismatched antiqued furniture; and a welcoming, thoroughly unpretentious atmosphere.

You probably should order a bottle of wine off the red-heavy, modestly affordable list before trying to wrap your taste buds around the fanciful, Italianesque menu, ripe with multiculti flourishes and the chef's florid imagination. ("Mini mozzarella di buffala stuffed with shrimp and sea bacon strips over a string bean tempura jungle," anyone?)

And that points to Macchiato Boutique's major flaw. For all of its delightful individuality, its resolute un-chain-ness, it feels more like the product of well-meaning amateurs than kitchen-hardened professionals. Take the "towered Caprese salad." Although it might seem like a good idea to wrap slices of barely ripe tomatoes and creamy buffalo mozzarella in phyllo dough and bake until the pastry turns golden, the reality is that cooking turns the tomatoes mushy and the cheese watery and robs the dish of its most essential element: its bright, summery freshness. The basil pesto decorating the plate made sense, but mango sauce too?

Then there's "chicken breast rolls filled with a black olive and sun-dried tomatoes caviar mashed potatoes and two-textured spinach," which translates roughly as "dry chicken breast stuffed with diced olives and tomatoes, given an inexplicably sweet glaze and a dusting of sesame seeds and julienned raw spinach before being plated with mashed potatoes swirled with tomato sauce." Caviar? Beats me.

Compared to that, "sautéed prawns and curried risotto wrapped in plantain leaf" was almost embarrassingly basic. It was also a lot better. Damn good, in fact. Though the serving was overly soupy, the rice was cooked a perfect al dente, the prawns fresh-tasting and tender, and the curry sauce richly seasoned and compelling.

For dessert, too, it's best to stick to basics, like a plush amaretto semifreddo gilded with nuts and molten chocolate — a dish as charming if not nearly as quirky as Macchiato Boutique itself.