Gracianas

Graciana’s is an interesting restaurant in the Weston Town Center. Right off of the main street you will find this location. They actually own four restaurants and two markets. This location here in Weston is one of the markets, but it also serves food and has a nice sit down area. Their restaurant locations are Bird Road, Brickell, Coral Gables, and Hialeah. They have markets in all of these locations as well, plus Weston and now they have opened in Doral as well. This location has a full market where you can buy all kinds of things from Meats, to dairy, to staple food items.

They claim to offer the best Argentine food in Miami, but were among the first to introduce the cuisine to the region. Starting in Miami in 1990, in an Argentine market opened on Coral Way they soon learned that people wanted more than a market – they wanted traditional Argentine grilled meat. And so they started cooking. On weekends they would set up wooden tables in the parking lot with Coca-Cola crates for chairs, set up our grill outside, and people came.They come here with decades of experience. Fifty years ago, in Buenos Aires, Mario Graziano established a traditional butcher shop. After almost three decades in business, he decided to try his luck in the United States, and he moved to Miami with his wife, Maria, and their children. Maria and the children worked with Mario – the kids grew up in the business, working on weekends when they were in school, then graduating to careers in Graziano’s Group. They’re still working at Graziano’s now, and so are many of Mario’s grandchildren.They’ve grown since the early days serving grilled meat in the parking lot, but their ideals and traditions are still the same – the best cuts of meat, prepared in traditional Argentine ways, from their family to you.

The Food:

Graciana’s has a pretty nice sized menu to choose from. I was with a colleague from work who was from out of town. We had just been visiting a local office, and were both very hungry. Once inside the market we noticed that there were plenty of tables to sit at and also a counter. The place is quite large and not marked very well as to where you order or pick up your food. Turned out that they will deliver it to your table if you plan to stay and eat like we did. After a lot of going back and forth, I finally settled on the turkey burger which was accompanied by tomato, lettuce, and mozzarella cheese on a fresh bun. My side item was french fries which were pretty good. The burger was nice and juicy and full of flavor. The french fries were nice and crisp like I like them.

My work colleague decided to have the soup of the day with a side of sweet potato fries. She said that the soup was full of flavor with a lot of pork, chickpeas and potatoes. The broth had a nice pork broth to it. She also mentioned that the sweet potato fries were nice and crisp, just like mine and tasted very good. We would both recommend if you are in the area that you go ahead and try this place out.