Beyond fishing and tiki bars: Can Michelin put Keys food scene in the spotlight?

Food admin June 15, 2026 0 Comments

Beyond fishing and tiki bars: Can Michelin put Keys food scene in the spotlight?

Richard Hatch had never thought of his Key West restaurant Blue Heaven as a Michelin Guide sort of restaurant. Its colorful history alone would seem to exclude any notice from the famous culinary guide (boxing, gambling, cockfighting, all accomplished long before Hatch was born, of course).

The floors are dirt and the chickens are plentiful. The chicks are adorable, but the roosters are loud. If you’re sitting outside in the courtyard — and everybody wants to sit in the courtyard — fans work hard to keep you cool. The chairs are plastic (“high quality plastic!” Hatch assures us). The idea of a dress code is laughable, almost as silly as thinking you won’t have to wait if you are determined to eat breakfast there.

It’s safe to say, Hatch says, laughing, “we’re not getting Michelin stars.”

And yet, Blue Heaven is now a Michelin recognized restaurant, along with its neighbor Moondog Cafe & Bakery, which was named a Bib Gourmand.

This is the first year that the Michelin Guide has opened up to all of Florida, and for the first time the Keys (as well as cities like Jacksonville, Sarasota and Tallahassee) became part of the guide’s consideration. While Keys restaurants didn’t earn stars for 2026 — only Miami and West Palm Beach did — the addition of Blue Heaven and Moondog Cafe offers the possibility of more attention for the Keys culinary scene.

‘Great restaurants’

Kara Franker, president and chief executive officer for Visit Florida Keys, hopes the recognition is the start of something bigger.

“People think of tiki bars and Key lime pie when they think of Key West,” she says. “But there are great restaurants in Key West and scattered through the Keys. It’s such a big deal for us. It opens up a whole new group of tourists for us. Folks love coming here for the history and the culture and because it’s a weird, fun place to visit, but a lot of people purposely travel to a destination to look for restaurants with Michelin affiliation.”

Competing for attention with the sun, the sunsets and the water is complicated for Keys restaurants. They face the same issues mainland restaurants face — namely high costs for food and rent — but with somewhat more intensity. Staffing is especially difficult because the Keys are an expensive place to live for the work force, and kitchen staff or servers working anywhere past Islamorada suffer an unbearable commute to Florida City or Homestead.

Anything that brings attention to the restaurants is a positive step, Franker says, adding that the Keys got a publicity boost when Miami chef Jeremy Ford opened his restaurant Salt & Ash in March 2025 at Hawk’s Cay Resort on Duck Key.

Michelin attention will hopefully lure other chefs, Franker says.

“The more we can open it up to new chefs, the more we can up the game when it comes to the culinary,” she said.

‘A well-known secret’

The Michelin recognition is already making a difference, says Jamille Cucci, who with her partner Dominique Falkner owns Moondog Cafe & Bakery, a laid-back restaurant a minute’s walk from the historic Hemingway Home & Museum. The cafe, which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, is known primarily as a breakfast spot known for croissants, blueberry-lemon quinoa pancakes and the Elvis French Toast, made with banana bread and stuffed with peanut butter, bacon and banana and topped with bourbon maple syrup.

In recent years, the cafe has gotten more notice for its lunch and dinner offerings — burgers, fisherman’s stew, even vegan items like the Green Giant veggie burger, a family recipe that has been passed down for more than 30 years.

Cucci hopes the Bib Gourmand designation, awarded to restaurants that offer great food at reasonable prices, draws more diners to Moondog and other locally owned restaurants.

“We’ve already had people who have sent us email congratulations, and we’ve had some people in the day it was announced who knew about it,” she said. “A lot more people follow Michelin than we had expected.”

The Keys dining scene is better than people realize, she believes — and it’s time to let more people know.

“It’s a well known secret that people who live in Key West hold close to their chests — there’s really great food here now,” she said. “The scene has broadened. It gives people another reason to come visit aside from the fishing and the sunsets. Now they can plan where they’re going to eat. That’s a great evolution for the island.”

‘Already having an effect’

With a restaurant that’s the culinary equivalent of the Hemingway house, a tourist destination in its own right, Blue Heaven owner Hatch doesn’t have a huge need to drum up customers. Even in the slower season of summer, there’s at least an hour wait for breakfast, where diners gorge on blueberry pancakes and lobster eggs Benedict. Later in the day, they tend to stuff themselves on shrimps, scallops or yellowtail and of course the famous Key lime pie.

“I think back to when we opened and remember putting some flowers on a picnic table and serving jerk fish, rice and beans just hoping for a customer,” Hatch says. “And look at us now.”

Lunch and dinner service has grown at the restaurant, which Hatch opened in 1992 with his wife Suanne Kitchar, and the restaurant’s Key lime pie has become a legend from the Southernmost Point to West Palm Beach and beyond. Even so, he has noticed a change since the Michelin honors, with more customers than he expected mentioning the subject.

“It’s already having an effect,” Hatch said. “We’re super busy. The chefs are stoked. I was surprised by how many people from afar have sent congratulations and salutations.”

And if the recognition puts a bigger spotlight on Keys restaurants, he’s happy.

“It’s tough to open a restaurant in Key West if you don’t own the property,” he says. “Rents are just crazy, plus all the rules and regulations just to get started. Food costs, my goodness! And fuel costs, too. Everything is so expensive.”

Hatch himself is not immune to the pull of the Michelin Guide. On a recent trip up to Miami Beach, he went to Jeremy Ford’s Stubborn Seed, one of the first Miami area restaurants to earn a Michelin star in 2022.

“It was fantastic,” he says enthusiastically. “I sat at the bar with a wonderful bartender and server. I had the six-course tasting menu. My only regret was I didn’t get nine courses instead.”