Pamplemousse On The Bay: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Pamplemousse On The Bay sits on the water inside Southgate Towers on West Avenue, on the bay side of Miami Beach most tourists never reach. A wraparound patio, marina views, and a French-Mediterranean menu built around duck, beef, and fresh seafood: that’s the setup. A vegetarian isn’t the customer this kitchen is built for. But there’s enough here to put together a real meal if you know where to look.

Start with the Cauliflower Steak. It’s plated as a full entree, not a side dish dressed up to look like one. Pair it with the Heirloom Tomato Carpaccio or the Roasted Beet Salad, and you’ve got two courses without a single animal product between them. Hummus is on the menu too, alongside a Watermelon Salad and Vegetables Jardiniere for something lighter. Cheese eaters have options as well. Roasted Camembert and Macaroni au Gratin both work, and the Truffle Fries make a safe side no matter what else lands on the table.

Vegetarian diners aren’t who this menu was built around, and the labeling shows it. Only one item on the entire menu carries the restaurant’s own “Vegan” tag: the Sorbet, two scoops for $14. Everything else that works for a vegetarian, the cauliflower steak, the salads, the hummus, just sits there unlabeled. It’s mixed in among a menu dominated by Duck Magret, Filet au Poivre, Beef Cheek Confit, Red Snapper Ceviche, and a $225 tomahawk steak for two. Know that going in. Don’t expect a menu built with dietary callouts.

Reservations are close to mandatory. An active booking system runs on the restaurant’s own site, and given the water views and the check size, walking in without one on a weekend is a bad plan. Hours run Wednesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. A separate Sunday brunch seating runs noon to 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, the doors stay closed. Most entrees land between $28 and $59. Wednesday through Saturday brings a $28 lunch deal covering either an appetizer and entree or an entree and dessert, though it isn’t confirmed whether the vegetarian mains qualify.

No cross-contamination details or separate vegetarian prep line show up anywhere published, so don’t expect a segregated kitchen behind the scenes. What you get instead is a legitimate waterfront dinner. Order the cauliflower steak, the beet salad, and finish with the one dish on the menu the kitchen itself calls vegan. That’s not nothing, for a restaurant that never set out to make it easy.

The restaurant occupies a newly remodeled section of Southgate Towers, and the site lists boat parking as an option. That tells you plenty about who else is eating here on a Saturday night. It’s a scene as much as a meal. Coming anyway for a date or a group that picked the spot for the view? You can eat well without making it anyone else’s problem.