Kojin 2.0 – the pop-up that outgrew three months by two years

On Ponce de Leon Boulevard, where Coral Gables' grid formally begins at Eighth Street, Kojin 2.0 carries little of the secrecy that built its name. The original Kojin was meant to last only three months but lingered for two years, earning a Michelin recommendation along the way, and was even named New Times' Best-Kept Secret for dining in 2022. In July 2024, Kojin opened in Coral Gables, an immediate success with media and diners alike for its intimate setting, warm hospitality and inventive cooking. Kojin 2.0, once a back-of-house pop-up, is now a full Coral Gables restaurant with 30 seats and an open-kitchen view. Run by husband-and-wife chefs Pedro and Katherine Mederos, it is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, its contemporary menu folding Japanese technique into Florida produce without settling comfortably into either category.

01The room and the setting

Kojin 2.0 occupies a bright, 30-seat dining room with an open-kitchen view just south of Coral Gables' retail spine. Banquettes and café tables sit beneath bold floral prints by Miami illustrator and printmaker 22nd of Never, and two coveted counter seats look straight into the pass, where Chef Pedro works calmly through each ticket.

Arriving guests wait in a small front room with a glass of prosecco before being shown to their table. Fresh flowers on every table and an inlaid bookshelf set above the kitchen window give the chef's bar its particular charm, and it isn't unusual for Pedro or Katherine to stop by a table mid-service to talk through the night's tasting menu.

02The chefs

Pedro Mederos was born in Cuba and raised in Miami, discovering cooking as a teenager before training at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, in the heart of Napa Valley. There, working seasonally driven kitchens that included Goose & Gander and the three-Michelin-starred SingleThread, he met Katherine, a fellow CIA student visiting California for a semester from the Hyde Park, New York campus.

Insider tip

Dinner Wed–Sat, Saturday brunch; reserve on OpenTable; 24 hours' notice requested for dietary needs

Back in Miami in late 2019, Pedro went straight to work for chef Brad Kilgore at the acclaimed Wynwood restaurant Alter. When the pandemic closed it, the couple responded with a dumpling pop-up that eventually became the eight-seat Chef's Counter behind Hachidori Ramen in Little River — the first Kojin. Katherine now runs Kojin's pastry programme and much of its day-to-day operations, having co-founded a Miami hospitality group that grew from a three-day-a-week dumpling pop-up into a Michelin-reviewed restaurant before joining Pedro full-time at Kojin.

03The cooking

Pedro once summed up the original Kojin's spirit as a punk rock experience in a jazz bar, describing the restaurant's blend of high-quality cooking with an anything-goes attitude — serious technique worn lightly, never showily. Two years into the Coral Gables address, the couple rebuilt the menu from the ground up, calling it their "second album": rather than flying in fish from Japan daily as they once did, the kitchen turned to local seafood and Florida produce, letting the cooking sound more like Miami and less like a borrowed idiom.

Dishes built on that shift have included a crudo of raw snapper treated almost like dessert, finished with caramelized evaporated milk and cacao honey and a scoop of Katherine's lemon sorbet, and "Tongue in Cheek" — smoked beef cheek layered with pastrami-style beef tongue, a rich bordelaise, caramelized potato foam and a confit potato finished in smoked butter. The kitchen also runs on a self-declared zero-waste ethic, composting with local partners and designing dishes to use every part of a sourced ingredient.

04What to order

On the current à la carte menu, expect the Kojin Caesar with local greens, katsumirin, nori and smoked trout roe; Foie Toast on seasoned rye with foie ganache and strawberry preserve; and Osaka Chicharrones, crispy pork skin finished with ranch togarashi and shallot aïoli, alongside a daily Market Crudo and a maitake mushroom plate with parmesan and farrotto.

05When to go and booking

Kojin serves dinner Wednesday to Saturday from 5:30 to 9:30pm, with a Saturday brunch from 11am to 3pm. Walk-ins are welcome, though tasting menus are best reserved on OpenTable, where regulars also earn loyalty points toward free drinks or tasting menus. The kitchen asks for 24 hours' notice on dietary restrictions.

The restaurant also hosts private dinners, corporate gatherings and VIP receptions in the same 30-seat room, in a setting pitched as minutes from top hotels and the shops of Miracle Mile. It sits on the corner of Eighth Street and Ponce de Leon, at the formal entrance to Coral Gables.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.