Side Dish

He wasn’t a local but the South Florida food world will miss him all the same: William Garry, the editor in chief of Bon Appetít, died June 29 at age 56. The passage hasn’t yet been reported in the magazine; in fact the August issue features one of Garry’s tongue-in-cheek letters from the editor. Epicurious, the Website where the magazine’s online version is found, however, has a tribute posted there, along with instructions on where to send memorial contributions (Cedars Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center) if you’re so inclined. Garry steered Bon Appetít for the past fifteen years and was known to be both unpretentious and just slightly irreverent. It’ll be interesting to see in which direction the magazine goes now.

•Given Jonathan Eismann’s expertise with fish and seafood at his Pacific Time restaurant, perhaps it’s not surprising that he’s added several sea-creature dishes to the Westside Diner. Offerings include shrimp Creole, seafood gumbo, and fish-‘n’-chips, along with a catch of the day. Eismann also is expanding the diner’s seating during September, so expect some chaos of the reorganizational kind. Other changes: The restaurant now advertises local delivery service and is doing corporate catering. But the best move of all is that the formerly cash-only eatery now takes plastic, providing for perennially cash-poor gastronomes.

•Late of Yuca and even later of Meza Fine Art gallerycafé, executive chef Luis Contreras has landed at a fitting venue: Diego’s Restaurant in Coral Gables. The Spanish eatery can only benefit from Contreras’s experience, since he has years of practice incorporating tropical flavors into Spanish-based dishes. What’s Diego’s calling the creations? Why, New Iberian cuisine, of course, which the restaurant hopes will also be, in marketing terms, New Customer cuisine.

Send your tasty tidbits to Jen Karetnick at 2800 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33137. Or e-mail Kavetchnik@aol.com