Yardbird Southern Table & Bar is Miami's Hottest Spot For Chicken & Waffles

What's up, guys? Leslie Roberts here for Young Hollywood in Miami Beach, taking you behind the scenes of the hottest southern staple in town.

The man to my right, the man at the helm of Yardbird Southern Table and Bar. Executive, Chef, Patrick Rebolz. Chef, I have to tell you, I'm very excited to be here. Welcome, welcome. Yardbird is the place to be in Miami Beach. It's the hot spot, for sure.

It is the hot spot.

Now, the kitchen's right there, it's very hot. We gotta go to the kitchen. Come on, let's go.

Okay, let's go.

Chef, we are now behind the scenes at Yardbird. I see the chicken. Tell me what we're gonna make first.

Chicken and waffles.

Yes, yes. And you're the one who's gonna be making it. This recipe is actually from someone's grandmother, which I kind of love because.

Yeah, so our CEO, John Kunkel. So a lot of love goes into this chicken. So it comes in, and we actually brine it for 27 hours. And there's a lot of different things. Spices, a little sugar, some salt, that all kinda gets in there and marinates. What we're doing is we're kinda building the depth of flavors.

You've done this before, huh?

You think?

You're doing a great job. Okay. All right, perfect.

The next component, and also crucial, we're gonna put this into a pressure fryer.

Chicken is sitting, ready to be bathed.

Right, right. So, we'll slide this all the way in, and then we're gonna press it down. Pressure's the biggest thing. Sure. So it's the same thing as uh any pressure cooker, but instead of water, we use oil. It's able to braise it, cook it, tenderize it, and then we can manipulate it to pump the temperature at the very end and crisp everything up. So, super tender, juicy inside, and then super crispy outside.

Chef, you're getting excited.

I'm a little excited. We're gonna do the waffles next.

Okay, show me. I see them waiting for us.

All right, so we have uh the waffle.

I see some cheese sitting here. Does that go with the waffle?

We're gonna actually put the cheese right onto the actual waffle. This batter is kinda unique. So it's a waffle batter, so it's got some sweet notes to it. We kinda kicked it up a notch. We got chives in there, a little bit of Swiss, some cheddar. So it's really a sweet and savory waffle if you would. Close the hatch. Okay. Flip that bad boy over. Okay. Three minutes later, we'll be good to go. Up and over. Up. Flip. Like so. Open the hatch. Take that sucker off. And you got that nice crust right there.

I say this every time, but I wish we had scratch-and-sniff TV. To go along with our chicken and waffles and watermelon. I see eggs.

So, we have we have deviled eggs. It's kinda one of our southern staples we have here. So you have your egg whites. We took the yolks and we enhanced 'em with a lot of herbs, mustards, a lot of different flavor and components, if you would. So this is where we really kick it up a notch. A little bit of paprika, which is very, very traditional. And then we have a little bit of uh smoked trout roe, and then uh some just really nice finishing olive oil. Okay. Kinda brighten them all up. More herbs, just for uh a little kick in the very end. So there you go. There's your uh Yardbird Miami's deviled eggs.

Okay, we have our chicken, watermelon, waffles, deviled eggs. There's a table with my name on it.

Absolutely. Let's go. Let's go get into it.

So Chef, I was excited to be here before, but now I'm doubly excited 'cause the food is now done, in front of me.

Yeah, well, great job, by the way, helping out.

It looks amazing. This is a James Beard Award nominated restaurant. You do not need my help, of course.

You want me to serve you up?

Please.

Breast. Breast. Uh a little waffle, or a big waffle if you will.

That's a big one.

Of course, some of our minty, spicy watermelon. Perfection. Excellent. So, you're at Yardbird, we have a quite an extensive Bourbon bar. So, we wanted to play off of that with this dish as well. We took maple syrup that you need for your waffles, and we put some bourbon in there.

I'm chewing the waffles. I actually needed a moment to just savor that. That's good. And you smell the bourbon while you're chewing. Bourbon is your specialty. Very extensive bourbon list. We have this signature cocktail. It's our Blackberry Bourbon Lemonade. Kinda our go-to. A little sweetness, nice riches from the bourbon, lemonade, a little bit of bourbon, some blackberry. Chef! It's good stuff, right? Chef! Chef, this is good stuff. And for Miami, you're cooled down in a second. Yeah. I can't stop eating the chicken and waffles, but I've actually never had this deviled egg before. How do you do it?

Just go. Get after it.

It's good, yeah? That is so special. It's got a smoothness to it, a lightness. It's not too spicy. I taste the little caviar there. Nice nice little touch. It's wonderful. Excellent, excellent. There's Miami, there's L. A. , Vegas, Singapore. You guys have plans to take Yardbird even to to more countries around the world.

Yeah, we're gonna do some international for sure. But uh our main focus is the uh major cities domestically. So we're looking at D. C. , New York, Boston on the East Coast, and then uh Chicago, Denver and Dallas as well. So those six will probably be our next moves.

I will be there. Excellent. Cheers to that.

Cheers.