A best restaurants near me search will list Shingo at 112 Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables and tell you nothing about the thing that actually determines whether you eat there. This is a fourteen-seat counter running two seatings a night, which means the entire evening's capacity is twenty-eight people. The cooking earned a Michelin star in both 2024 and 2025. The booking system is the gate.
Ask Karpo which of the two seatings suits your evening, when bookings tend to open, and what to do in Coral Gables with the hours on either side.
Two seatings, and they are not the same evening
Service runs at six and at nine. The early seating is the conventional choice and it is the one that books out first. The nine o'clock is later than most people in Miami eat, which makes it consistently easier to get and, for an omakase, arguably the better one — a counter at nine has settled into its rhythm in a way it has not at six.
Both run the same menu. The difference is pace and room temperature, not content.
The booking mechanics
Reservations run through Tock, and there is a forty-eight-hour rule: cancellations, reschedules and any changes have to be made at least two days before your seating. That is standard for a counter this size — fourteen seats cannot absorb a late drop — but it means booking speculatively and deciding later is not an option.
Check the party size before you book. Counter restaurants seat in specific configurations and a group of five is a harder problem than a group of two or four.
Edomae technique, Florida sourcing
Shingo Akikuni is a fourth-generation sushi master from Osaka, and the kitchen works in the traditional idiom — fish aged, cured and dressed by the chef rather than served raw and unadorned — while drawing on seasonal ingredients sourced both locally in Florida and from Japan. That combination is the point of eating this in Miami rather than in Tokyo.
Eat each piece immediately. At a counter this size the chef is timing every piece to the moment it reaches you, and letting it sit while you finish a sentence undoes the work.
The building is part of it
The restaurant opened in May 2023 inside the historic La Palma building, one of Coral Gables' 1920s Mediterranean-revival structures. Coral Gables was planned from scratch in that decade with strict architectural rules, which is why the whole district still looks coherent nearly a century later.
Arriving early and walking the surrounding blocks is genuinely worth doing, particularly if you have the nine o'clock seating and an hour to fill. Miracle Mile and Giralda Avenue are both a short walk.
How to behave at a counter this small
Fourteen seats compress the social contract. The chef can see every plate, hear most of the table and read whether a piece has been sitting too long, which means the room runs on a different set of expectations than a dining room with a wall of service between you and the kitchen. Arrive on time rather than fashionably late — a seating that starts together stays together, and a late party resets the pacing for everyone at the counter.
Keep the phone off the counter. Photography is generally tolerated at omakase rooms but the sequence is built on eating each piece the moment it lands, and a table that pauses to shoot every course drags the whole service. If you want one photograph, take it quickly and put the phone away. The same logic applies to heavy fragrance: at a counter where the food is dressed with restraint and the room is fourteen people wide, scent travels.
Coral Gables is a planned city, and it shows
George Merrick laid out Coral Gables in the 1920s as a complete Mediterranean-revival scheme — coral-rock construction, plazas, fountains, and architectural codes strict enough that the district still reads as one design a century later. Alhambra Circle, where the restaurant sits, is part of that original street plan, which is why it curves when the rest of Miami's grid does not.
Practically that gives you an hour worth spending on foot rather than in a bar. Miracle Mile runs four blocks of shopfronts a short walk away; the Biltmore's tower is visible from much of the district; Giralda Avenue has been closed to traffic and turned into a dining street. If you have the nine o'clock seating, arrive at seven and walk it in daylight. The neighbourhood is one of very few in Miami that rewards being seen slowly and on foot. One further note on timing: valet and street parking in the district both thin out after nine, so the later seating is also the easier arrival.
Practical notes
Shingo is at 112 Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables, Miami, inside the historic La Palma building. It is a fourteen-seat omakase counter with two seatings nightly, at 6pm and 9pm, booked through Tock. Changes and cancellations must be made at least forty-eight hours ahead. It held a Michelin star in 2024 and 2025. The nine o'clock seating is generally easier to get. Miracle Mile and Giralda Avenue are within a short walk.
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know which of the two seatings suits your evening, when bookings tend to open, and what to do in Coral Gables with the hours either side? Ask Karpo for current availability patterns, a plan that fills the gap before a nine o'clock counter, and a nearby alternative for the nights it is full.
