Italian Fine Dining With a $120 Chef's Table: Mano Libera

Mano Libera means free hand, and chef Marco Giugliano named his first restaurant after the way he likes to cook: without a fixed script. The South Miami dining room opened in December 2024, and by 2026 it had been added to the Michelin Guide's recommended selection in Florida and to the 50 Top Italy list of the best Italian restaurants outside Italy. If you are searching for fine dining near me south of Coral Gables, this is the table where the chef decides what you eat and plates two pastas side by side so neither gets lost.

Giugliano's own bio, printed on the first page of the menu, says he comes from Piazzolla di Nola, outside Naples, and started out in Michelin-starred kitchens on the Amalfi Coast, in Naples and in London. Miami Living names two of them, Quattro Passi in London and Taverna Estia in Italy. He then cooked in Mykonos, New York and Connecticut before settling in Miami, where many diners first met his food at Doma in Wynwood.

Mano Libera is the first restaurant he can call his own, and he runs it with co-owner Roberto Maiorano. When Miami New Times visited a few weeks after the December 21 opening, Giugliano described it as an Italian omakase and joked that he was done with cacio e pepe and spaghetti and meatballs. Maiorano explained the location: Wynwood was packed, he said, while South Miami had a strong year-round community waiting for something fresh.

The joke has softened since then. The current menu does carry a cacio e pepe, but it arrives with Sicilian red prawn tartare and a crumble of Scorza Nera pecorino, which is a fair summary of the whole kitchen: Neapolitan roots, a habit of adding one surprise to every plate.

Nobody will mistake this room for a hushed white-tablecloth dining room, and that is deliberate. The restaurant was designed with Neapolitan artist Gianpiero, whom New Times called the Italian Romero Britto, and the walls are covered in bold red tiles and bright paintings. Giugliano told the paper that everything in South Miami felt the same, all white tablecloths and neutral colors, and he wanted a place that was loud, fun and unapologetically Italian.

The centerpiece is a sculptural chef's table shaped like an open hand, the same hand that appears in the logo. Around it there is an open kitchen, a glass cabinet where steaks dry-age in full view and a wine display drawn from cellars around the world. Even the tableware was made to order in Italy: Giugliano had divided plates produced so that two pastas can share one dish without running into each other, which is how the tasting menu serves its pasta course.

The heart of the restaurant is Chef Marco's tasting menu, printed on the menu at $120 per person, with a wine pairing for another $95. It runs through a welcome bite, a selection of seasonal appetizers for the table, pasta dishes, a main course to share, dessert and piccola pasticceria, plus house focaccia, grissini and whipped sheep's milk ricotta. The menu sets one firm rule: the tasting has to be ordered by the entire table, and it can't be combined with à la carte orders.

When New Times first wrote about it, the chef's table took groups of four to eight for a dinner of about two hours, and Giugliano tailored it to what each table did and didn't want. Tell your server about allergies when you sit down, and say so again when you book. The kitchen's own note at the foot of the menu says it will do its best to accommodate dietary requests, and adds that some dishes may contain nuts.

If your table prefers to choose, start with the Ragù Napoletano at $23: rib and beef shank slow-roasted for 18 hours, with fior di latte foam, San Marzano tomato and toasted crostini. Among the raw plates, the tuna tartare at $24 pairs bluefin with avocado mousse, lemon caviar, orange gel and wasabi popcorn. The vitello tonnato arrives as Il Nostro Donut, a $26 donut stuffed with glazed veal and tonnato sauce, and the vegetarian bao at $20 holds eggplant three ways with fior di latte mousse and pecan crumble.

Pasta is where the Naples upbringing shows. Linguine alla Nerano at $28 uses Gragnano linguine with fried and dried zucchini and Parmigiano foam. The Gnocchetti at $34 are Neapolitan scaniuziello gnocchi in a Genovese ragù cooked for 18 hours, and Spaghetti alle Vongole at $32 adds salted eggplant pulp and pistachio to little neck clams. For a richer plate, the saffron risotto with ossobuco is $47.

Mains include Scottish glazed salmon at $40, Alaskan black cod in a potato crust at $45 and a whole Mediterranean branzino baked in salt crust at $88, sized for sharing. The dry-aged collection from the glass cabinet, porterhouse and ribeye plus a cotoletta alla Milanese the menu calls the Elephant Ear, is priced by the market and comes with a side. Extra sides are $11.

Reservations run through OpenTable, linked from the restaurant's own site, and the team also takes private events by email. The tasting menu is the reason to book ahead, because the whole table has to commit to it, so agree on it with your group before you reserve. When you book, ask for a seat near the hand-shaped table if you want to watch the open kitchen at work.

Sunday is the one day the room serves lunch, which makes it the easiest way to try the menu in daylight. The mood is closer to a family dinner in Naples than to a formal tasting room. Giugliano works the floor himself, switching between Italian and Spanish, and he likes to hear what guests think of each plate.

The restaurant sits a short walk from Sunset Drive, the tree-lined main street of downtown South Miami, where an early evening stroll takes in small shops, cafés and the neighborhood's low-rise storefronts. Red Road, the busy north-south avenue that leads up into Coral Gables, runs a block to the east.

If you arrive by train, the South Miami Metrorail station on US-1 is a short walk away, and the University of Miami's Coral Gables campus is a stop up the line. Drivers can continue north afterward to Miracle Mile in Coral Gables for a nightcap. Ask the Karpo APP for a wine bar nearby or a backup Italian table if the tasting menu is booked out.

Address: Mano Libera, at 7201 SW 59th Ave, Miami, FL 33143. Phone: (786) 783-6960. Email: info@manoliberamiami.com. Hours: open Tuesday to Saturday from 6 pm to 11 pm, Sunday from 12 pm to 10:30 pm, and closed on Monday.

Prices from the official menu: Chef Marco's tasting menu $120 per person, whole table only, wine pairing $95, pastas $27 to $40. Recognition: Michelin Guide recommended and 50 Top Italy, both 2026. Booking: OpenTable. Opened December 2024.