Freshly sourced
DAVID BRACHA • The River Oyster Bar Miami
WORK • Thursday Routine
DAVID BRACHA • owner • The River Oyster Bar Miami
Neighborhood you work in: Brickell
Neighborhood you live in: Bay Harbor Islands
It’s Thursday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Deliveries are arriving with fresh products, including seafood, oysters, meats, and produce, to The River Oyster Bar in Brickell. Both the back of house and front of house are setting up for lunch service. I usually arrive around 11a for a meeting with my sous chefs and general manager to discuss oysters, specials, new products, and any issues.
What’s on the agenda for today?
Planning a reprint of the menus shortly and working on some new items: octopus, stone crab pasta with uni, and sourcing a new rib-eye steak from Brasstown Beef for the menu.
Any bar or restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I’ve been enjoying Ghee in Wynwood for great Indian food, and Bar Bucce in the Upper East Side for a bar-pizza and cocktail experience.
How about a little leisure or culture?
Whenever the weather cooperates, I love to get out on the boat and do some stone crabbing or fishing.
Any weekend getaways?
Just got back from a road trip to the charming Florida coastal town of St. Augustine. It’s the oldest city in America. We ate at Lotus Noodle Bar: very cool Asian-inspired menu, great cocktails and food. The chef is Barry Honan, a Le Bernardin alum.
What was your last great vacation?
My last great vacation was a trip to Tuscany hosted by one of my investors with 14 people. We stayed at a winery estate, Villa Il Cellese, and took daytrips to the surrounding villages, ate amazing food, and drank amazing wine. The highlight was a steak dinner at the famous butcher’s restaurant Dario Cecchini. Highly recommend. Not just for the food, but also the atmosphere and the butcher himself.
Where are you donating your time or money?
We participate in Rethink Food, Castaways Against Cancer, and more recently, we participated in the Oyster Bash, part of SOBEWFF 2026.