Chef from Michelin-starred Miami Beach restaurant opens a new spot in the Florida Keys

Miami Herald

11-03-2025

This winter has been a busy season for Chef Jeremy Ford, the force behind the Michelin-starred restaurant Stubborn Seed in Miami Beach. He has made it through the grueling first year at the organic Ford's Farm, his 5.5 acre stretch of land in Homestead. In February, he and his team opened a new Stubborn Seed at Resorts World Las Vegas in February.
And now, he has opened a brand-new restaurant, Salt + Ash, at Hawks Cay Resort in the Florida Keys.
While the opening of a restaurant from a Michelin-recognized brand has become business as usual in the exploding culinary landscape of Miami, it's a noteworthy event in the Florida Keys. Ford, who also opened The Butcher's Club in Palm Beach Gardens in 2022, can't quite believe everything that has happened in the past few months.
'It's been a whirlwind, I'll tell you that,' he says. 'I've learned a lot, and I'm still learning, still growing. But you know, I think that we're producing something very different for the Monroe County.'
The addition of Salt + Ash is part of a series of upgrades at the family-friendly resort, which is updating its 177 guest rooms and spa and will also be turning its poolside Pilar Bar into an outdoor restaurant serving Asian fusion and cocktails inspired by Ernest Hemingway. The 60-acre resort, which includes five swimming pools and a saltwater lagoon, is also renovating its marina to include 85 boat slips, a project that is expected to be finished by fall 2025.
Reggie Cooper, managing director at Hawks Cay, said having a Ford restaurant on the property was a huge benefit to the resort, which is located on Duck Key, almost (but not quite) midway between Key Largo and Key West.
'Chef Ford brings an authentic taste of Florida's culinary spirit to the resort,' he said. 'His bold take on the Keys' seasonal flavors add a fresh, exciting dimension to our dining offerings with dishes that uniquely capture the essence of the Florida Keys.'
'What we get here is special'
Located in what used to be an extremely large gift shop, Salt + Ash offers diners an airy, upscale beach house atmosphere. The menu highlights elevated coastal cuisine, with seafood playing the starring role in dishes like the crispy local snapper with tomato and ginger emulsion, pickles, nuac cham and Thai basil or olive oil poached swordfish with white bean puree, Sicilian olives, charred peppers and fennel pollen.
'What we do here that's different is that we have fishermen coming around, right to the dock at Duck Key, so we're producing some of the freshest fish you'll ever have,' Ford says. 'It's a game changer, right? Because a lot of these guys, they won't drive up to Miami, they won't drive up to West Palm. So what we get here is special. My chef de cuisine at Stubborn can't get what we get here.'
Also on the menu are Key West pink shrimp with charred shishito peppers, as well as seafood towers with shrimp, raw oysters, marinated clams and a tuna-coconut ceviche. A delicate, delicious poached wahoo crudo is served with charred cucumber vinegarette, Yuzu buttermilk emulsion, beans and mint.
But some of the true delights of the restaurant showcase what has made Ford's restaurants so popular: vegetable-forward dishes with eye-popping complexity, with many ingredients sourced from the chef's farm. Memorable dishes include golden organic tomatoes — a Ford's Farm specialty — with stracciatella, Asian pear, zata'ar, herbs and basil oil. Two charred dishes, the jerk carrots with pickled tomatoes, spiced yogurt and herbs and the cauliflower with tahini cashew puree, sesame chili crisp, furikake and herbs, reveal startling new flavors with every bite.
Ready for the next growing season
Ford says that the farm-to-table options have been a hit with Keys residents.
'To be honest, tourists are going to come and go, but the locals that are here, I think, are really enjoying the farm fresh product that we're bringing,' he says. 'We're off to a great start.'
The first season at the farm has turned out to be a good one, Ford says. At one point, they were harvesting 10 to 15 pounds of tomatoes a day. Now, though, the growing season is drawing to a close, and the restaurant will have to source its produce from other places.
Ford's longtime friend and business partner Joe Mizzoni, who splits his time between Ford's Farm and Salt + Ash, says the team, which includes Salt + Ash chef de cuisine and partner Kyle Campbell, will be more experienced and better prepared for the 2025-2026 growing season.
'I know what grows consistently at a decent rate, what's good for producing for the restaurants, what size plots we need to maintain certain dishes at the restaurant,' he says. 'So we learned a lot of stuff. I would say we'll probably cut down by a third to a half of what we were growing, and grow more of the things that were consistent or we're using across the board.'
Ford agrees with this assessment and says that the plan for summer is to cover the grounds with sorghum, a cover crop that can add nitrogen to the soil.
'Can we grow okra, eggplant and collard greens all summer long? 100 percent,' he says. 'We'll grow a couple of those items just because we want to have some stuff from the farm at the restaurant.
'But we're kind of looking forward to shutting it down more or less for the next four or five months. I think Joe and I and Kyle have all put hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears in the farm, and we realized for a farm to be successful, it needs a rest. As we all do. So we're gonna let that rest until probably September, then we'll start propagating seeds. But I think coming into 2025-26 season, we're much more prepared and organized for one hell of a season.'
Salt + Ash
Where: Hawks Cay Resort, 61 Hawks Cay Blvd., Duck Key
Hours: 5-9 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday and Sunday; 5-10 p.m. Friday Saturday
More information and reservations: www.saltandashflakeys.com or 305-289-2999