Florida's first Kosher beach club to open in Miami Beach — just in time for Passover
An all-Kosher Beach Club blending Mediterranean cuisine and Israeli nightlife opens in Miami Beach this weekend.
It all started with an Instagram DM.
When event planner Nelly Rosenking — referred to as the queen of Jewish nightlife — slid into the direct messages of French kosher chef Olivia Ostrow on a whim, she wasn't expecting much to come out of it.
Rosenking and Ostrow became instant friends, bonding over their Jewish identities and careers as women business owners in Miami. The duo began brainstorming about what could come next for their careers after working for decades in Miami's culinary and event production scene.
Nana Kosher Beach Club, which officially opens next week on April 15, is a first-of-its-kind beach club offering guests a kosher experience, including a a Mediterranean-inspired menu that's fully Glatt kosher — the highest level of kosher food under Kosher Miami supervision.
The membership-style beach club promises a 'barefoot luxury' experience that blends beachfront dining with poolside perks, including bottle service with Israeli wines, day-to-night DJ entertainment and pickleball courts.
A new restaurant, La Mer, will open alongside the beach club and will feature a Mediterranean-inspired kosher menu from Chef Ostrow, who, as the owner of Miami's first kosher French restaurant Ostrow Brasserie, is no stranger to elevated kosher cuisine.
Rosenking, who owns Nellyslist, an event production company that specializes in Jewish events, said the concept for Nana merges her passion for bringing Jewish people together with Ostrow's passion for elevated kosher cooking.
'It developed very quickly because we're very on the same page. We speak the same hospitality language. We really care about our work, our craft, our magic,' she said.
Nana Beach Club and La Mer will both be operating out of an existing property that Miami Beach locals may be familiar with — Seacoast Suites at 5101 Collins Ave. Nana owners call it 'a diamond in the rough' but say they are transforming the space to fit their vision for the beach club.
'It is a place of peace and fun, and a piece of Tel Aviv, a piece of Tulum, a piece of Sat. Tropez, and a piece of Mykonos that is coming to Miami, and everyone is included — kosher, not kosher, this is a vibe.'
Nana Beach Club will be offering lunch and dinner throughout Passover, and is hosting a 12-hour opening party on Tuesday, April 15. The party will feature some high-profile names, including former NBA star Amar'e Stoudemire — who is debuting his Israeli wine collection Stoudemire Wines — Miami Heat's official DJ Irie, and kosher influencer Michelle Saka, who calls herself the 'Miami Food Yenta.'
'We want to give people a kosher experience, but high end,' said Rosenking.
'Another level of crazy'
But how to crank out a gourmet menu served beachside while following strict kosher guidelines? Chef Ostrow said it's possible, but that it's a 'huge challenge.'
'It's another level of crazy,' she said. 'You have to be insane enough to want to do something like that. And in the last 72 hours, I've been like banging my head against the wall. The kosher part of things is very important to me.'
Working in between two male-dominated worlds — restaurants and kosher food — Ostrow said she's used to being looked at as the underdog. But, with an accomplished resume, Ostrow said the cuisine speaks for itself.
'I always deliver, and I'm delivering again. The food is going to be spectacular,' Ostrow said.
With fish imported from the South of France, and Mediterranean-inspired items like lamb kefta, Israeli salad and Shakshuka, the menu boasts big flavors and fresh dishes. But, the owners emphasize that the beach club is a family-friendly space. There's a kid's menu and the day beds can fit families of up to ten people.
The beach club, which is hosting a special Shabbat dinner 'under the stars' on April 18, is meant to accessible to everyone, but special consideration has been taken for Jews of all observance levels, said Rosenking. Even Orthodox Jews, who follow Jewish laws very closely on Shabbat, are able to participate, because of the option to buy food and beverage packages ahead of time, eliminating any reason to use technology during Shabbat.
'So if you're very religious, you'll feel very comfortable, and this is a special privilege,' said Rosenking. 'And if you're not religious, then you're probably actually celebrating the holiday with us, because you're keeping kosher and you're following the rules.'
Ostrow said her cooking is inspired by her French upbringing and unpretentious, family-style dining. She recalls a recent Shabbat dinner she attended at Nelly's mother's home, for example.
'She cooked for me this insane meal, insane. It was me alone. She wanted me to be welcome in her house. And it's like a love affair. It was her saying, I love you,' she said.
'This is the French way of being, and a lot of Jews feel also that way.'
The beach club is meant to be a community atmosphere during the day that shifts to a Tel Aviv-style club at night. The menu has nods to Israeli culture, for example, calling the barbecue portion of the menu 'Al Ha'esh' or the the Hebrew word for 'on the fire.'
The word 'Nana' means, in Hebrew and in Arabic, 'mint leaf,' which is a nod to Middle Eastern culture of drinking mint tea after meals.
Nana Kosher Beach Club
Where: 5101 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33140
When: April 11, April 15, April 16, April 17, April 18 Lunch: 11AM - 5PM; Dinner: 5PM - 10PM; April 18: Shabbat dinner under the stars and pickup menu available
More information: https://nanakosherbeachclub.com
This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
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The story I'd heard was that Mick Jagger bought his first Clifton Chenier record in the late 1960s, at a store in New York's Greenwich Village. But when we talked this spring, Jagger told me he didn't do his record shopping in the Village. It would have been Colony Records in Midtown, he said, 'the biggest record store in New York, and it had the best selection.' Jagger was in his 20s, not far removed from a suburban-London boyhood spent steeping in the American blues. I pictured him eagerly leafing through Chess Records LPs and J&M 45s until he came across a chocolate-brown 12-inch record—Chenier's 1967 album Bon Ton Roulet! On the cover, a young Chenier holds a 25-pound accordion the length of his torso, a big, mischievous smile on his face. Bon Ton Roulet! is a classic zydeco album showcasing the Creole dance music of Southwest Louisiana, which blends traditional French music, Caribbean rhythms, and American R&B. This was different from the Delta and Chicago blues that Jagger and his Rolling Stones bandmates had grown up with and emulated on their own records. Although sometimes taking the form of slower French waltzes, zydeco is more up-tempo—it's party music—and features the accordion and the rubboard, a washboard hooked over the shoulders and hung across the body like a vest. Until he discovered zydeco, Jagger recalled, 'I'd never heard the accordion in the blues before.' Chenier was born in 1925 in Opelousas, Louisiana, the son of a sharecropper and accordion player named Joseph Chenier, who taught his son the basics of the instrument. Clifton's older brother, Cleveland, played the washboard and later the rubboard. Clifton had commissioned an early prototype of the rubboard in the 1940s from a metalworker in Port Arthur, Texas, where he illustrated his vision by drawing the design in the dirt, creating one of a handful of instruments native to the United States and forever changing the percussive sound of Creole music. Within a few years, the brothers were performing at impromptu house dances in Louisiana living rooms. They'd begin playing on the porch until a crowd assembled, then go inside, pushing furniture against the walls to create a makeshift dance hall. Eventually, they worked their way through the chitlin circuit, a network of venues for Black performers and audiences. They played Louisiana dance halls where the ceilings hung so low that Cleveland could push his left hand flat to the ceiling to stretch his back out without ever breaking the rhythm of what he was playing with his right. 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He died in 1987, at age 62. This fall, the Smithsonian's preservation-focused Folkways Recordings will release the definitive collection of Chenier's work: a sprawling box set, 67 tracks in all. And in June, to mark the centennial of Chenier's birth, the Louisiana-based Valcour Records released a compilation on which musicians who were inspired by Chenier contributed covers of his songs. These include the blues artist Taj Mahal, the singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, the folk troubadour Steve Earle, and the rock band the Rolling Stones. In 1978, Jagger met Chenier, thanks to a musician and visual artist named Richard Landry. Landry grew up on a pecan farm in Cecilia, Louisiana, not far from Opelousas. In 1969, he moved to New York and met Philip Glass, becoming a founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, in which he played saxophone. To pay the bills between performances, the two men also started a plumbing business. Eventually, the ensemble was booking enough gigs that they gave up plumbing. Landry also embarked on a successful visual-art career, photographing contemporaries such as Richard Serra and William S. Burroughs and premiering his work at the Leo Castelli Gallery. He still got back to Louisiana, though, and he'd occasionally sit in with Chenier and his band. (After Landry proved his chops the first time they played together, Chenier affectionately described him as 'that white boy from Cecilia who can play the zydeco.') Landry became a kind of cultural conduit—a link between the avant-garde scene of the North and the Cajun and Creole cultures of the South. From the July 1987 issue: Cajun and Creole bands are conserving native music Landry is an old friend; we met more than a decade ago in New Orleans. Sitting in his apartment in Lafayette recently, he told me the story of the night he introduced Jagger to Chenier. As Landry remembers it, he first met Jagger at a Los Angeles house party following a Philip Glass Ensemble performance at the Whisky a Go Go. The next night, as luck would have it, he saw Jagger again, this time out at a restaurant, and they got to talking. At some point in the conversation, 'Jagger goes, 'Your accent. Where are you from?' I said, 'I'm from South Louisiana.' He blurts out, 'Clifton Chenier, the best band I ever heard, and I'd like to hear him again.' ' 'Dude, you're in luck,' he told Jagger. Chenier was playing a show at a high school in Watts the following night. Landry called Chenier: 'Cliff, I'm bringing Mick Jagger tomorrow night.' Chenier responded, 'Who's that?' 'He's with the Rolling Stones,' Landry tried to explain. 'Oh yeah. That magazine. They did an article on me.' It seems the Rolling Stones had yet to make an impression on Chenier, but his music had clearly influenced the band, and not just Jagger. The previous year, Rolling Stone had published a feature on the Stones' guitarist Ronnie Wood. In one scene, Wood and Keith Richards convene a 3 a.m. jam session at the New York studios of Atlantic Records. On equipment borrowed from Bruce Springsteen, they play 'Don't You Lie to Me'—first the Chuck Berry version, then 'Clifton Chenier's Zydeco interpretation,' as the article described it. Chenier was in Los Angeles playing what had become an annual show for the Creole community living in the city. The stage was set at the Verbum Dei Jesuit High School gymnasium, by the edge of the basketball court. Jagger was struck by the audience. 'They weren't dressing as other people of their age group,' he told me. 'The fashion was completely different. And of course, the dancing was different than you'd normally see in a big city.' The band was already performing by the time he and Landry arrived. When they walked in, one woman squinted in Jagger's direction, pausing in a moment of possible recognition, before changing her mind and turning away. Chenier was at center stage, thick gold rings lining his fingers as they moved across the black and white keys of his accordion, his name embossed in bold block type on its side. Cleveland stood beside him on the rubboard. Robert St. Julien was set up in the back behind a three-piece drum kit—just a bass drum, a snare, and a single cymbal, cracked from the hole in the center out to the very edge. Jagger took it all in, watching the crowd dance a two-step and thinking, ' Oh God, I'm going to have to dance. How am I going to do this dance that they're all doing? ' he recalled. 'But I managed somehow to fake it.' At intermission, a cluster of fans, speaking in excited bursts of Creole French, started moving toward the stage, holding out papers to be autographed. Landry and Jagger were standing nearby. Jagger braced himself, assuming that some of the fans might descend on him. But the crowd moved quickly past them, pressing toward Clifton and Cleveland Chenier. Before the night was over, Jagger himself had the chance to meet Clifton, but only said a quick hello. 'I just didn't want to hassle him or anything,' he told me. 'And I was just enjoying myself being one of the audience.' The next time Mick Jagger and Richard Landry crossed paths was May 3, 2024: the day after the Rolling Stones performed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. During their set, the Stones had asked the accordion player Dwayne Dopsie, a son of another zydeco artist, Rockin' Dopsie, to accompany the band on 'Let It Bleed.' A meal was set up at Antoine's, in the French Quarter, by a mutual friend, the musician and producer C. C. Adcock. Adcock had been working on plans for the Clifton Chenier centennial record for months and was well aware of Jagger's affection for zydeco. He waited until the meal was over, when everyone was saying their goodbyes, to mention the project to Jagger. 'And without hesitation,' Landry recalled, 'Mick said, 'I want to sing something.' ' As the final addition to the album lineup, the Stones were the last to choose which of Chenier's songs to record. Looking at the track listing, Jagger noticed that 'Zydeco Sont Pas Salé' hadn't been taken. 'Isn't that, like, the one?' Adcock recalls him saying. 'The one the whole genre is named after? If the Stones are gonna do one, shouldn't we do the one ?' The word zydeco is widely believed to have originated in the French phrase les haricots sont pas salés, which translates to 'The snap beans aren't salty.' Zydeco, according to this theory, is a Creole French pronunciation of les haricots. (The lyrical fragment likely comes from juré, the call-and-response music of Louisiana that predates zydeco; it shows up as early as 1934, on a recording of the singer Wilbur Shaw made in New Iberia, Louisiana.) Many interpretations of the phrase have been offered over the years. The most straightforward is that it's a metaphorical way of saying 'Times are tough.' When money ran short, people couldn't afford the salt meat that was traditionally cooked with snap beans to season them. The Stones' version of 'Zydeco Sont Pas Salé' opens with St. Julien, Chenier's longtime drummer, playing a backbeat with brushes. He's 77 now, no longer the young man Jagger saw in Watts in 1978. 'I quit playing music about 10 years ago, to tell the truth,' he said when we spoke this spring, but you wouldn't know it by how he sounds on the track. Keith Richards's guitar part, guttural and revving, meets St. Julien in the intro and builds steadily. The melody is introduced by the accordionist Steve Riley, of the Mamou Playboys, who told me he'd tried to 'play it like Clifton—you know, free-form, just from feel.' It's strange that it doesn't feel stranger when Jagger breaks into his vocal, sung in Creole French. His imitation of Chenier is at once spot-on yet unmistakably Jagger. From the May 1971 issue: Mick Jagger shoots birds I asked him how he'd honed his French pronunciation. 'I've actually tried to write songs in Cajun French before,' he said. 'But I've never really gotten anywhere.' To get 'Zydeco Sont Pas Salé' right, he became a student of the song. 'You just listen to what's been done before you,' he told me. 'See how they pronounce it, you know? I mean, yeah, of course it's different. And West Indian English is different from what they speak in London. I tried to do a job and I tried to do it in the way it was traditionally done—it would sound a bit silly in perfect French.' Zydeco united musical traditions from around the globe to become a defining sound for one of the most distinct cultures in America. Chenier, the accordionist in the velvet crown, then introduced zydeco to the world, influencing artists across genres. When I asked Jagger why, at age 81, he had decided to make this recording, he said, 'I think the music deserves to be known and the music deserves to be heard.' If the song helps new listeners discover Chenier—to have something like the experience Jagger had when he first dropped the needle on Bon Ton Roulet! —that would be a welcome result. But Jagger stressed that this wasn't the primary reason he'd covered 'Zydeco Sont Pas Salé.' Singing to St. Julien's beat, Jagger the rock star once again becomes Jagger the Clifton Chenier fan. 'My main thing is just that I personally like it. You know what I mean? That's my attraction,' he said. 'I think that I just did this for the love of it, really.'
