a day ago
Miami's hottest new bakery is in a parking lot. Get there early if you want to try it
The hottest bakery in Miami isn't located in the hottest part of town. You won't find it in Brickell or Little River. It's not tucked away in a hidden speakeasy in Wynwood. You won't even find it in the bountiful strip malls of Kendall or Westchester, where tiny spots have been known to thrive.
Instead, you'll find Ophelia parked beneath a few shady trees in a lot between office buildings on busy South Dixie Highway.
You'll also find it on wheels, in a mini RV.
The impossibly cute mobile bakery is the creation of chefs Ana De Sa Martins and Juan Viera, both veterans of Jeremy Ford's Michelin-starred Stubborn Seed restaurant in Miami Beach. They opened Ophelia's doors — or rather, its serving windows — just two weeks ago, and already have amassed a passionate customer base eager for the pastries within.
'It's very homey,' Viera says of the RV, which he designed. 'It feels like a dollhouse.'
Arrive when the window opens at 8 a.m. if you want a shot at the bakery's most prized items. Take your pick from the day's offerings: banana walnut bread, chocolate babka, cinnamon rolls, classic chocolate chunk cookies or sesame guava cookies. There's even a olive oil lemon cake with blueberries, a specialty De Sa Martins, who grew up in Venezuela, perfected as executive pastry chef at Stubborn Seed that's also served at Ford's restaurant Salt & Ash in the Florida Keys.
There are savory options, too, courtesy of Viera: broccoli hot pockets and Calabrian cheese rolls, for example, as well as a gloriously dripping, flavorful, must-have egg and bacon sandwich on an English muffin. You can order a variety of coffees, too.
Viera, who grew up in Miami and worked as a chef at Stubborn Seed, says the menu was built on nostalgia.
'I grew up in a house with a single mom and two kids, so breakfast was often an Egg McMuffin,' he says. 'So I love eating an English muffin breakfast sandwich. A lot of things here are nostalgic for us. Like the hot pockets. They remind us of our childhoods growing up.'
Opening the bakery was a labor of love for the couple, who met at Stubborn Seed. De Sa Martins had been there since 2020; Viera, who had also worked at The Surf Club in Surfside, was there for two years. Both helped the team open Beauty and the Butcher in Coral Gables (which Ford is no longer associated with).
De Sa Martins said that though she learned a lot at the restaurant, she had started to wonder about the future.
'I worked hard for that company,' she says. 'At the same time, I'm 32, and a little voice was telling me 'Why don't you start something of your own?' It felt like it was time to do something.'
A torn Achilles tendon that kept Viera off his feet for a couple of months gave him time to consider the idea, too. He felt he had lost his drive for fine dining and started cooking at the now-shuttered Union Beer Store in Little Havana. On her days off, De Sa Martins popped over to help him run food.
After one insanely busy night of service, they realized they were enjoying themselves and not feeling burned out.
'We were like, 'This is super fun!' ' Viera says. 'We weren't exhausted. At a fine dining restaurant, after service, you're just beat up. But we were thrilled this was so much fun.'
The Union Beer interlude kicked off the search for a brick-and-mortar spot, always a difficult process in Miami's expensive and ever-shifting culinary landscape. The couple was skeptical at the idea of a food truck, but then they landed on the idea to have a vintage RV designed by Viera built instead.
'We weren't sure what to expect, but we were super happy,' Viera says of the outcome.
The couple starts work early every morning — De Sa Martins says she gets up at 3 a.m. — to prepare. They make the pastries in a commissary kitchen early in the week and bring them to Ophelia on the days it's open by 7 a.m.
What they also didn't expect was immediate popularity. Neighbors out walking their dogs stop by — and return. Cars pull up as well: early morning workout fanatics on their way home from the gym and random drivers who just wondered what was happening in the parking lot. Even more often, customers spotted the bakery on wheels on social media and just had to give it a try.
Lines form quickly, especially on the weekends, and sought-after items like the cinnamon rolls sell out quickly. The items are so alluring, many customers are perfectly happy eating breakfast in their cars, even though there's a shaded outdoor table.
The crush of business has been disconcerting but welcome.
'I'm glad it happened this way,' De Sa Martins says. 'It's a good problem to have. What business doesn't want to sell everything they make? But we were not prepared. We thought it would be low key, because it's summer, and now we can't keep up with production.'
Viera says they're considering limiting the number of cinnamon rolls people can buy — 'People come in with four different orders to deliver to friends, and we're honored they're doing that, but it's not fair for the other people in line.' He says the menu will change seasonally. There's a mango Danish on the horizon, this being mango-mad Miami, and they're playing with the idea of creating a strawberry Zebra Cake with red and blue stripes for the Fourth of July.
And, having learned at Stubborn Seed that evolving is key to success, they're already thinking ahead.
'We're starting to think about what the next step is going to be,' De Sa Martins says. 'We're not going to be in a trailer forever.'
Ophelia
Where: 2140 S. Dixie Highway, Miami
Hours: 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday-Saturday
Updates: @ on Instagram
