At 424 Park Place, in a plaza that used to house a restaurant called Konro, a sixteen-seat counter opened in February 2026 inside the Flamingo Park neighborhood, a few blocks off South Dixie Highway and a short walk from the Norton Museum of Art. Nothing about the address suggested it would become a global first. The building sits among boutiques, a home showroom, and a bakery, in a corridor that was still filling in its own roster of tenants.
By May 2026, that room, a tasting-menu restaurant called Emelina, had become the first Cuban restaurant anywhere in the world to earn a Michelin Star, and the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Palm Beach County. The award landed less than four months after the restaurant's debut, one of the fastest turnarounds Florida's Michelin Guide has recorded. Stars like that usually land on rows that are already finished and already famous. This one landed on a corridor still under construction.
A Roster Built Around One Chef's Counter
Emelina isn't an independent restaurant that happened to open in a growing area. It was developed as the anchor culinary tenant of a curated design, wellness, and food community that Welteroth Property Group has been building inside what it markets as the Flamingo Park District, in partnership with APM Restaurant Group, the Miami hospitality company founded by Alvaro Perez Miranda. APM already runs Ogawa, which has held a Michelin Star for three consecutive years, and Hiyakawa, which the Guide recommends. Emelina's star means every APM fine-dining concept in Florida is now Michelin-recognized.
That framing matters for anyone walking the corridor today. On the district's own site, restaurants, boutiques, a padel club, and wellness studios all sit on the same roster, tagged "New" or "Coming Soon" like line items in a single leasing plan rather than businesses that found the block on their own. Flamingo Park the food-and-retail brand is a distinct thing from Flamingo Park the historic 1920s residential neighborhood that surrounds it, and the distinction explains why so much has opened in the same stretch of months instead of trickling in over years.
What Was Already Standing When the Judges Showed Up
Before Emelina's star, the corridor already had enough daily foot traffic to support a fine-dining concept without importing a crowd from downtown or Palm Beach Island. Already open and operating in the district:
- HIVE Bakery & Café, on South Dixie Highway near the Norton Museum
- Loot Grocery, a specialty grocer that opened recently
- Table 26 Palm Beach, a neighborhood restaurant built on globally inspired American cooking
- Civil Society Brewing
- Joy Noodles
- Serenity Garden & Tea House
- Tacos El Viejon
- Buccan Sandwich Shop
- Celis Juice Bar
That's a grocery store, a brewery, a tea house, and a juice bar, the kind of businesses that keep a corridor alive on an ordinary Tuesday rather than a Saturday night. Most Michelin-track openings happen inside districts that are already destinations, South Beach, Wynwood, the kind of neighborhood where a chef's counter can lean on existing demand. Emelina opened into a corridor still building its own base, and the base held.
Four Months, One Star
Emelina is run by husband-and-wife chefs Osmel González and Camila Salazar. González trained under Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Matador Room before co-founding Entre Nos in Miami, a restaurant that earned a Michelin Star within a year of opening along with a Green Star for sourcing. Salazar co-leads the kitchen at Emelina, where the menu is a ten-course tasting format built around Cuban technique reimagined through global ingredients, dry-aged Florida beef, South Florida oysters, and produce pulled from local ranches rather than Cuban imports.
The room seats sixteen at a counter facing an open kitchen. Reservations run through Tock, with Wednesday and Thursday seatings at 7:00 p.m. and Friday and Saturday seatings at 5:00 and 8:00 p.m., plus two additional tables at 5:30 and 8:30. It is not a walk-in restaurant, and it was never designed to be one.
The Second Wave Didn't Wait for a Slow Rollout
With the star confirmed, the district's roster lists ten more names as "coming soon." The lineup now filling in behind Emelina:
- Midorie, APM's second Flamingo Park concept, focused on sushi, rice bowls, and Japanese classics
- Rueshaw, the second restaurant from Fern, built as an elevated Florida ranch-to-table steakhouse
- Pumphouse Donuts, a sourdough donut concept from Pumphouse Coffee Roasters targeting a spring 2027 opening, the brand's third West Palm Beach location after its newest café at 300 Banyan and its flagship Pouratorium roastery
- Salt & Sugar, a new pastry and espresso concept
- Döner Haus, specializing in German-style döner kebabs
- Martha's, a Spanish-inspired tapas and wine concept
- Rakki Hi-Fi, a vinyl listening bar built around cocktails
- Pizzeria Luca, serving pizza and handmade pasta
- MIA Sushi, a local sushi brand expanding into a second location
- Padel X, a padel club
Ten businesses, across food, drink, and recreation, all appear on the same district roster at once. For a resident, that means the corridor along South Dixie Highway will offer noticeably more to walk to over the next several months.
The Wellness Side of the Same Ledger
The roster isn't only restaurants. Higher Order operates as a private, day-to-night social wellness club inside the district, joined by The Wellthy Method and The Tox on the wellness side. On the design side, SWD Bespoke is opening its first U.S. flagship showroom in the corridor, alongside Charleston-based home brand Ro Sham Beaux. Combined with HIVE's cluster of boutiques and its home-and-garden showroom, the district reads less like a restaurant row that grew a few extra businesses and more like a single property program spanning food, wellness, and design under one plan.
What's Actually Open Right Now
For anyone walking South Dixie Highway this fall, the practical distinction is between what's operating today and what's still filed as "coming soon." Emelina, HIVE Bakery & Café, Loot Grocery, Table 26, Civil Society Brewing, Joy Noodles, Serenity Garden & Tea House, Tacos El Viejon, and Buccan Sandwich Shop are open now. Midorie, Rueshaw, Pumphouse Donuts, Salt & Sugar, Döner Haus, Martha's, Rakki Hi-Fi, Pizzeria Luca, MIA Sushi, and Padel X are still ahead, with Pumphouse's timeline the only one pinned to a season, spring 2027.
The star came first. The rest of the roster is still catching up to it.
Matt & Nick Team works these same nine blocks every week, so if a door opens on South Dixie before it makes it into this post, tell us.
