Manny & Isa's in the Florida Keys town of Islamorada has been sold. On a visit nearly twenty years ago, I commented to the owners how much I enjoyed their Key lime pie and still recall a gesture of hospitality and friendliness on their part. Manny & Isa presented me with a dozen or so of the small, yellowish-skinned key limes from their backyard so that I could make a genuine Key lime pie at home, hundreds of miles away. It is noted that less scrupulous restaurateurs and bakers frequently sell Key lime pies to unknowing travelers that are actually made with the most common variety, the large, green-skinned Persian lime. Manny & Isa's will be missed.
Following is from the
Miami Herald:
Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004
HOT DISH
Manny and Isa sell Keys eatery BY VICTORIA PESCE ELLIOTT
vpe@aol.com After four decades, Manny and Isa's, the much-loved Cuban-American landmark in Islamorada, is closing. The homey restaurant is renowned for its conch chowder, ropa vieja, Key lime pie and friendly owners, Manny Ortiz, 74, and wife Isa, 77, who say they are ready to retire.
They are selling to Jean-Charles Berruet, 63, chef-owner of the now-closed Chanticleer Inn, an acclaimed, formal French restaurant in Nantucket, Mass.
''It's a little different down here,'' Berruet says of the Keys. ``The basic food will be the same as my old place but in a more casual atmosphere using all the bounty from the ocean.''
He plans to reopen the quaint, 40-seater early in the new year as Chanticleer South. The Ortizes say they'll build a home in Homestead.
(80639 Old Hwy., Islamorada; 305-664-5019).
