Genghis Cohen Brings Its Nostalgic Chinese-American Food to Miami

A lot of new Miami restaurants aim to open in time for December’s social season, with Art Basel being a prime target. Genghis Cohen owners Marc Rose and Med Abrous have a different December extravaganza in mind.

“For Genghis Cohen, we’re trying to open in time for Christmas,” Rose tells Observer.

Genghis Cohen, a beloved New York-style Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, will open its Miami Beach outpost at 1801 Purdy Ave. in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood. Rose and Abrous, both former New Yorkers, know that Christmas is the main event for Genghis Cohen. This is a restaurant where guests come to spin around lazy Susans as they feast on crowd-pleasing egg rolls, turkey minis (Genghis Cohen’s signature dumplings with spicy soy sauce and cilantro), crab rangoon, salt-and-pepper tofu and playfully monikered classics like no name duck, nothing special beef sizzler and a General Tso’s riff known as queen chicken.  

“It’s a Chinese-American menu that invokes nostalgia, one that has all the dishes a lot of us grew up eating,” Rose says. “I think it’s a menu that also represents a lot of what people in South Florida grew up eating. Fort Lauderdale and Miami had a plethora of this type of restaurant in the ’80s and ’90s, and a lot of them are gone. It’s just like what happened in L.A. and New York.”

Rose and Abrous, whose Call Mom hospitality group also includes former Sinatra hangout La Dolce Vita in Beverly Hills, are students of history. Genghis Cohen was born in 1983, and Rose and Abrous took it over in 2015 to preserve a very specific kind of time-capsule food and throwback vibe that they held close to their hearts. Last year, Rose and Abrous made headlines when they moved Genghis Cohen to a new address a few blocks south on Fairfax Avenue after they were unable to extend their previous lease. 

The Miami location is Genghis Cohen’s first expansion outside of Los Angeles.

“I think the intention is to continue the Genghis Cohen story,” Rose says. “We’ll have our big booths. Whether or not they’re red, we’re not sure at this point. There will be an oversaturation of all the elements that make you feel transported when you walk into Genghis Cohen. Of course, there will be a fish tank. Maybe the fish tank’s bigger. Maybe it’s saltwater instead of freshwater. What we want to do is represent Genghis Cohen, but also understand that we’re not on Fairfax. We’re going to be in the heart of Miami Beach in Sunset Harbour and we want to reflect that, too.”

Genghis Cohen is also known for its tiki-inspired “foo foo cocktails,” and the drinks could get more tropical and more theatrical in Miami.

“I think we’re going to come out kind of guns blazing with the cocktail side of things and amplify what we do here in L.A,” Abrous tells Observer.

Let’s be clear, though. You can visit Genghis Cohen for a trio of mini martinis or a zombie so potent that the restaurant caps it at two per customer, and you can order a dish called volcano chicken that’s lit on fire tableside. But this restaurant isn’t an over-the-top party destination like Papi Steak or Sexy Fish. 

Genghis Cohen is a seven-night-a-week spot that’s built around gently priced family-style feasts (the volcano chicken is $20 in Los Angeles). Rose and Abrous expect to do lots of takeout and delivery in Miami. They’re excited to evolve their menu with Florida produce and seafood, and to see how things play out with the first outdoor space Genghis Cohen has ever had.

Rose and Abrous are partnering with a longtime friend, hospitality mogul Jason Pomeranc, to open the new Genghis Cohen. Pomeranc is best known as a hotelier, but Miami Beach’s Genghis Cohen is a standalone venture. This, like the Miami Beach outpost of Brooklyn-born Lucali, also in Sunset Harbour, is designed to be a neighborhood restaurant that happens to have a multi-layered backstory.

“I think Genghis Cohen really is a community place,” Abrous says. “It’s a year-round place, basically never closed. It’s a reliable place that really caters to the local community, and Sunset Harbour really is a place that people go to year-round.”

For Rose, who as a child spent many holidays in South Florida with his snowbird grandparents (who later became South Beach residents), Genghis Cohen is about channeling old memories while celebrating new moments.

“Miami will always have a special place in my heart, and getting to relive some of my childhood and spending more time in a city that just has colors that make you smile is pretty exciting,” says Rose, who spent almost five years looking for a Miami location with Abrous. 

Genghis Cohen has been around for more than four decades, and Abrous says he’s been thinking about the next 40 years of the restaurant.

“I think it starts with our love of history,” Abrous says. “We love legacy. We love places that have stories. In many ways, our job is to make memories and make stories. We couldn’t be happier about bringing this style of restaurant to Miami. It’s vibrant. It makes people feel good in so many ways.”