"As we celebrate two decades at Acqualina, this renovation reflects where Il Mulino is today." That's how Brian Galligan, president of Il Mulino New York, described the finished renovation of the restaurant on the resort's ground floor this past March. Twenty years is worth pausing on. It means the Il Mulino you first walked into, whenever that was, is not the room that exists now.
If you live at Acqualina, you've probably treated the restaurant row on the lobby level the way you treat any amenity you can reach in an elevator ride: as fixed, always there, unremarkable because it's yours. This year that assumption stopped being accurate. Two of Acqualina's four restaurants went through real, structural changes, and the two that didn't are the exception rather than the rule. Understanding which is which, and why it matters before September ends, changes how you use your own building.
Four Restaurants, Two Different Rules
Acqualina's dining lineup looks like a single amenity block from the outside, four restaurants sharing one address at 17875 Collins Avenue. But they don't operate under the same rules. Three are open to the public and take outside reservations. One is not.
| Restaurant | Cuisine | Who can book it |
|---|---|---|
| Il Mulino New York | Italian | Open to the public |
| Ke-uH | Japanese fusion | Open to the public |
| Avra Miami | Greek | Open to the public |
| Costa Grill | Floridian, alfresco | Hotel guests, residents, and Beach Club members only |
Costa Grill is the one venue at Acqualina that stays exactly what it has always been: a private, beachside room for the people who live there or are staying there. Everyone else, Il Mulino, Ke-uH, and Avra, is competing for the same tables that diners driving in from Bal Harbour or Aventura are also trying to book.
That split didn't always matter much in practice. It matters more now, because two of those three public rooms just gave outside diners a much better reason to show up.
What Actually Changed At Il Mulino
The Il Mulino renovation that finished in March wasn't a repaint. The dining room was rebuilt around sand-toned walls, velvet quilted booths, and curated artwork, a shift the restaurant describes as coastal sensibility layered onto its original New York identity. The bar and private dining areas were redone alongside it.
The more interesting change is structural, not decorative. The new menu carries a dedicated seasonal section that updates every quarter, sitting next to the Il Mulino classics that haven't moved in years, dishes like the Ossobuco with saffron risotto and the tableside Dover Sole. This July, that seasonal section became executive chef Michele Mazza's Mediterranean Summer Menu, a $58 prix-fixe built around a chilled Crenshaw melon soup and a lemon-forward Tagliolini al Limone using lemons from Sorrento. It was explicitly temporary. As of this writing, that summer edition has already run its course, which means the seasonal section is due to turn again before the year is out.
If you last ate at Il Mulino before March, you didn't just miss a redesign. You ate a menu that no longer exists in the same form, and you're due to miss another version of it by the time the seasonal section resets again.
Ke-uH Made The Same Move Earlier
Ke-uH went through its own reinvention first, with a redesign that introduced vibrant red drapes, a Bonsai tree in the main dining room, and a reimagined lounge hung with contemporary art, including pieces by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, where guests can order a cocktail and play chess or backgammon at art-inspired game tables. That overhaul reframed the space as somewhere to linger before or after dinner, not just a room to eat sushi in.
The kitchen has kept moving since. This spring, chef Oscar Noborikawa, who trained for fourteen years at Nobu Miami before taking the helm at Ke-uH, added a Bluefin Tuna Tasting Experience built around a curated progression of Bluefin dishes, alongside a 14-ounce Australian Wagyu Ribeye and a new Wagyu Gyoza appetizer. None of that existed on the menu two years ago.
Put Ke-uH and Il Mulino side by side and the pattern is obvious. Two of Acqualina's three public-facing restaurants didn't get a menu tweak this year, they got repositioned as destinations that happen to sit inside a residential building, with design and food built to draw people who don't live there. Avra, by contrast, has stayed the steadier of the three, its Greek-Mediterranean menu of seaside taverna staples largely unchanged, which is worth knowing if you want a reservation that isn't harder to get than it used to be.
The Thirty Days That Actually Matter
Here's the part that has a real deadline attached to it, not a seasonal one. This year is the 25th anniversary of Miami Spice, the citywide prix-fixe program that runs from August 1 through September 30. Both of Acqualina's newly reinvented restaurants are participating. Il Mulino is offering Miami Spice lunch for $40 and dinner for $65. Ke-uH is offering a three-course Miami Spice dinner, built around signature sushi, for $50 per person.
That means the newly renovated Il Mulino, the one with the quarterly menu and the twenty-year milestone behind it, is currently bookable at a fixed price that's meaningfully below its regular dinner menu, and that window closes at the end of September. Costa Grill isn't part of any of this, because Costa Grill doesn't take outside reservations in the first place. The Miami Spice math only applies to the three rooms you're now sharing with the rest of the city.
If you live at Acqualina and haven't been downstairs since the renovation, the next thirty days are the cheapest version of finding out what changed. After September 30, you're paying full price to discover it, and you'll be booking against a dining room that outside diners have had all summer to learn about first.
The Practical Read
None of this requires you to change how you think about your building, only how you use it. Costa Grill is still the quiet, resident-first option it has always been, and it's worth remembering that when Il Mulino or Ke-uH is booked solid on a Friday. Avra is still the least dramatic of the three public rooms if you want dinner without competing for a table. But Il Mulino and Ke-uH are, this year, genuinely different restaurants than the ones that opened here originally, with reservation demand to match, and the easiest way to experience what changed expires with the calendar month.
For anything else involving life at Acqualina, from resort services to questions about the residences themselves, Acqualina Rentals is on-site and reachable directly.
