Alma de España

Every so often a kitchen opens here with a résumé that stops you cold. Alma de España, tucked into a small Southside Village storefront on Osprey Avenue, is run by Elier Rodriguez, a chef who grew up on his grandfather's tobacco farm in Cuba learning to cook at his grandmother Cacha's side, then trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Atlanta and spent two decades in some of the most rarefied kitchens in the country. The list is a mouthful: the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta, the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, Le Cirque in Las Vegas, and Picasso, the two-Michelin-star room at the Bellagio. That's the kind of pedigree that usually stays in Vegas and Miami, and now it's cooking on a neighborhood corner in Sarasota.

The concept is "Soul of Spain" — Spanish tapas and a wood-fired grill, with Rodriguez's Cuban roots woven through it. He calls the place a tribute to his past and a love letter to the flavors he grew up with, and the menu backs it up: paella and seared scallops, empanadas and croquettes, slow-cooked oxtail, all leaning on smoked paprika, saffron, and the char of live flame. It landed in the former Ka Papa space, so if you knew that corner, this is a full reinvention rather than a tweak.

Go for dinner and make it a leisurely one — this is a room built for grazing across small plates rather than rushing a single entrée. The kitchen runs dinner Tuesday through Sunday and adds lunch on Friday and Saturday; reservations are the safe move on a weekend, and there's parking around back. It's the kind of ambitious, easy-to-miss spot that rewards the people who find it early.

The scoop: Alma de España, Southside Village.