Issue 08: Treasure Coast
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In Issue 08, you’ll arrive in a hidden seaside gem. It’s a place where golden sand meets turquoise water and palm trees sway in the breeze. On the east side of Florida, the Treasure Coast is a quiet paradise where rich maritime history lingers in the salty air, while fresh-caught seafood and vibrant tropical fruit come together in bright dishes that celebrate the flavors of the region.
Venture to this coastal oasis, and share a meal with the region’s home cooks. Wander through a backyard where one home cook has planted her own food forest. Meet a scuba instructor who is changing the way people think about lionfish, discover a home cook who channels her love of nature into intricate seashell art, and climb aboard with a treasure hunter whose life on these waters has inspired stories—and meals—you won’t forget.
From the Indian River Lagoon to the Atlantic shoreline, the Treasure Coast is a place where the ocean shapes everyday life. Tropical fruit flourishes in backyard gardens, seafood arrives fresh from the water, and generations have learned to celebrate the abundance of both land and sea.
A Taste of Issue 08: Treasure Coast
Dooryard Fruit
Few places in the US can grow fruit year-round—the Treasure Coast is one of them. Amelia Grant, a retired landscape architect turned south Florida gardener, has spent over a decade learning about what her neighbors call “dooryard fruit.” Now she’s sharing her favorite variety, a Thai mango called Nam Doc Mai, in the mango cupcake recipe you will find inside.
A Dish Worth the Sting
Venomous, prolific, and incredibly invasive, it’s also—according to Benjamin Hadfield—delicious. The lionfish is one of the ocean’s most reviled invaders, and hunting it is part of daily life for the Treasure Coast scuba instructor. His recipe—mango salsa, lemon-cilantro couscous, and a trick for handling the spines—turns the ocean’s most unwanted fish into dinner.
She Sells Seashells
Floor-to-ceiling shelves of shells from around the world fill Christa Wilm’s studio. She’s spent nearly two decades building a business one seashell at a time on Florida’s Treasure Coast. But ask her about her kitchen, and the story shifts—to a restaurant in Verona, Italy, and a dish she’s been recreating ever since.
Cut to the Kitchen
For over 40 years, he directed Food Network stars and hosted MasterChef Latino from behind the camera. When the pandemic shut down a shoot in Toronto, Chuchi Rivero traded the lens for a food truck—the city’s only Cuban one—and never looked back. Now settled on Florida’s Treasure Coast, he brings a cinematographer’s eye to every plate at Old Havana Cafe, including a guava salmon dish he calls “a happy one.”
Pure Haitian
A single bag of spaghetti used to be the cheapest way to feed a family in Haiti—today, it’s the dish drawing customers from across Florida to Emmanuelle Jn Louis’ food truck in Port St. Lucie. Her Haitian spaghetti is one more flavor in the Treasure Coast’s melting pot, and as she puts it, “there’s no other spaghetti like it.”
Smooth Sailing
“Even the most basic food becomes all the better because you’re out on a boat,” says Fred Newhart. For him and his wife, Jamie, love and the water have never really come apart—not even at dinner. The couple runs Treasure Coast Sailing Adventures aboard a traditional Friendship sloop, and when they feed guests, it’s almost always mahi-mahi tacos, made with fresh catch from their fishermen friends.
An Appetite for Treasure
In his 20s, it was Cherry Coke, cigarettes, and $13 million in lost treasure. Now in his 40s, Mike Perna’s hunts for sunken Spanish shipwrecks are powered by bone broth, organic protein balls, and a drive to get home to his family. Although Mike’s work recovering artifacts has taken him all over Florida and even Panama, these days, he stays close to home in Vero Beach, searching for remnants of the shipwrecks that gave the Treasure Coast its name.
The Best "Bad" Soil in the Country
At the grocery store, you’re lucky to find more than one or two kinds of mango. Now imagine 300. At Tropical Acres in West Palm Beach, Alex Salazar grows every one of them on a patch of sandy soil most farmers would call unusable—but ideal, it turns out, for mangoes that come in every size, shape, and flavor imaginable.
More Than Coffee
A café. A record store. A Belgian beer bar. A coffee roastery. Mike Mann built The Roasted Record in downtown Stuart one curiosity at a time—and somehow, he’s also still a PGA golf professional. His latest experiment is a sourdough starter that feeds off an unlikely source.
Florida's Cracker Cowboys
Ranching in the United States originated with the cattle that conquistador Ponce de León brought on his voyages in the 1520s. Five hundred years later, you’ll find ranching alive and well in Florida, albeit a bit different. Mike and Chandler Sexton of Treasure Hammock Ranch are the fourth generation to run their family’s ranch, where Mike herds their cattle from horseback with ropes and dogs—just like the cattlemen of the 1500s.
A Taste of Old Harbour
Ever cook with cassava? Or Jamaican sweet potato? Carmen McDonald’s recipe calls for both, along with raisins soaked in wine, freshly grated nutmeg, and a splash of rosewater almond essence—a family recipe she’s brought all the way from Old Harbour, Jamaica, that’s found a new home on Florida’s Treasure Coast.
Treasure in the Lagoon
Gold Doubloons and Sebastian Silvers aren’t coins washed up from a shipwreck—they’re two sizes of oyster grown at Treasure Coast Shellfish, the only oyster farm in Indian River County. Nicolette Mariano’s go-to way to serve them is fresh-shucked, with a bright, sweet-and-spicy mignonette made from Florida oranges.
Tuscany on the Treasure Coast
During a family trip to the Tuscan countryside, Scott Whalen tried his first lasagna bolognese—looser, lighter, and nothing like the deep-dish version he grew up on. Curious, he wandered into the kitchen, where a chef let him in on a few secrets so he could recreate the dish back home.
Old Instincts, Fresh Produce
After decades in the produce industry, Paul Genke knows his way around fruit most people overlook—guava included. Now retired in Vero Beach, he continues to put that knowledge to work in a guava-glazed roast pork he’s been perfecting for over 20 years.
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