Made In The Keys

Whether it’s brewing homegrown craft beer or putting an invasive species on the menu, a new generation of locavores in the Florida Keys is helping redefi ne the region’s food and drink scene.

- Alexandra Pope

I‘M UP TO MY EYEBALLS in seafood appetizers, so it takes me a moment to register the change in the music.

Until now, the acoustic guitarist seated beneath a wooden arbour on the beachfront patio at Marker 88 restaurant in Islamorada on Plantation Key has been playing classic rock tunes, but with the shadows lengthening across my table of delicacies, he’s switched to a gentle lullaby. It’s sunset time.

A small crowd has gathered along the narrow pier that juts from the patio into Cotton Key Basin, which is ruffled with wavelets on this soft spring evening. Couples kiss and pose for selfies while children sit quietly, their legs dangling over the water, and watch as the horizon shades from pale yellow to vivid tangerine to dusky lavender. The song ends as the sun finally disappears, and the diners break into applause, though it’s not clear whether it’s for the guitarist or the sky.

Sunset is a big deal in the Florida Keys, explains Andy McGrotha, Marker 88’s general manager. It’s when his restaurant is busiest, regardless of the time of year. “Our business is built around the sunset — as is all life in the Keys, really. Sun and sand and water.”

And food.

Marker 88’s specialty is “Floribbean” cuisine: seafood, fresh-caught in Key Largo, prepared with the flavours and spices of the islands. I try the coconut-battered Keys shrimp and wash it down with a key lime martini — citron vodka, KeKe Beach key lime cream liqueur, pine apple juice and fresh lime juice with a graham cracker rim. My entree is pan-fried yellowtail snapper with key lime beurre blanc, and dessert is — what else? — a thick wedge of house-made key lime pie topped with a sky-high tower of an unbelievably airy meringue.