The weather wasn’t the only thing that made the summer of 2009 one of the hot ones. The battles between the luxury hotel restaurants on Collins Avenue certainly had the whole town talking with just as much fervor.

Now that it is October, the winner has clearly been declared as Mr. Chow Miami. The Chows opened the doors of their Bel Air home for Haute Living readers in the August/September issue and we were immediately enthralled by their all-American success story. But just because Mr. Chow Miami won the summer restaurant race by miles (and months) doesn’t mean that we have taken our eyes off of the other contenders. Right down the road, the Gansevoort South presented their summertime frontrunner STK. But recently images surfaced on the Internet depicting a restaurant that hasn’t even completed its warm-up stretches. Promises were made of an August opening of STK that would offer South Beach scenesters $20 burgers and a DJ lounge with a catwalk across the back bar. But web updates indicate that STK will now be crossing the finish line sometime this December, although one of Haute Living’s editors passes in front of the venue every morning on the way into David Barton, and reports that the space appears no where near to being finished.

Via: Hotel Chatter