By Jodi Mailander Farrell for Miami.com

Restaurant creates beautiful dishes that match the flavors with knowledgeable chefs and staff

My teenager has a T-shirt that proclaims, “Killin’ it.” I’d like to buy one for everybody who works at KYU.

For the barbecue that brings out the smoky best of Asian-American wood grilling.

For thoughtful presentations that make eating fun.

For knowledgeable servers and chefs who are excited about the food and don’t hesitate to sit and chat with diners about it.

Open since February, KYU (pronounced “Q” like the last syllable in “barbeque”) has easily become one of Wynwood’s best restaurants.

Run by Zuma alums general manager Steven Haigh and Culinary Institute of America-trained executive chef Michael Lewis (Jean-Georges in New York), KYU combines a pedigree chef with well-trained, attentive service. The menu’s meaty stars — ribs, duck and brisket — are the product of live-fire cooking married with mouthwatering Japanese and Korean flavors. Soy, miso, kimchi, ponzu and the seven-spice mixture shichimi dominate dishes.

Lewis sports a hipster beard, but everything about KYU screams that Miami has entered what Mashable blogger David Infante christens the age of the “yuccie” — young urban creatives who combine their social awareness with shrewd business savvy, replacing hipsters as the millennials of the moment.

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