Spice Galore, a shop in South Miami that carries over 300 spices, flavored salts, sugars, and teas, is easy to miss.
It opened in November of 2012 in a strip shopping center at 6010 S. Dixie Hwy. (U.S. Highway 1)
If you’re driving there, which is likely, you will park in back and enter through the rear door – but make a point of going out and in the front door, too. In front of the shop are two former reindeer transformed into donkeys. They carry saddlebags with bird’s eye and Thai chilies.
Along the base of the wide window from the door to the wall are bowls and baskets of spices in many colors, including rosemary, turmeric, garlic power, ground cumin, paprika, ground ginger, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, and ground allspice.
Two friends
The shop is owned by two friends: Chef Victoria Nodare, a 2008 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in California’s Napa Valley, and Amiee Ortega, a student at the Miami Culinary Institute on Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami.
The women met at one of Chef Victoria’s events when she taught at Miami Culinary Institute.
Chef Victoria grew up in Westchester in southwest Miami-Dade County. Ortega is from Maracaibo, Venezuela, and lives on Spice Galore’s farm in the Homestead area, where they grow herbs and spices. Aimee’s husband, Javier Garcia, manages their garden-plant business.
Spice Galore sells herbs and spices by the ounce. “We encourage customers to call ahead before coming to the shop to make sure we have what they want. The phone number is 305-661-1199,” says Chef Victoria.
The shop has a small reference library with information on how to use spices and herbs, a children’s corner, and a small kitchen and food-service corner. Chef Victoria and Aimee plan to serve afternoon tea.
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