Beautiful Homes, Florida Hospitality On Display In Coral Gables

CORAL GABLES, FL — Beautiful homes, good food and Florida hospitality were on tap recently at the 11th annual Coral Gables Tour of Kitchens.

Presented by the Coral Gables Community Foundation, the upscale self-guided tour took visitors through some of the most impressive private home kitchens in the Miami area. The rest of the homes weren't too shabby either.

"People love to look into people's houses, and sneak around, and eat good food, and see beautiful homes," Mary Snow, executive director of the 29-year-old nonprofit foundation told Patch during the weekend tour.

The event has grown from 300 attendees when Snow joined the organization seven years to some 700 people who attended this year's event.

"The committee helps us find lovely homeowners that are willing to open their homes,"Snow said. "Some homeowners recently completed a renovation and they really want to show off their homes, so it's a combination of all that."

Bob and Ashley Thornburg purchased their home on Orduna Drive back in 2011 but completed a four-year renovation project last year.

"It was always kind of a goal of ours to be in the Tour of Kitchens because these funds help give back to the foundation, which help make a difference in our local community," Bob Thornburg said.

Each home on the tour had a different restaurant sponsor that provided samples of their offerings.

"We were lucky enough to get Ruth's Chris," said Thornburg, a copyright and patent attorney. "They said that if I survive this, I get two cowboy ribeyes, but they give it to you afterwards. That's important. They don't give you the ribeyes until after you survive Tour of Kitchens."

Volunteers Debbie and John Swain of Coral Gables led nearly two dozen people on an 11-mile bicycle tour of the nine homes that participated in the event.

"Some are casual bike riders," Debbie Swain confided. "We run into the same people at each house but we burn some calories — maybe five."

That's because of the restaurant tastings at each home. Other restaurants that participated in the event included Salumeria 104, Casacuba, Someone's Son, Doc B's, Chica, Piuma and Taberna LaGiralda.

The event kicked off at Infiniti of Coral Gables. with breakfast and mimosas and wrapped up at Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery with music, more tastings by well-known chefs and a silent auction.

The tour featured a stop at Java Head, the stunning 1936 mansion of Luis and Sandra Perez. The home was designed in an art moderne architectural style that was prevalent in the 1930s.

This year's Tour of Kitchens raised more than $100,000 to benefit the culinary arts program at Coral Gables Senior High School, according to snow.

"We send them to cooking competitions, both the state and national levels," Snow said. "We send the graduates to culinary school upon graduation and we just purchased brand new ovens for the entire classroom."