10 minute read
up close
Akira Back
A globe-trotting, Michelin Star-winning chef sets up shop in the heart of Delray Beach
Delray’s booming dining scene got an exciting new addition this summer with the debut of Akira Back’s namesake restaurant in The Ray Hotel. The Michelin Star-winning chef’s latest outpost, featuring modern Japanese dishes blended with Korean-inspired flavors, has generated quite the buzz among South Florida foodies. While Back’s concepts are now popping up around the world, his initial foray into the restaurant business was more unorthodox than the average restaurateur.
When Akira Back and his family moved to Aspen, Colorado from Seoul, South Korea, Back was 13 years old. As a teenager in a new country where he didn’t speak the language, the transition was difficult. But he soon took notice of what other kids his age were doing and found where he fit into this strange new environment. “In Aspen, all the cool kids were snowboarders,”
says Back, “so I learned snowboarding to make friends and learn English, and I eventually became a professional sponsored snowboarder.”
Back spent seven years on the professional snowboarding circuit, all while working at local Aspen restaurants to supplement his income. During this time, he discovered an exhilaration for cooking that rivaled the thrill of speeding down wintery slopes. After suffering injuries from snowboarding, Back realized that a long-term career in extreme sports might not be viable. He decided he needed a new plan.
“There was a local restaurant where all the cool people hung out to drink and have fun,” says Back. “I knew the owner and asked him for a job, and he started me at the lowest position.” From mopping floors and cutting vegetables, Back worked his way up to an executive chef position, and in 2008 opened his very own concept, the Yellowtail Japanese Restaurant & Lounge at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
Since opening his first restaurant, Back has gone on to win several culinary awards and has made appearances on high-profile cooking shows including “Iron Chef America” and Food Network’s “Best Thing I Ever Ate.” He’s cooked for dignitaries and diplomats, celebrities and presidents, ranging from the Dalai Lama to Bill Clinton. But Back says that for him, his favorite customers are the ones right in front of him.
“I’ve enjoyed cooking for these notable names and getting the opportunity to meet some people that inspire me throughout my career, but my favorite stories come from the new guests that taste my food for the first time when we open in a new city.”
Back’s culinary journey has taken him all over the world, but no matter the location of a new and exciting debut, he still brings the influence of his family and Korean heritage to the table. “My mother always cooked, and family dinners were very big in my home,” he says. “A lot of the recipes you see on my menu are directly from her or a twist on inspiration from her.”
Back says that this inspiration can be found in his Delray concept, specifically in the Jeju Domi dish, a delectable pairing of snapper sashimi with
marinated masago, red sorrel and sweet and spicy chojang sauce. “Like any good Korean, my father used to eat sashimi with chojang sauce,” says Back. “One time he offered me snapper with this sauce, and this is when I finally started to enjoy raw fish.”
With several new restaurant openings in the pipeline, Akira Back doesn’t get to make it out to the slopes of Aspen as much as he’d like to. But he’s still managed to find in Delray the things that he loved most about the small Colorado ski town. “I was drawn to Delray Beach because it reminds me a lot of Aspen in the sense that the people are laid-back and down to earth,” says Back. “I’m an avid tennis fan, and I love the active lifestyle of the community.”
Despite being a Michelin Star chef and developing a global culinary brand, Back says he feels his life hasn’t changed all that much. If anything, he says, the accolades just motivate him even further to create and share his culinary concoctions. As the Akira Back name continues to expand throughout the U.S. and as far as London and the Middle East, the acclaimed chef hopes to instill in his customers the same joy he feels from his craft. “I want people to have fun and truly enjoy every experience they have with us, from the service to the food and the ambience and more.”
Danny Goldsmith
This 21st-century watch merchant keeps time in Delray
For luxury watch retailer Danny Goldsmith, it’s important he dresses his part. “I’m a suit-and-tie kind of guy,” he says. “I feel like when I’m wearing a suit and tie, I’m ready to take on the world.”
Yet when he sat down for an interview with Delray magazine, he let his hair down, so to speak. It was inventory day at Goldsmith & Complications, his second-story boutique in downtown Delray Beach. With no other appointments on the docket, Goldsmith, a youthful 50, sported a backwards baseball cap, a Grateful Dead T-shirt and shorts. A tattoo of an octopus splashed around on his left leg; classic hip-hop piped from a speaker in the customer lounge. It gets his blood pumping.
Part of the appeal of Goldsmith & Complications is the juxtaposition of luxury and geek-chic, of lowbrow and highbrow. In the lounge, shoppers can enjoy an array of single-malt whiskies while perusing an elaborate
desktop timepiece that resembles the title space station in “Deep Space 9,” a Lucite baseball bat filled with vintage watch parts, or a table clock shaped like a Ferrari. In an adjoining room, on purple wallpaper, a neon sign blazes with the phrase “tick tock mothaf***a,” a reference to a colorful quote from a Samuel L. Jackson movie. He says his suppliers from Switzerland love to take pictures with it.
For all of its eccentric touches, Goldsmith is serious about his business, which can involve serious profits. That Swiss Ferrari clock is one of only 100 on the planet, and it retails at $42,500. Goldsmith moves wristwatches, new and pre-owned, for upwards of six figures. His coup de grace? In 2019, he sold an Urwerk AMC atomic clock-powered wristwatch for $2.75 million. It’s one of only three in existence. A picture of it, housed in a case that looks like it could contain the nuclear codes, hangs proudly in Goldsmith & Complications.
“I’m all about relationships,” he says, of his sales success. “You treat people the way you want to be treated. I don’t know any other way.”
The son of New York jewelry merchants, Goldsmith developed his interest for watches in his early 20s at a trade show, when he noticed a Rolex Daytona on the wrist of one of his father’s clients. “It was one of the holy grail watches in the industry,” he recalls. “It sang to me. It shook me at the core.
“But it wasn’t until my mid-30s that I really started getting a passion for the lesser-known brands, like the independents—the smaller guys that make 30 watches a year. … That’s my passion—to find that unknown watchmaker and cultivate them, introduce them to everyone, help them grow.”
Goldsmith started his business on the wholesale side as a traveling salesman, at one point working 88 accounts in 14 states. Despite a lack of a marketing budget, he ended up selling luxury watches to athletes and celebrities—George Lopez and D.L. Hughley among them—on the strength of Instagram posts and word of mouth. “It snowballed from there,” he says. “I started building up a clientele.”
It took the pandemic reset for Goldsmith, a native New Yorker, to shift
just about everything in his life. Now married with a son, he decided to switch to direct retail, and wavered between a move to Santa Monica, California, or Delray Beach. He chose Delray, inspired by a memorable visit to the city back in 2019.
“We rented a house, sight unseen, FaceTiming,” he says. “It just felt different. I felt there wasn’t a weight on my chest. I fell in love with it. … It was the wildest thing I’d ever done.”
He occasionally holds public events at his boutique, complete with European exhibitors touting their latest watches, all part of his efforts to “put Delray on the map as a watch destination.”
And watches, so far, have proven to be a recession-proof business. “The last six years have been something we’ve never seen in this market before,” he says. “If you walk to a Mayors, their watch showcases are empty. Watches that retail for $10,000 can be going for $70,000, $80,000. It’s been a wild ride.
“With a watch, for a gentleman, it’s a staple,” he continues. “I could easily look at my cellphone for the time, and sometimes I do. But there’s nothing like having that wristwatch on. … It’s definitely here to stay.”
EMILIANO BROOKS
beauty, wellness & beyond
Beauty expert Skyler burst onto the scene just a few years ago after graduating college and hasn’t come up for air since. Her dedicated, nonstop training has evolved into a thriving career with expertise that includes licensing as an esthetician, makeup artist, permanent makeup artist and scalp micropigmentation artist.
In keeping with the latest, greatest technology and demand, Skyler delivers the most divine eyebrows utilizing the Ombré brows technique performed with a machine instead of a knife. The brows last one to three years before they fade away naturally. The procedure creates more natural-looking results, is softer on the skin and doesn’t create scar tissue. For a pretty pout, you can kiss those lipsticks goodbye with the lip blush technique that provides a semi-permanent lip tint that also lasts one to three years.
Another game changer in Skyler’s repertoire is tattoo removal, which comes as a blessing for so many who regret the ink they had applied previously, or has faded into undesirable, unattractive hues; bye bye blue brows, hello natural-looking tones with Skyler’s magic touch!
Skyler has also recently completed her laser and electrolysis license, offering hair-free, carefree smoothness for those bothersome areas.
Every client is a canvas for Skyler, who delights in the subtle to sensational transformations that make them look and feel fabulous in the skin they’re in, whether for just one glamorous night or years to come. See what Skyler can do to transform your looks and create a new you!
561.866.7176 designs.bysky
Skyler Ruth
Licensed Permanent Make-up Artist and Esthetician Sky Cosmetic Creations, LLC
AARON BRISTOL
Nina Presman
Founder Anti Aging Center of Boca
beauty, wellness & beyond
When clients visit the Anti Aging Center of Boca, founded by Nina Presman, they can be certain they will receive the most advanced, expert care and treatments available.
The revolutionary body sculpting technology, Ageless Beauty, takes High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), Acoustic Lipoliser and Ultrasound Cavitation to a new level.
Now, she says, she looks better at 59 than she did at 35, thanks to this technology.
“When we stop producing collagen at 30, and the dormant fat cells under the skin start filling up between ages 40 to 45, gravity starts pulling the skin down, causing the drooping and sagging look,” Nina explains.
Alfa Lypolysis with HIFU (which can be utilized all over the body) completely liquifies and melts the undesired fat cells on all levels, resulting in immediate and permanent loss of inches, and lifts and rejuvenates the skin, building collagen, without any side effects, pain or downtime.
