Diners with long memories of bygone buffets may recall The Knife\u2019s mighty South Florida presence, touting all-you-can-eat Argentine cuts long before such communal spreads bloomed across the region. Years after shutting its Hallandale Beach and Sunrise locations, the 24-year-old local steakhouse is carving its way back into Broward County with a fresh comeback twist: It\u2019s now two concepts in one \u2014 an updated buffet and an upscale a la carte restaurant.<\/p>\n
The Knife, which debuted Feb. 24 at the mall\u2019s south entrance, features a familiar medley of unlimited choice-grade cuts at a fixed price, including short ribs, rump and bottom sirloin, N.Y. strips and beef briskets, along with side bars devoted to salads, charcuterie, pickled bean appetizers, housemade desserts and a double-crusted, cheese-stuffed pizza called fugazzeta.<\/p>\n
All is made by Velazco, a stable of 10 cooks and new pastry chef Anabella Olivera.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Velazco] is not a chef, he\u2019s a magician,\u201d general manager Pedro Rivero\u00a0says. \u201cDoesn\u2019t it smell wonderful in here?\u201d<\/p>\n
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Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/p>\n
A variety of chorizo and blood sausage sizzling on the grill at The Knife Parrilla Argentina in Coral Springs. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Starting in May, a pair of side dining rooms, seating 70 guests combined, will offer a white-tablecloth VIP experience featuring a separate menu of specialty desserts and higher-grade certified Angus prime cuts from Argentine beef producer Urien-Loza, Velazco says.<\/p>\n
It is this singular addition that longtime owner Carlos Ruiz believes will set The Knife\u2019s reboot apart in a growing arena of all-you-can-eat steakhouses, from Korean to Japanese, that did not exist when his \u201cparrilla\u201d last raised the steaks in Broward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a miracle but rather a strong desire to be back in Broward,\u201d Ruiz, 74, tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel through a translator. \u201cWe have to change for good and modernize, and by making things higher-end, that\u2019s the new path for us. Like any business, we\u2019re not 100% sure we\u2019re to succeed, but with effort, experience and budget, we\u2019re trying everything to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/p>\n
Owner Carlos Ruiz of The Knife Parrilla Argentina in Coral Springs on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
\n\u2018Coral Springs looks attractive to me\u2019<\/p>\n
Before opening the first Knife on Hallandale Beach Boulevard in 2002, Ruiz worked in finance trading grain futures on the stock market in the early \u201990s while also a founding partner of a chain of buffet steakhouses in Buenos Aires called Siga la Vaca.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just liked customer service and going out to eat,\u201d Ruiz recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any restaurant experience but, well, I knew Argentine cuisine could be done well, and I could learn to do it well and make customers happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the early 2000s, he says he grew frustrated with his family\u2019s safety in Argentina amid a looming economic crisis and a surge in street violence. After suffering a robbery, Ruiz says he sold his stake in Siga la Vaca and moved to South Florida. (Siga la Vaca later opened a Coral Gables location in 2012.)<\/p>\n
Ruiz says he created The Knife in 2002 because \u201cI loved food, especially Argentine food, and we wanted to take the all-you-can-eat system over there and improve the quality here and make the people happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knife\u2019s all-you-can-eat meat fare caught on quickly, and the steakhouse expanded to Sunrise (2003), followed by locations in Miami\u2019s Coconut Grove neighborhood (2004), Miami International Mall in Doral (2008), Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami (2008) and Orlando (2009). During the 2010s, he debuted four more Knife outposts in Madrid, Spain.<\/p>\n
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Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/p>\n
The Knife Parrilla Argentina in Coral Springs includes full-service VIP rooms. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n
And then the steakhouse\u2019s growth spurt dulled. Over the next 15 years, he says \u201ca series of misfortunes\u201d \u2014 landlords selling buildings, an investor fallout \u2014 reduced the chain to a single location at Miami International Mall and one in Madrid. In 2023, Ruiz says Maria Prado, a Simon Property Group manager, offered him space at Coral Square Mall, next to a Foot Locker \u2014 and he said yes. The restaurant spent the next two-plus years under construction, with Ruiz traveling back and forth from Spain, where he lives, to oversee the buildout.<\/p>\n
How is Ruiz so sure that this Broward reboot will succeed in a crowded buffet market?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first opened Hallandale, everybody asked the same question: How will I succeed?\u201d he says. \u201cCoral Springs looks attractive to me. There isn\u2019t an all-you-can-eat Argentina grill around here with our exact concept. Look at our place \u2014 it\u2019s amazing, it\u2019s beautiful. I just know everyone who tries it will feel the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
A sharper Knife<\/p>\n
The Knife\u2019s new VIP rooms are a love letter to Buenos Aires, he says. They\u2019re nicknamed Recoleta and San Telmo, after high-end and artsy-bohemian neighborhoods in the city.<\/p>\n
Here, customers can order la carte appetizers, entrees, sides, desserts, 36 new craft cocktails and 56 wines by the bottle or glass \u2014 none of which are all-you-can-eat. The centerpiece of this menu are prime-cut entrees ($28-$100, including two sides), such as Black Angus flap meat, ribeyes, porterhouses, tomahawks, spinalis (flavorful ribeye cap muscle), six-rib lamb rack and matambre de res (a beef cut stuffed with mozzarella and gratineed Roquefort).<\/p>\n
Until its a la carte menu is completed, however, the dining room for now is buffet-only. The cost is $49 a person until 5 p.m. Friday, when prices increase to $54 all weekend long, and includes access to salad bars, sides, a dessert and beverage.<\/p>\n
Customers are first seated, and servers in white button-down shirts bring a choice of soda, wine or beer, after which diners can meander toward self-serve stations stocked with salads and sides. Many beeline straight for the meat counter, arrayed with charcoal-kissed cuts of skirt steak, pork and short ribs, ribeyes and blood sausage, plus empanadas.<\/p>\n
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Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/p>\n
Owner Carlos Ruiz, left, and manager Pedro Rivero at The Knife Parrilla Argentina in Coral Springs on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Need help deciding? Mind the grill\u2019s flames, step back and gaze up: A cow graphic above the station illustrates the Knife\u2019s 14 cuts.<\/p>\n
Guests can request special cuts of N.Y. strip, filet mignon and tomahawk if they\u2019re available. Other rules: Dining is limited to 2 1\/2 hours, and customers can\u2019t take leftovers home.<\/p>\n
Beef is cooked to diners\u2019 desired temperatures in under 10 minutes over charcoal sourced from quebracho blanco trees in Argentina, chef Velazco says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe quebracho gives a different tasting smoke flavor to the meat,\u201d he says. \u201cThe flavors and the presentation are the most important things, because the meat itself is very simple \u2014 just heat and salt.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Uruguayan-born Velazco (ex-Quinto in Brickell) says cutting his teeth in kitchens in New York, Argentina, Andorra and Spain has helped him add bold flavor fusions to dishes from grilled octopus to sushi-grade tuna tartare.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my Spanish and French cooking techniques help, but my focus is the meat, the salt, the charcoal and the grill,\u201d Velazco says. \u201cI think the customers know that Argentina and Uruguay have the best grills and gaucho tradition of grass-fed meat, and that sets us apart.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knife Parrilla Argentina is at 9231 W. Atlantic Blvd., Coral Springs<\/a>. Call 786-259-0382, ext. 1, or go to TheKnifeRestaurantus.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Staff writer Phillip Valys can be reached at pvalys@sunsentinel.com<\/a> or Twitter\/X @philvalys<\/a>.<\/p>\n Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/p>\n The buffet section of the dining room at The Knife Parrilla Argentina restaurant in Coral Springs. (Carline Jean\/South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent Friday behind the meat counter at The Knife Parrilla Argentina, chef Leonardo Velazco hovers over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1593,506,4555,104,1594,28,688,249,251,250,114,687,109,685,106],"class_list":["post-188678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-bars","tag-broward-county","tag-coral-springs","tag-entertainment","tag-explore-florida","tag-florida","tag-food-and-drink","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-restaurants","tag-social","tag-the-eat-beat","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TFL-L-KNIFE-CORAL-SPRINGS-1.jpg\")
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