NORTH MIAMI, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Amarone on Biscayne Boulevard and left with a citation for food from unapproved or unknown sources, one of the most serious findings a restaurant can collect, because it means some of what was served to customers that day had never passed a federal safety inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
That single violation sat alongside five other high-severity citations from the April 7 inspection, plus three intermediate ones. Nine violations total, six of them carrying the kind of health risk language that inspectors reserve for direct threats to customers.
What Inspectors Found
Inspectors cited improper hand and arm washing technique, a violation distinct from simply not washing hands. It means employees went through the motion of washing and still left pathogens on their hands, a gap that standard handwashing compliance checks can miss entirely.
The shell stock identification violation flagged inadequate records for shellfish, a category that includes oysters, clams, and mussels, foods that Amarone serves and that customers frequently eat raw or barely cooked. Without proper tagging and documentation, there is no way to trace a batch of shellfish back to its harvest bed if someone gets sick.
Toxic substances were also improperly identified, stored, or used. That citation covers chemicals that, if they reach food or food contact surfaces, can cause immediate illness with no warning to the person consuming the contaminated dish.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and time as a public health control was not properly applied. That second violation means food was allowed to sit in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, without the documented time tracking that substitutes for refrigeration in certain kitchen operations. When the tracking fails, there is no record of how long food spent in conditions where bacteria double roughly every 20 minutes.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is not a paperwork problem. Food that bypasses USDA and FDA inspection has no verified safety history. It could harbor Listeria or Salmonella at levels that routine kitchen handling would never detect, and if someone became ill, investigators would have no supply chain to trace.
The shellfish traceability failure compounds that risk. Shellfish are filter feeders that concentrate whatever pathogens and toxins exist in their growing waters. The tagging system exists specifically so that a norovirus or Vibrio outbreak can be traced to a specific harvest location within hours. Without those records, that investigation stalls.
Improperly stored toxic substances in a commercial kitchen create a contamination route that looks nothing like food spoilage. Chemical contamination produces symptoms that can be mistaken for other illnesses, and the source is often identified only after multiple people report the same experience.
The handwashing technique citation, taken alongside unclean food contact surfaces and improperly reused single-use items, describes a kitchen where multiple cross-contamination pathways were active at the same time. Each violation alone represents a risk. Together, they represent overlapping opportunities for pathogens to move from one surface to the next.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was not an isolated bad day for Amarone. State records show 25 inspections on file and 177 total violations accumulated over the facility's history.
The inspection immediately before April's visit, in August 2025, produced two separate reports on the same day. The first logged six high-severity violations and three intermediate ones. The second, also from August 8, added five more high-severity violations and one intermediate. A February 2025 inspection found eight high-severity violations and one intermediate, the highest single-visit count in the recent record.
The pattern runs back further. A September 2024 inspection found five high-severity violations. A December 2023 inspection found six. High-severity citations have appeared in every inspection on record for at least the past two and a half years.
The facility also carries one prior emergency closure. In May 2016, inspectors ordered Amarone shut for roach activity. It reopened the following day.
Open for Business
Despite six high-severity violations documented on April 7, 2026, including unapproved food sources, untraceable shellfish, and improperly stored toxic substances, Amarone was not emergency-closed. It remained open to serve customers that evening.
State law allows inspectors to close a facility immediately when they determine conditions pose an imminent threat to public health. On April 7, with nine violations across the board and a history of 177 prior citations, that determination was not made.
The restaurant was open when inspectors arrived. It was open when they left.