MIAMI, FL. State inspectors visiting Cote Korean Steak House at 3900 NE 2 Avenue on September 28, 2026 found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, toxic chemicals improperly stored near food, and a restaurant operating without any written employee health policy. They documented nine high-severity violations and four intermediate ones. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The cooking temperature violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at Cote that day. Cote is a Korean steakhouse where diners cook much of their own meat at tableside grills, but preparation and handling in the kitchen still falls under the restaurant's control. Inspectors found food was not reaching required minimum temperatures, a failure that allows pathogens like Salmonella to survive and reach a customer's plate.
The chemical violations compound the picture. Inspectors cited the restaurant twice over toxic substances: once for improper storage or labeling, and again for improper identification, storage, or use. Two separate citations for chemicals in the same inspection means the problem was not isolated to one shelf or one container.
Inspectors also documented that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness and that no written employee health policy existed. Those two violations are recorded separately, but they describe the same breakdown: a kitchen where sick workers had no formal obligation to stay home, and no documented system requiring them to do so.
The person in charge was either absent or not actively performing supervisory duties when inspectors arrived. That finding sits at the top of the violation list for a reason.
What These Violations Mean
The absence of an employee health policy is not a paperwork problem. Without a written policy, there is no mechanism to prevent a worker with Norovirus from handling food. Norovirus accounts for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and food workers are a primary transmission route. At Cote, inspectors found both that the policy was missing and that employees were not reporting symptoms, meaning the gap between policy and practice was complete.
The improper handwashing technique citation matters for the same reason. Handwashing that is done incorrectly leaves pathogens on hands even when the attempt is made. Combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, the inspection describes a kitchen where contamination had multiple unblocked pathways to food.
The sewage and wastewater disposal violation, listed as intermediate, carries consequences that go beyond its classification. Improper sewage disposal creates the risk of fecal contamination spreading through the facility, affecting surfaces, equipment, and food that have no direct connection to the original source.
Time as a public health control, when used improperly, means food was allowed to sit in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, without the tracking required to ensure it was discarded before bacterial growth reached dangerous levels. That violation, alongside the undercooking citation, means temperature management failed at two separate points in the process.
The Longer Record
Cote Korean Steak House: Inspection History
The September 2026 inspection is not an outlier. Across 11 inspections on record, Cote has accumulated 53 total violations. Every inspection in the record except one, a June 2024 follow-up that came one day after a five-high-violation inspection, has produced at least two high-severity citations.
The February 2026 inspection, seven months before the most recent visit, produced four high-severity violations and one intermediate. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
High-severity violations have appeared at Cote in every calendar year for which inspection records exist: 2022, 2024, 2025, and 2026. The September 2026 inspection produced more than double the high-severity count of any prior visit.
Cote Korean Steak House, which markets itself as a fine-dining destination in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood and has received national press attention, left its dining room open after inspectors documented nine high-severity violations on September 28, 2026.
