MIAMI, FL. Inspectors visiting Umami at 1400 NW 87th Avenue on June 8 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers being served to customers, a violation that means the restaurant's ingredients bypassed federal safety inspections entirely and cannot be traced if someone gets sick.
The facility logged 11 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations that day. It was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. When food arrives without USDA or FDA oversight, there is no chain of custody if a customer falls ill. Investigators have no supplier to trace, no lot number to pull, no recall to issue.
Inspectors also cited the kitchen for failing to cook food to required minimum temperatures. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The record does not specify which items were undercooked, but the violation stood as a high-severity finding.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near the food operation. That is not a paperwork problem. Mislabeled or misplaced chemicals have caused acute poisoning events in food service settings when they are mistaken for food-safe products or contaminate surfaces and ingredients.
Three separate violations pointed to the same breakdown in illness management: no written employee health policy, no system for employees to report symptoms, and employees not reporting symptoms. All three together mean a sick worker had no formal obligation to stay home and no policy framework requiring it.
The inspection also flagged improper handwashing technique, food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, inadequate shell stock identification records for shellfish, improper use of time as a public health control, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. The person in charge was cited for not being present or not performing required duties.
On the intermediate side, inspectors documented improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and improper use of wiping cloths.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy, no symptom reporting, and employees not reporting illness is not three separate problems. It is one systemic failure with a direct route to a customer's plate. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently through food prepared by a sick worker who had no reason to stay home and no one checking.
The shell stock traceability violation compounds the sourcing problem. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are high-risk foods frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without proper identification tags, there is no way to connect a contaminated batch to its harvest location. If a customer develops a shellfish-related illness after eating at Umami, investigators would have nowhere to start.
Improper sewage disposal is not a plumbing inconvenience. Raw sewage carries pathogens including E. coli and hepatitis A. When wastewater is not properly contained and removed, fecal contamination can reach food preparation surfaces, equipment, and the food itself.
The wiping cloth violation ties into the surface sanitation finding. A cloth used improperly, stored in standing water or moved between raw and ready-to-eat surfaces without sanitizing, transfers bacteria across the kitchen. Combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned, the inspection describes a facility where cross-contamination had multiple active pathways.
The Longer Record
The June 8 inspection was not an anomaly. Umami has 29 inspections on record and 545 total violations documented across that history.
Two days after the June 8 inspection, on June 10, inspectors returned and found 7 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations still present. The facility has been inspected at least eight times since late 2023, and in every single one of those visits, inspectors documented high-severity violations.
Umami has been emergency-closed twice. In September 2024, inspectors shut it down for roach activity. It reopened the next day. In October 2025, inspectors shut it down again, for roach activity again. It reopened the following day.
The inspection on September 9, 2024, the one that triggered the first closure, produced 14 high-severity and 7 intermediate violations. The April 2024 inspection produced 13 high-severity violations. The pattern across the record is not a facility occasionally falling short. It is a facility that accumulates critical violations, gets cited, sometimes gets closed, reopens, and repeats.
Open for Business
After the June 8 inspection, with 11 high-severity violations on the books including unapproved food sourcing, undercooking, toxic chemical storage, and no illness reporting system, Umami was not emergency-closed.
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when they determine a facility poses an immediate public health threat. On June 8, they did not make that determination.
The restaurant remained open.