Catch & Cut

Stone crab sets the tempo

Stone crab sets the tempo for André Bienvenu, Chef at Catch & Cut in Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale, where the cold shellfish arrives as a test of restraint. He comes to the station after Johnson & Wales University and a long Miami Beach apprenticeship in repetition: from 1999–2024, he served as Executive Chef at Joe's Stone Crab. That house made continuity part of the craft. A plate had to return to the room with the same clarity service after service, not as an idea but as a habit held by the hands. Since 2025, Bienvenu has carried that discipline into Catch & Cut as owner/partner and Executive Chef, pairing the decisions of ownership with the work of the pass. The move gives him a different room and a broader menu, but the center remains familiar: seafood handled without noise, steak cooked for precision, and a kitchen that trusts timing more than flourish. Stone crab is still the cleanest signature for that approach. It asks the chef to know when to stop.

A seafood house with a steakhouse spine

The program at Catch & Cut runs on a modern seafood and steakhouse frame, with Florida stone crabs, premium Allen Brothers steaks, and artisanal sushi sharing the same a la carte and prix fixe structure. That combination can become loose in the wrong hands. Here, Bienvenu's record gives the menu a harder line: Stone Crab Claws, a Seafood Tower, Center Cut Filet Mignon, Mediterranean Branzino, and a Sushi Platter each ask for a different station discipline, but all reward clean handling. The seafood side carries the sourcing language of sustainable seafood; the steak side depends on the cut, the sear, and the rest; the sushi work needs rice, knife, and temperature to stay in balance. The beverage program is curated, with cocktails as a stated focus, so the room can move between shellfish, beef, and raw fish without asking the kitchen to soften its edges. The method is not published as a recipe. The visible craft is in the menu's insistence that luxury seafood and steakhouse cooking can sit on the same pass without turning into excess.

The room keeps its own rhythm

The room gives the work a public pulse. Catch & Cut occupies a two-story space on Las Olas Boulevard, with a rooftop terrace looking over the street and a dining room built for a lively service. Nostalgic checkered tiles sit under white tablecloths; dramatic chandeliers bring height to the room without removing the sound of plates, glassware, and conversation. It is an upscale casual house rather than a hushed one, and that matters for Bienvenu's cooking. Stone crab, branzino, filet, and sushi all have to land clearly in a room that moves. The pass has to hold its line while the counter, the room, and the terrace carry different speeds. In that setting, steadiness becomes part of the hospitality, not a private kitchen virtue.

A new address for an old discipline

Catch & Cut matters because Bienvenu did not arrive here as a chef seeking a reset. He arrived with a career built on long service, then took on the risk of ownership beside the daily obligation of cooking. That combination changes the weight of each decision, from the shellfish brought in for service to the steak that reaches the table. If the next chapter has a marker, it is not a slogan or an award. It is the way Bienvenu keeps returning to Stone Crab Claws at Catch & Cut.