Coral Gables
Coral Gables is very different from the other districts: lush green parks and golf clubs are nested away between quiet streets lined by detached coral stone houses with terracotta roofs and inhabited by the rich, who have the local Cubans (Little Havana is found just to the east of here) wash their cars and mow their lawns.
Hedonists may be disappointed: Coral Gables is the tranquil part of town and not a place for parties. In fact it was designed by George Merrick, along with uncle and artist Denman Fink and landscaper Frank Button, in the 1920s in an effort to create the perfect surroundings to bring up their families in a planned community.
With fountains and archways, plaza-like crossroads, streets named Ponce De Leon and Aragon Street, and Spanish hacienda architecture, they gave Coral Gables – the safe, respectable neighbourhood of Miami – a truly European flavour.
Set over 12 square miles, Coral Gables has one major artery, Coral Way. Locally known as Miracle Mile, it runs from east to west in a stretch that is around half a mile long and packed with shops, businesses and restaurants.
So why visit Coral Gables?
Although the majority of the neighbourhood is residential, Coral Gables is also host to almost 200 international companies, so if you are in town on business, there is a good chance that you’ll be spending some time here. For shopping, there are some quality little boutique stores along Coral Way, as well as the George Merrick Village, an up-and-coming designer mall whose European influence is shown in the quieter and more selective range of stores.
Most importantly, Coral Gables is considered the food capital of Florida and boasts some high-quality restaurants. Although they’re not renowned for their atmosphere, in culinary terms they are generally superior to the restaurants on South Beach and Downtown. You may fancy heading over to Coral Gables for an early dinner before returning to Downtown or South Beach for the bright lights.
Try the excellent fresh Latin American flavours of Cacao, the Italian-Carribean fusion served at Caramelo or the distinctive flavours of perennial Coral Gables favourite Norman’s.
Unless you have a particular fondness for sleepy suburbs, staying in Coral Gables probably won’t be very tempting. Golfers, however, should not forget the Biltmore – which not only boasts an 18-hole golf course but also the biggest pool in the continental United States. The hotel’s Courtyard Cafe offers a wonderful lunch in the middle of the day and a quiet dinner in the evening.
If South Beach’s constant fashion parade gets just a little too much for you, an afternoon lounging by the pool at the Biltmore, followed by a little shopping at Merrick Village before a quiet dinner at Norman’s, might just save you.
Downtown
If you have always wanted to know what ‘Downtown’ really meant but have been too embarrassed to ask, Miami will clear this up for you. Come to Downtown Miami and you’ll find the financial centre, a separate entity that is really only occupied during the day by besuited office folk.
Architecturally, Downtown Miami boasts one of the most impressive skylines in the United States, with rows of skyscrapers and the Four Seasons poking its shiny tinted glass head above the bank of towers, all set against a backdrop of shimmering blue water. To take in the view at its finest, book in at the Mandarin Oriental and sip a glass of champagne on your balcony as the sun goes down.
However, many would say that, like its grand appearance, Downtown is best enjoyed from a distance. Indeed, it’s not the shiny modern landscape that it appears to be. It can seem like a ghost town, with a few lunchtime bars for businessmen and an array of electronic stores and immigration houses. Businessmen in the towers stay above ground level during office hours, and then jump into the elevator to the subterranean car park and drive home when the working day is over. Some might venture out on a Friday to the Mandarin’s hip ‘Barefoot at the Oasis’ beach party.
The bad news about Downtown Miami is that if you take a wrong turn, you could find yourself in serious trouble. But the good news is that this is changing as investors pump cash into the area in the hope that the shopping malls and restaurants will follow. The much anticipated Performing Arts Center is seen as the catalyst for the Downtown face lift and the increasng number of posh apartment buildings that are under construction mean that the Downtown Miami renaissance is serious.
In terms of nightlife, Downtown is where it’s at: it’s South Florida’s answer to Ibiza, and home to two of the largest nightclubs for house and trance music in the state. Nocturnal and Space are super-clubs that bring in top-name international DJs for their all-night sessions. South Beach nightclub owners, having revelled in their sense of security for almost a decade, are now taking mental notes that Downtown is quietly catching up with its 24-hour liquor licences.
Just outside the financial district is the Design District, an area that is becoming noted for its partying – the rapidly devloping nefarious reputation of Pawn Shop, a favourite with the ‘more money than sense crowd’, and Grass – one of the area’s new hotspots.
If you’re on business here, note that the Four Seasons, Conrad and Mandarin Oriental hotels are highly rated and have considerably boosted the profile of the district; the Mandarin Oriental is incredibly popular with the glitterati and the wealthier tourists. The Mandarin’s restaurant, Azul, is one of the finest in the city; the delicious food is set off by one of the best views in Miami and is definitely worth a dinner.
Miami
The days of cocaine-inspired gang warfare and shoot-outs are long gone. In the words of actor and rapper Will Smith, ‘Welcome to Miami’ – the place he calls his second home. Why does Will have such affection for Miami? The answer is that the city is the party capital of the United States, and is filled with the most eclectic mix of people outside New York.
If you’ve heard the phrase ‘the town that never sleeps’ a hundred times before, this is the one time when you should take it seriously. If it’s nightclubs, beautiful people, fast cars, big boats and huge egos you are after, you have come to the right place.
But if you were expecting Americana in all its glory, prepare to be disappointed: Miami is a place where you could quite happily get by without speaking a word of English. The city is broken down into many ethnic groups, creating an eclectic Euro–Latin fusion.
Like any city, Miami has various neighbourhoods, but the extent to which they differ is quite staggering. It’s hard to believe that Coral Gables, Downtown and Miami Beach (divided into South Beach and Mid Beach) are all contained within one city. Downtown is the financial nerve-centre, Miami Beach is the party capital, and Coral Gables is the quiet, European influenced district.
In the past, Miami’s reputation has been tainted by the presence of drug traffickers. The problem stemmed from the prohibition era when the beachfront became home to gambling, drinking and fornication, a place where nobody took the blindest bit of notice of the law.
Its long beachfront and southern location meant that Miami had direct, clear access to South and Central America, the source’s of cocaine and weed, and in the 1980s it became a magnet for drug-runners. Then the drug enforcement agencies cracked down on dealing and deliveries before finally the city began the big clean-up and models and celebrities returned in force. But drugs continued to be a major influence on life in Miami until the 1990s. Films such as Scarface paint a pretty accurate if somewhat glamorized version of how life was.
Today Miami is the target of much investment, both domestic and international, as the city continues to develop its reputation as a financial centre and link between the US and South America and the Caribbean.
But tourism remains one of Miami’s top industries, as visitors come from all over the world to sample the sunshine, eat in the restaurants and party in some of the world’s top clubs.
South Beach North
According to some Miami locals, this is where East Coast hardcore rapper 50 Cent and his boys were inspired to write the song ‘Candy Shop’, after a night out drinking champagne in the lounges of South Beach.
If you had to pick one area in Miami in which to be seen looking your finest, then it would be between 14th Street and 22nd Street, where Ocean Drive peters out and Collins Avenue ditches the shops and goes all-out on hotels and party lounges.
This is the epicentre of fashion, dining, parties and a general level of debauchery unmatched anywhere else in America. ‘On the Beach’ is where the majority of celebs and wannabes do their thing, where the Hummer limos glide menacingly up to the velvet ropes, spilling diamond-clad men and cosmetically enhanced women into the enveloping darkness of yet another VIP lounge.
Mynt, Rok Bar, Sky Bar and Amika are just some of the big name lounges and clubs that typify the area. Glamorous, extravagant and sleek, the clubs are like their clientele. This is where fantasies come true, glam up to the max, bring out your Amex black and lose track of time, your life and your pension plan.
Up this end of South Beach, the hotels are bigger – bigger meaning better in the eyes of the Miami local. The Setai, the Raleigh, the Shore Club and the Delano are all famous names and cater for those with big budgets. Go for a walk up Collins Avenue and drink at the Art Deco hotel bars, or stroll along the beach and take in the sights of the most exclusive stretch of sand in town.
If Collins is the main artery of this northern part of South Beach, then Lincoln Road is the heartbeat, and the place to find the best shops, restaurants, bars and nightclubs; the most interesting parts of this outdoor mall are between Washington Avenue and Alton Road, where people-watching has become a competitive art form.
For lovers of Hispanic culture, look no further than Española Way. There you will find a crowded little gem of a street packed with restaurants. Most of them can be ignored, but some are popular with Spanish locals who love their tapas and vino tinto.
The north of South Beach area ends on the border of what is considered to be Mid Beach. As a rule of thumb, there’s no real need to go further north than this point unless you are going to play golf, looking for a quiet spot on the beach, or require a hotel that’s off the beaten track. Otherwise South Beach is the reason why most people go to Miami.
South Beach South
Tell someone you’re off to Miami, and they’ll probably assume that you’re heading for South Beach, or SoBe as it is affectionately known locally. It’s a magnet for hedonists, and without it Miami would not be known as the exciting city that it is today.
South Beach is a small area of Miami that’s detached from the mainland, but which is nevertheless the heartbeat of the city. Its Art Deco landscape is a product of the 1930s and ’40s and was constructed after a hurricane demolished much of the beachfront city in 1926. The architects who rebuilt the community were given licence to create whatever they liked, and the result is an abundance of multicoloured, four-storey Art Deco buildings.
More than 800 of these Art Deco buildings still survive on South Beach and the area was protected, in 1979, by the National Register of Historic Places. Most surprising, however, is that the beach, like many things in Miami, is actually fake, created by sand dredged from the sea bed being dumped onto the shoreline. Fake or not, the sand, edged by turquoise water, provides a wonderful canvas for some of the prettiest sunbathers in the world.
If you want a clearer understanding of the place before you get here, just imagine the most louche and artificial arena possible and then fill it with beautiful people from all over the world who have come to show off their wealth and to party. If you go expecting culture and sophistication, then you’ll be disappointed. Here money and fame rule, glamour and glitz are the order of the day and, as long as you accept that, then South Beach can be a lot of fun.
Apart from being one of the longest beaches in America, SoBe is renowned for its hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and shops. It’s rather like a grown-up summer camp, except that the sun always shines on South Beach and the party never seems to stop.
South Beach’s geography is pretty simple: everywhere you’ll ever need to go is within three parallel blocks from the beach. Tourist-packed Ocean Drive is the Art Deco drive set back from the beach, with its multitude of cafés and overpriced and understyled hotels that line the front. Behind that is Collins Avenue – home to the glamour and over-stated elegance of some of Miami’s finest hotels Finally comes Washington Avenue, grittier, edgier and dirtier, offering an alternative and slightly seedier take on SoBe’s playboy paradise.
This area of South Beach is quieter and more residential than the northern part. In actual beach terms, the southern end of South Beach is occupied by surfers and the ultra toned Latino crowd. It is slightly less crowded at this end, but it's where many of the few true Miami locals like to go to escape the tourists.
