This week, we're launching Gothamist's travel content, Gothamist Getaways. Four times a year, we'll have a week of posts featuring looks at travel, food, products and tips, near and far, for making your trips more pleasurable. So enjoy and let us know if you have any hints for us—email [email protected].
Snobby New Yorkers who dis Miami because of the vapid South Beach party scene are missing out—the city of palm trees and turquoise waters and art deco architecture has much more to offer than booming nightclubs and botoxed bimbos. It's like this: would you refuse to visit Manhattan because of the Meatpacking District? Sure, the club scene in Miami is obnoxious, but you can have an enriching experience there without ever popping bottles in LIV, as I chronicled in great detail here. And on another visit in January, I happened upon a few more places that are worth sharing.
The elegantly simple Perez Art Museum [PAMM] opened at the end of 2013 in downtown Miami, not far from where the Miami Heat play home games. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architecture firm that renovated the acclaimed Park Avenue Armory, the place is all space and sunlight and glass, poised all alone on the edge of Biscayne Bay. At the entrance, 50-foot tall hanging gardens dangle above an expansive veranda, and once inside the high ceilings seamlessly diminish into intimate galleries. The design flows harmoniously, creating a smooth backdrop for their large collection of modern and contemporary art.
There are over 1,800 works in the permanent collection, including masterpieces by some of the most significant Latin American artists, including Beatriz González, Diego Rivera, and Joaquín Torres-Garcia. The institution was previously known as the Miami Art Museum before being renamed for Jorge M. Pérez, a real estate developer (The Related Companies) who donated $40 million, which is the kind of money that gets your name on things. Its new home cost an estimated $131 million, but it doesn't feel ostentatious—there is ample room for the art to breathe, and a thoughtful array of exhibits are being orchestrated to fill it. The relaxed atmosphere is currently set as soon as you stroll in from the veranda and find yourself gazing up at Hew Locke's armada of model boats floating on air above your head. (They'll be there through May 2014.)
(For Those in Peril on the Sea, 2011 Model boats and mixed media 79 boats. Photo by Daniel Azoulay photography)
PAMM is an ideal "rainy day in Miami" destination, but it's also a fine sunny day activity; you never feel like you're eating your spinach in a dreary institution cut off from the light. When all that art makes you hungry or ready for a cocktail, there's Verde, a superb casual bistro from big shot restaurateur Stephen Starr (Buddakan). Overlooking the bay, the lobby-level restaurant serves lunch all week and dinner on Thursday nights; the fresh thin crust Squash Blossoms pizza ($13) is disarmingly delicious considering you're eating pizza in Florida. Check out the full menus here.
PAMM is located at 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33132 between the Adrienne Arsht Center and the American Airlines Arena.
If your lust for pizza isn't satiated by Verde, make room for Lucali, the sister location to the acclaimed Brooklyn Neapolitan-style pizzeria run by obsessed pizzaiolo Mark Iacono. The Miami outpost, located in the increasingly trendy Sunset Harbor neighborhood, is much larger than the original, sparing you the interminable countdown to ecstasy, but echoes Iacono's simple, no-fuss aesthetic. As in Brooklyn, the kitchen is wide open, and the quality on the night I visited was almost as indiscernible from the original.
Unlike Brooklyn, it's not BYOB, and there's more on the menu than pies and calzones (always get a calzone, by the way—it's like heaven falling into your mouth in the form of warm dough and ricotta). On my visit the menu included a kale caesar salad and delicious eggplant mozzarella appetizer. But you're here for the pizza, which is as expensive as it is filling, so order accordingly. Pies start at $26, which sounds crazy expensive until you've tried one. It's still a lot of money, but nothing phenomenal comes cheap.
N.B.: After you're stuffed from Lucali, take a ten minute stroll over the Venetian Causway bridge to Belle Isle and enjoy an after-dinner al fresco drink at the Standard hotel's Lido restaurant and bar overlooking Biscayne Bay. You're not in South Beach anymore.
Lucali is located at 1930 Bay Road, Miami Beach, Florida 33139 // (305) 695-4441
My favorite bar in Miami is now The Broken Shaker, a little hideaway found in the funky courtyard of The Freehand hostel and hotel, a short walk from the beach. Designers Roman & Williams, who did the Standard High Line, delicately revived the old Indian Creek Hotel, one of Miami Beach’s classic 1930s Art Deco buildings. At night the lush interior garden feels like a hipster fairy tale, aglow with strings of golden light festooned throughout. There's a small pool, a mellow cat, plenty of tables and chairs, ping-pong and board games that lend the space with a playful vibe.
The compact bar is staffed by passionate but unpretentious bartenders who will fuss over your drink like a worried mother, deploying a small pharmacy of house-made elixirs, infusions, and syrups with unwavering concentration. All the herbs in the drinks are grown at the Freehand's garden, and the resulting concoctions are fresh and imaginative. Everyone raves about their Old Fashioned made with a Cocoa Puffs infusion (that one was actually a little too cloying for my taste), but the Garden Martini lets the Broken Shaker show off its strengths; made with fresh celery and allspice cordial, it's anchored with Noilly Prat vermouth and Bombay dry gin. An old classic with a tropical twist, simple and refreshing.
Broken Shaker is located inside The Freehand Miami, at 2727 Indian Creek Drive, Miami Beach, Florida 33140 // 305 531 2727
