Miami - Lifestyle & Culture

Culture

Miami wears its culture lightly - but make no mistake, this is a seriously cultural spot. The city’s collection of galleries and museums, its year-round programme of events and festivals and its thriving Hispanic culture combine to create a colourful, and captivating mix of high, middle and, yes, low-brow thrills.

The Historical Museum of Southern Florida (Miami-Dade Cultural Centre, Downtown Miami) should be your first port of call, to get instantly up to speed on the city’s fascinating, thousand year history.

Aligned with Washington’s Smithsonian Institute, the Miami Space and Science Museum and Planetarium (3280 South Miami Avenue, Coconut Grove) is part futuristic science attraction, and part old-school natural history museum: odd bedfellows, maybe, but they do make for a fascinating visitor attraction.

The Italianate Vizcaya Museum and Gardens (South Miami Avenue) is a real culture shock, looking for all the world like a transplanted Veneto villa. Within, there’s much to admire, from the Pre-raphaelite art and antiques, to the delicate blooms in the Orchidarium.

For a museum of an altogether different hue, the Wolfsonian (1001 Washington Avenue) is a one off. It’s the collection of an eccentric adventurer, Mitchell Wolfson. Specialising in the dark-art of propaganda, the collection looks at the role its played in warfare from the 15th century to the present day.

Nightlife

The Miami sound machine is alive and well, and pumping from a thousand PA systems across the dance floors of the city. Miami, should you need reminding, is a city built on rhythm - and whether you favour Latin-tinged disco, smooth jazz or bluesy rock, this is the place to let your hair down and experience a string of electrifying nights on the town.

In Miami Beach, Skybar’s outside lounges, at the Shore Club, Ocean Drive are divine, decadent and guaranteed to get the party started, while Automatic Slims, Washington Avenue, is an unpretentious club playing party favourites to a friendly crowd. A touch more down at heel, Mac’s Club Deuce is a little shabby, but still rocks it most nights - enough to attract the likes of Keith Richards and co when they’re in town.

Cooler by far, Buck 15, Lincoln Lane, is a grungy outpost playing indie rock to a right-on crowd of hipsters, deck 23 is a cool dance haunt on Washington Avenue, while Cameo, also on Washington, is your ultimate SoBe dance club, complete with velvet rope VIP enclosures, and a state-of-the-art sound system.

For cool cocktails, and lounging in style, you could do worse than the Lenny Kravitz-designed Florida Room, Collins Avenue, Washington Avenue’s jazz-infused Jazid, or the show-tunes and Bird Cage stylings of Magnum Lounge, Biscayne Boulevard. The real beautiful people, however, can usually be found enjoying something pink and fizzy at Mokai, on 23rd Street. Dress up, or ask your hotel’s concierge to get you on ‘the list’ though, or expect to be politely refused entry...