If you're going to Miami ...A guide to the best of everything, from ballet to late-night bars

I love living in Miami. But for years, I would confess this only to my closest friends. I watched as Northerners shot looks of disdain at other hedonistic souls who had the spunk to admit they loved it, too. "Miami is not a serious city," said the looks on their faces. But who says a city has to endure snow tires and subways to be serious?

Miami is serious in a Southern sort of way. It is young and energetic, uninhibited, unafraid. It is rich in ethnicity and ripe with opportunity.

Although I thought I knew it well, it wasn't until I spent a year digging up information for a guide to Miami that I really stopped to think about the sweet and special secrets this city has to offer.

From a matinee performance of a Latin-flavored ballet to live Haitian music at four in the morning. Renaissance-style architecture to soothe the soul. Wild blue parrots alighting on pink patios. Cuban coffee, curried goat, fried bananas. Art Deco, minute massages. If this isn't serious business, I don't know what is.

And there's always something going on -- the Art Deco Weekend along Ocean Drive Jan. 15-18, this month's (Packer-less) Super Bowl on Jan. 31, the annual Key Biscayne Art Festival scheduled for Jan. 30-31 along Crandon Boulevard, and the 16th annual Miami Film Festival Feb. 19-28 at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, 174 E. Flagler St. downtown.

The choices go on and on.

But after many seasons of entertaining sundry winter guests, I have come up with a list that distills the essence of the city. Come take your pick of the best of Miami.

Best serious architecture: Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. This is an authentic Renaissance-style, 70-room mansion built by an American tycoon in the early 1900s. On the waterfront, off S. Miami Ave. near SW 32nd Road, Vizcaya is a subtropical fantasy of elegance and opulence, with acres of manicured gardens and rooms full of 15th century antiques.

Best bicycle ride: Coconut Grove Bike Path. Rent a bike from Dade Cycle on Grand Ave., get on the Main Highway bike path and ride under an umbrella of lush trees for about four miles to Matheson Hammock Park. Along the way, you'll pass archways of flowering vines, roosting peacocks, whimsical houses with signs that say "Beware of Snakes," and a primeval expanse of musky smelling mangroves.

Best outdoor cafe: News Cafe. Yes, the Coconut Grove community is full of great cafes, but the one that has captured the trendiest of trend-setters is the News Cafe on Ocean Drive in south Miami Beach. With classic European-style good food and a newsstand full of foreign papers, the News is Miami Beach's Deco District darling. Models in sausage-tight dresses come in for cappuccino, and German photographers smoking clove-scented cigarettes gather to discuss work.

Best outdoor massage: The Minute Massage Man. John Balz, a tall, gentle man with a gray beard and massive hands, has been setting up shop on the streets of Miami for more than 10 years. He's usually found on a sidewalk stool on Main Highway in Coconut Grove. His sign reads: "Minute Massage -- will alleviate insomnia, sciatica, allergies, headaches, heartbreaks and even writer's block." Hmmm. Whether it's true or not, John's fingers feel great.

Best walking tour: Art Deco Tour. Sponsored by the Miami Design Preservation League, the Saturday morning tours are another enjoyable learning experience. Deco details, Art Moderne and Mediterranean Revival structures ar e pointed out, along with an oral history of Miami Beach's Art Deco. Tours meet at the Art Deco Welcome Center on Washington Ave. Hats are a good idea.

Best local seafood: Joe's Seafood. Smack on the Miami River with a view of the downtown skyline, Joe's seafood on North River Drive is a down-home Cuban seafood house with outdoor tables and lots of stray cats. You can choose your fish from a bed of ice and have it prepared to your liking. Sip a beer and watch the tugs and freighters of this working river glide by.

Best Art Deco hamburger joint: Burger King of Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. I know, who wants to go to a homogenous burger joint when you're exploring a new city? But this one is different. Not the orange and brown Burger King motif here, it's Tropical Deco to the core.

Best fine Cuban restaurant: Yuca in Miami Beach. Yuca, on Lincoln Road, is an acronym for Young Up-scale Cuban American, which is the clientele it caters to. It's one of the finest restaurants (Cuban or otherwise) in the area. Specializing in what it calls nueva Cuban cuisine, Yuca's dishes are daring and delicious and definitely add a new twist to black beans and rice.

Best hole-in-the-wall Cuban restaurant: Puerto Sagua. There are dozens of them in Little Havana, but Puerto Sagua, on Collins Ave. and Seventh St. in Miami Beach, is an authentic (translation: lively and loud) Cuban restaurant with traditional cooking that is garlic-saturated and hearty.

Best late-night bar: Tobacco Road. On South Miami Ave. between Sixth and Seventh streets downtown, Tobacco Road is a local institution that boasts of having the oldest liquor license in Miami. Open till 6 a.m., the Road offers great sloppy burgers and live jazz and blues nightly.

Best ethnic experience: A stroll down Calle Ocho. Known as Eighth St. to Miami Anglos, Calle Ocho is the main drag of Little Havana. It is here that you will find every aspect of life that existed in Old Havana during the 1950s. From cigar factories to dress ships, cafeterias to Spanish-language theaters, Calle Ocho from 27th Ave. to First Ave. is an intense encounter with the culture of Cuba.

Best cultural experience: Miami City Ballet. Though I consider most experiences in Miami, including the sweaty, salsa street parties, to be cultural, the ballet deserves a capital C. In its short but sassy lifetime, the Miami City Ballet has dazzled audiences worldwide with its abstract, Latin-flavored repertoire and is considered to be one of the fastest up-and-coming dance companies in America.

Best wind-surfing beach: Rickenbacker Causeway. On the way to Key Biscayne, the calm waters off the Rickenbacker Causeway are an ideal place to set up board and sail. Numerous rental stands have set up shop along a beach bordered with Australian pine trees. The breezes are constant.

Best place to feel like you're back in the 1960s: Coconut Grove Farmers Market. A very "local" happening, the Saturday morning farmers market at Grand Ave. and Market St. is where the few surviving Miami hippies hang out and much of Coconut Grove goes to buy veggies. Along with the fresh produce, there's usually an assortment of Vietnamese cooking, vegetarian specialties, homemade baked goods, handicrafts, crystals and live music.

Best shop-til-you-drop spot: Coconut Grove. The best of everything, including the sophisticated shops of Mayfair in the Grove, the chichi chain boutiques of CocoWalk on Grand Ave. between Virginia and Matilda streets, an excellent Haitian art gallery, an antique shop and the Kress 5 & 10 with its assortment of plastic flamingo and rubber alligator souvenirs. And when your feet ache, you can plop down at the sidewalk cafe for a banana daiquiri.

Best swimming pool: Venetian Pool. A coral rock masterpiece that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Venetian Pool on De Soto Blvd. in Coral Gables is a cold, lagoon-like pool with waterfalls, caves and a white sand beach. Open to the public, it is where Esther Williams performed her water ballet and Johnny showed off his Tarzan talents.

More Miami Beach Community Articles

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel