Miami Beach Florida

Miami Beach: Art Deco, Stone Crab, and the Things Nobody Tells You

Miami Beach is a barrier island, not part of Miami proper, connected to the mainland by a series of causeways across Biscayne Bay. It covers about 19 square miles and has a year-round population of around 90,000. The distinction matters: prices on the beach side of the MacArthur Causeway are consistently higher than equivalent quality on the mainland, and several things that people think are in Miami are actually somewhere else entirely.

South Beach: What It Is

South Beach is the southern tip of the island: Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue, the Art Deco Historic District, and the beach itself. Ocean Drive faces the ocean on one side and a wall of Art Deco and Mediterranean Revival buildings on the other, most of them built between 1930 and 1942 and restored (in varying degrees of authenticity) from the 1980s onward.

The buildings are genuinely worth looking at. Pastel-painted facades with eyebrow shades, racing stripes, neon signage, porthole windows: the style was developed in Miami Beach because the climate allowed outdoor social life year-round and the buildings were designed to shade and ventilate accordingly. The Art Deco Welcome Center at 1001 Ocean Drive runs free walking tours on Saturday mornings.

The restaurants on Ocean Drive are almost uniformly mediocre and expensive, aimed at tourists who sit at sidewalk tables facing the beach. The food is optional; the seating is the product. If you want to eat well in this area, walk half a block to Collins Avenue or Washington Avenue and prices drop while quality improves.

The Beach

South Beach’s beach is about 5 kilometres of white sand from the lifeguard stands at 5th Street to about 22nd Street. The beach is wide, maintained, and has proper facilities. The water temperature ranges from about 22°C in February to 30°C in August. Jellyfish are a seasonal issue (particularly Portuguese man o’war in spring and autumn); when flags are flying, take them seriously.

The beach is public. Renting a lounge chair from a hotel that you’re not staying in is a service they offer, not an obligation. Bringing your own towel and setting up on the public beach is entirely normal.

Wynwood

Wynwood, a neighbourhood in the mainland Miami side of the water (a 15-minute drive from South Beach), became the world’s largest open-air street art installation after developer Tony Goldman began commissioning large-scale murals on warehouse walls in 2009. The Wynwood Walls, an enclosed garden of murals, is the anchored visitor attraction; the surrounding blocks have evolved into a gallery, restaurant, and bar district. The murals rotate and the quality is generally high.

Wynwood is genuinely one of the more interesting things to do in the Miami area and gets far less attention than it deserves from South Beach visitors.

Joe’s Stone Crab

Joe’s Stone Crab at 11 Washington Avenue in South Beach has been open since 1913 and is the institution most local to the place. Stone crab claws (the claw is removed and the crab returned to the water, where it grows a new one) are served cold with a mustard sauce; the quality is specifically dependent on the season (October 15 to May 15, when stone crab harvest is legal). Outside season, the menu continues but without the defining item. Queue or book ahead; this is not a slow-turnover restaurant but the wait can still be 45 minutes at peak hours.

The Versailles Restaurant on Calle Ocho in Little Havana (mainland Miami, about 30 minutes from South Beach) is the Cuban institution worth knowing: Cuban sandwiches, café con leche served in a specific proportion, and the window counter that the neighbourhood’s older Cuban community uses as a social gathering point.

Architecture: What to Actually Look At

The Fontainebleau Hotel at 4441 Collins Avenue (Mid-Beach) was designed by Morris Lapidus in 1954 and is the most significant piece of post-war Miami Beach architecture. The lobby staircase (called the “staircase to nowhere” because it doesn’t connect to anything necessary) and the curved pool area represent Lapidus’s thesis that good architecture should make people feel glamorous. You can walk through the lobby without being a guest.

The Bass Museum of Art, near 22nd Street on Collins Avenue, has a permanent collection covering European art from the Renaissance through the 20th century and rotating contemporary exhibitions. Small by major museum standards but consistently well-curated; admission is reasonable.

When to Go

December through April is dry season: temperatures 20-27°C, low humidity, no hurricanes. This is when Miami Beach is at its most crowded and most expensive. May through August brings heat and humidity with afternoon thunderstorms almost daily; hotel rates drop significantly. Hurricane season runs June through November, with the peak in September. The risk of a direct hit is real but statistically low in any given year.

The South Beach Wine and Food Festival in February is the annual food event worth planning around if food and wine culture is your interest. Art Basel Miami Beach in December is the annual art fair that brings international dealers, collectors, and related programming to both sides of the bay.