The magic of Miami is that “you’ll be able to nonetheless uncover locations,” stated the author and producer Eric Newman. “It doesn’t really feel like folks have a chip on their shoulder. There’s a wholesome civic pleasure and gratitude.”
Mr. Newman, who created the Netflix present “Narcos” and produced “Griselda,” starring Sofia Vergara, has, through the years, spent months at a time on location in Miami. To Mr. Newman, a California native, the enchantment of this southern Florida playground isn’t simply what it’s — it’s additionally what it’s not. “There’s an appreciation in Miami that you just don’t see in different places,” he stated. “Perhaps it’s as a result of lots of people right here got here from some other place. Perhaps you got here to flee East Coast winters, otherwise you got here to flee Castro, otherwise you got here to flee taxes. Folks in Miami are genuinely pleased to be right here.”
Mr. Newman, 53, produced the Academy Award-winning film “Youngsters of Males” and, extra not too long ago, was the manager producer of “Painkiller” and “Narcos: Mexico.” He favors a facet of Miami not simply present in guidebooks. An after-hours salsa membership, a Xanadu hiding in plain sight, the most effective Cuban sandwich round: These are the secrets and techniques that Miami has slowly revealed to him.
“The range of Miami makes it really feel just like the least American metropolis, which is type of what makes it extremely American,” Mr. Newman stated. “It feels splendidly international and but uniquely American.”
Right here, his 5 favourite spots within the metropolis.
“La Trova is a present,” defined Mr. Newman. “The waiters are all immaculately dressed, they dance. You’ll be able to inform that working there’s a profession, not a job.”
La Trova, owned by the grasp bartender Julio Cabrera and the chef Michelle Bernstein, is beloved for its impeccable drinks and its theatricality. Though the institution, in the course of Little Havana, has a strong menu that leans closely towards empanadas, croquetas and Cuban fare, the specialties are mojitos and different cocktails — made with all of the flare of efficiency artwork. (La Trova was a James Beard semifinalist for its “Excellent Bar Program” in 2022.) The décor, just like the uniforms, is deliberate — a protracted bar lined with pink barstools, low lighting and a formidable wall of spirits.
“You’re feeling like you’re in Havana in 1958. It jogs my memory of ‘The Godfather Half II,’” stated the showrunner. “It’s a spot the place you go to drink and find yourself consuming, or go to eat and find yourself ingesting.
“These sandwiches are phenomenal,” stated Mr. Newman, of the choices at Sanguich.
He favors the home specialty: the pan con lechon, a sandwich of shredded pork, pickled onions and garlic cilantro aioli on Cuban bread.
“I don’t know what number of of those sandwiches I’ve left in my life. You don’t need to eat one on daily basis and even each week at this age. However I’ve determined that any extra that I’m ever going to have are going to return from Sanguich.”
The sandwich store, its menu impressed by “pre-revolutionary Cuba,” has areas in Little Havana and in Little Haiti. The celebs of the menu are, not surprisingly, the sandwiches, all of which have beef or pork (vegetarian choices are principally milkshakes and fries). And the restricted hours serve a really helpful goal, at the very least for Mr. Newman: “Fortunately, it closes at 6 p.m. — as a result of I might get into horrible hassle in the event that they had been open late.”
“It seems like one thing that belongs in Newport, R.I., surrounded by stunning gardens,” stated Mr. Newman of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, a sprawling property constructed as a trip residence within the early 1900s by a rich businessman named James Deering.
In 1953, Vizcaya, which sits on the water in Coconut Grove, formally opened as a museum. A form of American Versailles, Vizcaya has acres of outside gardens, a dozen buildings impressed by Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean kinds, a restaurant, occasion areas and, naturally, secret passageways all through.
“There’s one thing type of melancholy about it for me, like Xanadu in ‘Citizen Kane’ or the Hearst Fortress — form of monuments to oneself. However it’s stunning,” Mr. Newman stated.
Vizcaya has had many notable friends through the years, together with Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II. “As a lot as I recognize the displays, I like to form of wander across the gardens and get a bit misplaced,” Mr. Newman stated. “You’ll be able to look out on the bay from this Gatsby-esque home and simply lose your self. I bear in mind liking the best way that felt very a lot.”
“I went right here for the primary time final night time, and it was superb — type of this bizarre, unusual, great expertise. My spouse and I walked into what gave the impression to be a hostel. There was a man behind a desk who was going over a invoice with some backpacker, and my spouse and I had been like, ‘this can’t be the place.’”
Actually, 27 Restaurant is a part of the Freehand Resort, an upscale hostel a few blocks from the Miami Seashore. “Then we’re on this pool space lit by tiki torches, and I lastly requested somebody, ‘Is there a restaurant right here?’ Across the nook, as you bought nearer, you heard how alive it was,” Mr. Newman stated.
The menu borrows from American South and Afro-Caribbean meals. The décor is eclectic and mismatched, the tables are communal, and “the oyster mushrooms are superb,” Mr. Newman stated. “So are the shrimp dumplings. We had three orders of them.”
“I’m 53, I don’t actually exit wherever anymore, however Miami has a unique power,” stated Mr. Newman, whose favourite after-hours spot is Siboney Night time Membership in West Miami. The salsa membership, open Thursdays to Saturdays from 11 p.m. to five a.m., is “very no frills,” he stated. Its authenticity makes him a repeat customer.
“It’s not a kind of locations that you’d stroll by it and go, ‘Oh, we’ve received to go in and see what’s occurring,’” he stated. “It’s completely Latin and there’s one thing transportive about it.”
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