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Best Dance Club

Kitchen Club

Unlike its homogeneous counterparts in South Beach, this ten-year-old danceteria doesn't cater to celebs and fashion slaves, or to the hype engendering such trendiness. Hell, the Kitchen doesn't even have a telephone. What the club has is a dedication to the dark side of nightlife, the Gothic ethos, those decadent delights of revelry no one will ever tell their grandchildren about. It's an undying vision dating back to the late Eighties when the Kitchen was in South Beach, a time when South Beach enjoyed its hipness heyday. As the carpetbaggers invaded, the Kitchen headed to the mainland, setting up shop in Coconut Grove and the Design District before settling in the Shores a couple of years ago. With nary a velvet rope or tourist in sight, the Kitchen remains Miami's reliably black-garbed island in a stormy sea of nightlife.

Best Dance Club

Kitchen Club

Unlike its homogeneous counterparts in South Beach, this ten-year-old danceteria doesn't cater to celebs and fashion slaves, or to the hype engendering such trendiness. Hell, the Kitchen doesn't even have a telephone. What the club has is a dedication to the dark side of nightlife, the Gothic ethos, those decadent delights of revelry no one will ever tell their grandchildren about. It's an undying vision dating back to the late Eighties when the Kitchen was in South Beach, a time when South Beach enjoyed its hipness heyday. As the carpetbaggers invaded, the Kitchen headed to the mainland, setting up shop in Coconut Grove and the Design District before settling in the Shores a couple of years ago. With nary a velvet rope or tourist in sight, the Kitchen remains Miami's reliably black-garbed island in a stormy sea of nightlife.

Best Place To Take A Twelve After You Zer0-Six, QSL?

Chasers Bar, above the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association

Tough shift. Good thing it's over ("zero-six" is code for "end of shift"). Now you need to get a bite to eat (known as a "twelve") and recover, right? ("QSL" in policese -- for "that's acknowledged.") You tore your pants tackling that fleeing suspect. Your sergeant's looking for you about the coffee stains on your report. And on top of it all, a detective from internal affairs wants to ask if you know anything about your ex-partner's new manse in Boca. You need to go somewhere safe. No better place than Chasers. On the floor below are the offices of a half-dozen PBA lawyers, enough to intimidate any IA detective. This allows you to eat your sirloin in peace. And unlike at civilian hangouts, you don't draw gawks just because you have guns and handcuffs swinging from your hips. Even though the place is open to the public, as far as you can see it's all blue and tan uniforms. You pig out, order a brew, kick back. So you'll have to buy a new pair of pants. So what? Your reports could be neater. And you know, now that you think about it, that is a pretty big oceanside house your partner built.

Best Place To Take A Twelve After You Zer0-Six, QSL?

Chasers Bar, above the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association

Tough shift. Good thing it's over ("zero-six" is code for "end of shift"). Now you need to get a bite to eat (known as a "twelve") and recover, right? ("QSL" in policese -- for "that's acknowledged.") You tore your pants tackling that fleeing suspect. Your sergeant's looking for you about the coffee stains on your report. And on top of it all, a detective from internal affairs wants to ask if you know anything about your ex-partner's new manse in Boca. You need to go somewhere safe. No better place than Chasers. On the floor below are the offices of a half-dozen PBA lawyers, enough to intimidate any IA detective. This allows you to eat your sirloin in peace. And unlike at civilian hangouts, you don't draw gawks just because you have guns and handcuffs swinging from your hips. Even though the place is open to the public, as far as you can see it's all blue and tan uniforms. You pig out, order a brew, kick back. So you'll have to buy a new pair of pants. So what? Your reports could be neater. And you know, now that you think about it, that is a pretty big oceanside house your partner built.

Best Nightlife Trend

Legal after-hours

For reasons best left to the dark side of the imagination, many people firmly believe that 5:00 a.m. is an inappropriately early time for bars and nightclubs to shut their doors. Simply put, party till noon. Over the years clandestine postdawn haunts such as Hombre, Club X, Niva, and Jones Town remained confined to South Beach's shadow world. Then the Mix figured out that an establishment need only nix alcohol to legally stay open at any hour. That was more than a year ago. Since then three more clubs -- Pump, Fabrik, and Kit Kat -- have greeted the sun with open doors, helping to meet the increasing demand from revelers who seek a never-ending night. In the witching hours, vampiric partiers now have the right to feel the power of DJ David Padilla's moving sound system at the Mix, hang out with promoters Carlos and Jeff and their crew of boys at Pump, or float timelessly between Fabrik and Kit Kat. The clubs generally open about 4:00 a.m. and continue well past breakfast time.

Best Nightlife Trend

Legal after-hours

For reasons best left to the dark side of the imagination, many people firmly believe that 5:00 a.m. is an inappropriately early time for bars and nightclubs to shut their doors. Simply put, party till noon. Over the years clandestine postdawn haunts such as Hombre, Club X, Niva, and Jones Town remained confined to South Beach's shadow world. Then the Mix figured out that an establishment need only nix alcohol to legally stay open at any hour. That was more than a year ago. Since then three more clubs -- Pump, Fabrik, and Kit Kat -- have greeted the sun with open doors, helping to meet the increasing demand from revelers who seek a never-ending night. In the witching hours, vampiric partiers now have the right to feel the power of DJ David Padilla's moving sound system at the Mix, hang out with promoters Carlos and Jeff and their crew of boys at Pump, or float timelessly between Fabrik and Kit Kat. The clubs generally open about 4:00 a.m. and continue well past breakfast time.

Best Lush-Life Bar

Club Deuce Bar and Grill

All anyone need say is that they're going to the Deuce for a drink. The rest is understood: reasonable prices liberally mixed with surreal circumstances. Proprietor Mac Klein says his is a neighborhood bar, a description that takes on new meaning in South Beach. The Deuce's patrons are generally a tolerant, open-minded lot: straight, gay, bi, transsexual, roughnecks, gentry, white trash, and geeks. Well, not too many geeks. The Deuce closes for only three hours per day, ready to set up anyone who needs a belt between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Klein says people go to his bar, the oldest in Miami Beach, for nostalgia, which he believes evokes a desire to consume alcohol. He says old patrons return because, "If you leave the Beach for ten years, and come back to the Deuce, everything will be the same. We never change anything. It'll be like you're ten years younger."

Best Lush-Life Bar

Club Deuce Bar and Grill

All anyone need say is that they're going to the Deuce for a drink. The rest is understood: reasonable prices liberally mixed with surreal circumstances. Proprietor Mac Klein says his is a neighborhood bar, a description that takes on new meaning in South Beach. The Deuce's patrons are generally a tolerant, open-minded lot: straight, gay, bi, transsexual, roughnecks, gentry, white trash, and geeks. Well, not too many geeks. The Deuce closes for only three hours per day, ready to set up anyone who needs a belt between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Klein says people go to his bar, the oldest in Miami Beach, for nostalgia, which he believes evokes a desire to consume alcohol. He says old patrons return because, "If you leave the Beach for ten years, and come back to the Deuce, everything will be the same. We never change anything. It'll be like you're ten years younger."

Best Bloody Mary

Delano Hotel

Mary Tudor, for whom this concoction was named, ruled over England and Ireland during the Sixteenth Century, re-establishing Catholicism and permitting rampant persecution. Much could be made of the cocktail's namesake, and, with a bit of effort, much can be made of the tomato-based cocktail itself. So why do we so often find generic product wearing this historically provocative moniker? If we wanted a routine drink, we'd order a screwdriver. We want a work of art. The folks at the Delano aspire to mastery. The recipe, which has been in the house for some time, calls for just-right amounts of topnotch ingredients: Meaty tomato juice supports horseradish, celery salt, and black pepper, and is properly garnished with a celery-stalk swizzle. It's hot stuff, likely to spur a slight cough and bring moisture to the eyes. But salvation always requires a bit of suffering.

Best Bloody Mary

Delano Hotel

Mary Tudor, for whom this concoction was named, ruled over England and Ireland during the Sixteenth Century, re-establishing Catholicism and permitting rampant persecution. Much could be made of the cocktail's namesake, and, with a bit of effort, much can be made of the tomato-based cocktail itself. So why do we so often find generic product wearing this historically provocative moniker? If we wanted a routine drink, we'd order a screwdriver. We want a work of art. The folks at the Delano aspire to mastery. The recipe, which has been in the house for some time, calls for just-right amounts of topnotch ingredients: Meaty tomato juice supports horseradish, celery salt, and black pepper, and is properly garnished with a celery-stalk swizzle. It's hot stuff, likely to spur a slight cough and bring moisture to the eyes. But salvation always requires a bit of suffering.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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