Best Manicure 1999 | Margarita and Jesse's Nail Design | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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Best Manicure

Margarita and Jesse's Nail Design

Margarita Gonzalez possesses the two requisite qualities of a supreme manicurist: a steady hand and a sympathetic ear. But there are other reasons why she's been in business for thirty years, namely her cleanliness, attention to detail, and efficiency. Appointments start and end on time. At her small, second-floor salon, nails are not an afterthought. There's no racket here from blow dryers and screeching stylists; Margarita and her daughter Jesse give full attention to manicures and pedicures. The family atmosphere is relaxing and the well-stocked supply of the latest nail polish shades guarantees you'll leave loving yourself. So whether you like your talons loud and pointy or subdued and square, the Gonzalez family will do wonders for both your hands and your peace of mind.

Best Place To Depilate

South Beach Body Waxing Company

Most body waxing is performed in beauty salons where the employees give facials, shampoos, sweep the floor, and do manicures. Here the waxers wax. When you're talking about a stranger slathering hot, sticky gunk on your most private parts and then tearing out hundreds of hairs with one yank, it's nice to have confidence. "It's really hard to find good employees," manager Shirley Sanchez comments. "They have to be nice and clean, they have to have a license, and they have to have a good pull. I'm usually the guinea pig and believe me, it hurts when they don't know what they are doing." A gentle touch can help, but wax-type is also important; South Beach uses a recipe that generally allows one-piece removal. Workers at this storefront also stay open relatively late seven days per week, keep the facilities clean, and even go places most others won't. Especially popular are butt waxes, termed "butt strips," by Janet, a slight and cheery Peruvian. The cost is fourteen dollars for the cheeks and twelve more if you want to remove the hair that grows between them. Other hot spots include nostrils, toes, backs, bellies, bikini area, and lips (the pair beneath your nose or, for women, the set further down).

Best Oxymoron

Indoor Tanning

You can find these so-called salons all over our, ahem, fair city. At least five have opened within the past three years, so business appears to be sizzling. Some reasons for taking sun in a box: It's quicker, less damaging, and good for some skin diseases. Still, what's the old saw about selling ice to Eskimos?

Best Place To Buy A Water Closet

Waterworks

Copper sinks from France. German cast-iron bathtubs. Hand-painted bathroom tiles. Classic ceramic bidets and water closets. (The staff prefers this term to toilets.) All the plumbing fixtures in this store are designed in England or France with simplicity and elegance. No gold-leaf, dragon-head faucets. No toilet-seat replicas of a Medici throne. This is a place for people who don't need to show off and are willing to pay to prove it. That French copper sink? $5000. Those German tubs? $1500 to $2500. Wastewater was never treated so well.

Best Place To Buy An Opium Bed

World Resources

For the better part of this decade, Steve Rhodes has scoured the countrysides of India and Indonesia for traditional and ceremonial furniture, instruments, and artwork. He's carted back teak jodang boxes that are used to carry offerings to Indonesian temples and village chiefs' ceremonial drums. He's bartered for Indian tables and cabinets made from the mahogany doors of abandoned mansions located on remote stretches of the opium road. And he's obtained intricately carved opium beds, where aristocrats of yore spent entire days on their backs smoking drugs. But you'll have to pay to indulge in such exotic fare. Prices range from about $500 for a jodang box to $5000 for an opium bed. Rhodes stumbled into his livelihood in 1988 as a way to make his travel bug pay. "It was a simple plan at first: Bring back some things from a trip and sell them," the 36-year-old entrepreneur says. But simplicity has eluded him. He now has two showrooms in Miami's Design District, a Lincoln Road restaurant, a Biscayne Boulevard club, and a warehouse stocked with artifacts. He makes two trips per year. "I love discovering the traditions of other cultures," he says. "I'm very interested in how other people around the world get through life."

Best Mexican Market

Bargain Town Flea Market

In most parts of Mexico, a visit to the weekend market, commonly an open-air, sprawling affair, is nothing like a quick stop at the local Publix. It's a leisurely outing in which people buy, sell, socialize, eat, and drink. In South Florida Bargain Town comes closest to capturing that appealing ambiance. Like most well-established Mexican mercados, a wide variety of goods (from food to clothing to power tools) is available. But amid the utilitarian work boots and used prescription glasses and phone cards, you can find a framed hologram of a crucified Christ who winks as you walk by, a vast aviary with hundreds of birds for sale, a clock featuring Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper illuminated by blinking lights, and just about everything Los Tigres del Norte ever recorded. Four trailers, surrounded by clusters of tables, do double duty as kitchens and cantinas, serving up steaming plates of fresh tacos and cold beer. Mariachis play nearby. In keeping with the norteño influence, the market offers an array of cowboy hats and ornately tooled leather belts. A roadside billboard alerts southbound drivers, though it gives no hint of Bargain Town's Mexican heritage.

Best Botánica

Riviera Florist, Pet Shop, and Botánica

The florist and pet shop parts of this store's title seem superfluous or maybe even disingenuous. The greenery consists of a few plants soaking up sun on the sidewalk. The pet shop, located in a small room near the entrance, consists mainly of live chickens and other birds that will likely be used as sacrifices in Santería rituals. The bulk of Riviera's merchandise is a wonderful and fantastical selection of botánica essentials: statues of Jesus and Mary, some as tall as four feet, are stashed around the store; candles of varying size and color promise love, health, and wealth; and for those who don't have time to stick around for a slow burn, good luck and other blessings can be purchased in spray cans. But the true magic in this store is in the collection of tinctures, herbs, and soaps behind the counter. Your selection can perform miracles. But only, warns the saleswoman, if you bring a key ingredient that's not for sale: faith.

Best Designer

Felice Pappas

Designer Felice Pappas may have been forced to close her charming Española Way boutique recently (she lost her lease), but that hasn't hindered her whimsical sense of style. She's still making her loud, fun cotton prints, featuring menacing insects, ripe fruit, blooming flowers, fluffy clouds, and cheery postcards. And she continues to fashion sundresses, skirts, boxy men's shirts, flannel pajamas, capri pants, and kiddiewear from material that screams summer insouciance. Now that Love-Life Backyard is shuttered, expect another little slice of Pleasantville in the new store she hopes to open in October (location undetermined so far). Until then choose from a small selection of her designs at Pop Collectibles (1151 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, 305-604-9604) or give her a call and make an appointment to be custom-fitted. Cute and comfortable, her fanciful creations take you back to the innocent days when the world didn't extend much further than your own back yard.

Best Vintage Store

Miami Twice Vintage Department Store

Rhinestone earrings. Hula skirts. Plastic beaded curtains. Hundreds of ceramic cookie jars. A wall of platform shoes straight from The Mod Squad. A barrel of tube tops in assorted colors. A rack of Elizabethan gowns. Deco armoires. Hand-cut crystal chandeliers. A set of rainbow-color highball glasses. Lace gloves. Sparkle makeup. Disco balls. Pillbox hats. Hawaiian shirts. It can all be found at Miami Twice, truly a first-class vintage vendor. After a two-year hiatus (they took the title from 1994 through 1996), this department store of bygone eras is again the latest in old.

Best Florist

Pistils 'N Petals

Unlike hoity-toity florists who emanate attitude, Malou and Melita Corrigan, the mother-daughter duo who opened this down-to-earth business a year and a half ago, want to bring flowers to the people and people to flowers. That's why their shop and nursery provide worldwide wire service and delivery throughout Miami-Dade. It's also why their friendly designers (six on staff) are thrilled to artfully arrange your buds in elegant English country, lush tropical, or minimalist nouveau styles. And it's why their room-size Frigidaire is always open to those who want to throw on a sweater and pick out a few stems. More than 50 types of blooms include everything from a 99-cent daisy to a variety of orchids. Their selection of containers ranges from glass vases to planters made from aluminum, stone, terra cotta, and hefty, painted plastic. What? You don't like live flowers? They also have dried ones and other landscape-worthy greenery. Pistils 'N Petals also offers the occasional flower-arranging class, art exhibition, and special event. Proprietors sometimes even rent out the place for parties; the airy space's rich, eggplant-colored walls and gurgling fountain provide a tranquil, conducive atmosphere. Granted, prices may be high (this is South Beach, after all), but every week P&P offers specials; Thursdays there are deals on lilies, Friday nights bring bargains on a dozen roses, and Saturdays deliver discounts on tropicals. Frequent flower buyers are rewarded with ... What else? More flowers. Those who make twelve purchases of fifteen dollars or more receive a free bouquet.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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