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BEST PLACE TO ROLL ON ECSTASY

Space 34

This is the award they don't want to admit they deserve. But no other club in Miami is as synonymous with rolling as this legendary place, formerly known as Club Space (it recently moved down the street to even better digs). The reasons to come candy-flip here are as easy as its vast setting, where trance pounds nonstop from Friday night to Sunday morning. So if you are up on a weekend e-train you can't get off, Space 34 is full of bouncing, buxom, based-up chicks. It is at precisely early in the morning that pill-popping takes you to the cusp of logic and reason, and pushes you off. And when falling down Ecstasy's synthetic whirlpool, it is cooler to be around hundreds of other spun-out twist heads.

BEST PLACE TO SLOW DANCE

Menage Nightclub

If you've never slow danced Jamaican-style, you've never slow danced at all. It isn't so much the speed of the music that makes the dancehall grind so sensual. However fast or slow the riddim, it's the economy of movement that makes dancehall grind. Lock legs with your partner and get so close that a toothpick couldn't pass between you. Start the movement from your pelvis and let it ripple along your belly to the top of your ribs. If your partner does the same, you may have the start of something beautiful. As long as you both keep your clothes on, it's all perfectly legal. Irie.

BEST POOLSIDE BAR

The Hotel

Located on the top floor of this Art Deco gem (for decades known as the Tiffany before the New York jewelry retailer objected, but only after designer Todd Oldham transformed it into a hot spot), the bar offers a sleek and civilized respite far above the maddening crowds and the cars crawling along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue. Daylight hours offer an uninterrupted, bird's-eye view of Lummus Park, the sands, and the Atlantic Ocean that will be recognizable as the backdrop for a number of fashion shoots. With the days getting longer, it's highly recommended for a sunset cocktail, whether you're entertaining an important client, gearing up for a big night on the town, or just showing the folks the sights.

BEST REGGAE NIGHT

The Madhouse at the Madfish House

Mon, where can I git me some groovy rhythm in da name of Jah? The Madhouse, mon. Strangely enough, in a town with as many Caribbean folks and influences as Miami has, not to mention pirate radio that plays reggae regularly and multiple Caribbean festivals, there isn't a club dedicated to the tropical bass lines and the reefer rhythms of Rastafari melodies. The Madhouse, every Friday night, makes up for an absentee week, pumping up the reggae, dancehall, and calypso tunes. The night is authentically Rasta, blunts are out and burning, dreads brush against your arm as you make your way to the bar, and the dancehall is booming.

BEST ROCK CLUB

Churchills Pub

Long-time patrons use the phrase "dive bar" with only the utmost of affection when describing Churchill's. Its low-rent environs (please, use the bathroom before you arrive -- trust us), cheap drinks, and anything-goes spirit all personify what rock and roll is supposed to be about. And while the wall outside may read "A Sort of English Pub," and British soccer may indeed be playing on the television set inside, rock and roll is exactly what Churchill's is about. Countless Miami bands have formed and broken up, new musicians have hit town and then left just as promptly, and endless other nightclubs have opened and shuttered their doors. But like a musical cockroach, Churchill's endures, playing host to touring groups from NRBQ to Rilo Kiley, and practically every local who's ever owned a fuzz pedal. For more than twenty years now, owner Dave Daniels has kept his spot relatively unchanged, offering the talented and talentless alike a friendly stage. Long may he -- and Churchill's -- run.

Readers Choice: Churchills Pub

BEST SPORTS BAR

Corbetts Sports Bar and Grill

Just because a bar is a "sports bar" doesn't mean it shouldn't adhere to the same aesthetic rules and regulations governing bars everywhere, namely: 1) Said establishment should always be dark, or at least dim, even during the day (no one slinks into a watering hole at noon for a faceful of sunshine). 2) There should be at least one pool table. 3) Waitstaff, particularly waitresses and bartenders, must be capable of Dostoyevskian mood shifts, from frantic happiness and congeniality to drink-spilling surliness (this keeps things interesting; should conversation falter, you can always nudge a friend and ask just what the hell is wrong with Debbie tonight?). 4) The food should be good, reasonably priced, and include at least a couple varieties of burger. Corbett's meets all these criteria, and has built a healthy neighborhood following because of it. The burgers are excellent, food prices are reasonable, if not great ($5 gets you a seven-ounce burger, $7 a twelve-ounce, and $8 buys a fried shrimp platter). The place is always dim, the waitstaff aren't afraid to speak their minds (particularly in the wee hours when the sports fans have been in their cups commiserating the woeful fate of the Dolphins/Heat/Panthers), and patrons can play pinball, pool, or darts to see who buys the next round.

Readers Choice: Flanigans Seafood Bar & Grill

BEST VIP ROOM

Prive

Prive is the club that serves as the VIP spot for the Opium Garden complex. It takes some moxie, if you don't have the VIP flair, to get into this place. But if you can manage to convince the celebrity doormen, Frabitzio and Cubby, that you belong with the big shots, you just might get a pass into clubland's most exclusive joint. The opulence rains down from the ceiling like the silk curtains. And yes, it's just as you imagined and more. Nary an ugly person in sight -- only round, perky boobs; tight asses; and chiseled faces among the assortment of models, celebs, and friends of important friends. Just make sure you have enough plastic; everything in here is as pricey as it looks.

BEST PLACE TO SLOW DANCE

Menage Nightclub

If you've never slow danced Jamaican-style, you've never slow danced at all. It isn't so much the speed of the music that makes the dancehall grind so sensual. However fast or slow the riddim, it's the economy of movement that makes dancehall grind. Lock legs with your partner and get so close that a toothpick couldn't pass between you. Start the movement from your pelvis and let it ripple along your belly to the top of your ribs. If your partner does the same, you may have the start of something beautiful. As long as you both keep your clothes on, it's all perfectly legal. Irie.

BEST VIP ROOM

Prive

Prive is the club that serves as the VIP spot for the Opium Garden complex. It takes some moxie, if you don't have the VIP flair, to get into this place. But if you can manage to convince the celebrity doormen, Frabitzio and Cubby, that you belong with the big shots, you just might get a pass into clubland's most exclusive joint. The opulence rains down from the ceiling like the silk curtains. And yes, it's just as you imagined and more. Nary an ugly person in sight -- only round, perky boobs; tight asses; and chiseled faces among the assortment of models, celebs, and friends of important friends. Just make sure you have enough plastic; everything in here is as pricey as it looks.

BEST HAPPY HOUR

Foxs Sherron Inn

Photo courtesy of Fox's Lounge
When a bar racks up as many New Times Best of Miami awards as Fox's has over the years, you have to assume the owners are related to someone at the paper, or some juicehead New Times writer(s) spends a little too much time sucking down booze and basking in the cigarette haze at this South Miami gem. In any case the two-for-one happy hour at Fox's (4:00 to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Tuesday and Saturday) is nothing unique; it's the seedy ambiance (more like bankrupt-businessman-drowning-his-sorrows-in-gin seedy than bikers-and-whores-and-Saturday-night-fighting seedy) that keeps you coming back. There is a timeless quality supplied by the big booths, excellent food, and jazz and big band standards on Fox's free jukebox that, combined with the permanent twilight, makes the bar its own reality, a bourbon-scented, melancholic escape pod from the pressing business of everyday life. In other words, the perfect afternoon antidote to the relentless fluorescent lighting of an office, or the rage-inducing rush hour that caps off many an unfulfilling workday. Proprietor George Andrews, who has owned the bar for 36 of its 58 years, says 60 percent of his customers are regulars from the South Miami neighborhood. "It's like a pub-style bar that they'd have up north or in England, where everybody goes to congregate at the end of the day." Because of its proximity to the University of Miami, Fox's also draws plenty of undergrads, gawking and giggling over the retro charm and slurping down happy hour drinks.

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