Best Bar Wrapped Around A Banyan Tree 2001 | The bar at Big Fish | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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Best Bar Wrapped Around A Banyan Tree

The bar at Big Fish

Banyan tree, very pretty. And the mixed drinks are sweet. But the fruit of the banyan? You definitely do not want to eat that. You, however, have come to this tree not to eat but to quench your thirst, breathe fresh air, and marvel at our beautiful little toxic river. Were it not for the neon stripes of the elevated Metrorail line and the colorful Bank of America tower aglow in the distance, you might think you were in Baton Rouge. Enjoy this quiet postindustrial oasis on the fringes of downtown Miami while it lasts, because just across the water lies one of the preferred sites for a new baseball stadium. Which means that one day you might hear a crowd roar in the distance and a conversation at the bar much like this:

"Ouch! This here banyan tree's droppin' its fruit."

"That weren't no banyan fruit. That was a baseball!"

Best Bartender

Crispy Soloperto

Sarah Vaughan's soulful voice floats in the air. Behind the immaculately kept bar, a smiling sprite of a girl snaps her fingers along with the bass. Crispy, as she's known to locals, is holding court. Best known for pouring drinks at the former 821 on Lincoln Road, Crispy, at first the bar back, filled in for the absent after-hours help one New Year's Eve and never hauled ice again. Although she has shaken and stirred at many Miami establishments, she seems a perfect fit at the Raleigh, concocting cocktails with equal parts sass and class. No ordinary girl, Crispy is a paragon of style. Her graying dreadlocks sway across the middle of her back. Her dazzling grin brightens the dimly lit room. Enter her bar and you immediately are put at ease by her comfortable manner. If you become a steady customer, you may even hear about the holograms she once was fond of producing in her spare time. Perhaps she'll even invite you to one of her famous oceanside clambakes.

Best Bartender

Crispy Soloperto

Sarah Vaughan's soulful voice floats in the air. Behind the immaculately kept bar, a smiling sprite of a girl snaps her fingers along with the bass. Crispy, as she's known to locals, is holding court. Best known for pouring drinks at the former 821 on Lincoln Road, Crispy, at first the bar back, filled in for the absent after-hours help one New Year's Eve and never hauled ice again. Although she has shaken and stirred at many Miami establishments, she seems a perfect fit at the Raleigh, concocting cocktails with equal parts sass and class. No ordinary girl, Crispy is a paragon of style. Her graying dreadlocks sway across the middle of her back. Her dazzling grin brightens the dimly lit room. Enter her bar and you immediately are put at ease by her comfortable manner. If you become a steady customer, you may even hear about the holograms she once was fond of producing in her spare time. Perhaps she'll even invite you to one of her famous oceanside clambakes.

Best Biker Bar

The Caribbean Club

Just past Mile Marker 104, this Key Largo hangout overlooking Florida Bay is a superior spot to hoist a brew with "hog" aficionados. On most weekends pot-bellied, tattooed daddies park themselves at the bar eager to talk about 'Nam, women, and the open road. Instead of wearing leather, Levi's, and boots, they shoot the breeze in shorts, tank tops, and sandals. A rather lengthy ride for a belt, the Caribbean Club extends twenty miles beyond biker strongholds Alabama Jack's and Last Chance Saloon. But motorcycling is all about the journey, right?

Best Bingo Break

Martini Bar at the Miccosukee Resort and Gaming Center

Up the escalator from the flashing lights and ringing soundtrack of the gaming center, just outside the all-you-can-eat buffet, is a watering hole filled with low tables, comfy purple chairs, and a sleek fake black-marble bar. The studiedly swank, friendly bartenders and promptly replenished bowls of peanuts are not the attraction, though. What lends the spot charm is the easy intimacy shared by strangers thrown together unexpectedly. The Martini Bar is not a destination, not the reason people visit this monolith on the edge of the Everglades. It's a means of escape. Husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, relatives, and folks from the more than 100 conventions that book this location annually drop in here. Some are waiting for a pal or partner to finish a heavy bingo run. Others are taking a break from a lecture and looking to unwind. Maybe knowing that the person on the next barstool knows nothing about them, or maybe looking to kill time, strangers strike up conversations. On a long-distance bus trip, people spill their life stories. Here there isn't time, so the conversation and emotion are kept to a minimum. Also missing: exhaust fumes and grimy rest stops. You can disembark anytime you're ready.

Best Cigar Bar

Havana Cigar Emporium and Lounge

The cigar craze is over. So what's a cigar bar to do? Become part of the nightclub scene, of course. Havana Cigar Emporium and Lounge boasts disco dancing, hot salsa, DJ nights, and even live music. Just as an aside, a cigar store is stocked with 20,000 stogies. (None from Cuba though, as the establishment's name implies.) More fun can be had at blackjack and pool tables and at the two smoker-friendly full liquor bars. Actually the entire place is smoker-friendly, thanks in part to state-of-the-art air filter systems that keep patrons' heads clear of noxious clouds. "We are the new millennium in cigar bars," notes general manager Vito Viscito. As Jim Carrey's character in The Mask would say, the place is literally "smokin'!"

Best Club To Close In The Past Twelve Months

Bash

With co-owner/manager Eric Omores at the helm, Bash ushered in a short-lived era of relatively un-self-conscious enjoyment when it opened in April 1993. "I guess what made it great was the mix of people. Back then everybody just wanted to have fun," the Senegal-born, France-raised Omores recalls wistfully. "It was nothing pretentious." The space expanded the VIP-room concept and initiated many theme nights. Omores and his partners (including Simply Red frontman Mick Hucknall and, in the early years, actor Sean Penn and nightlife impresario Alexis Ogurik) sold the club this year. He already had moved on to open Nikki Beach Club and then Pearl with Tommy Pooch. But, says Omores, Bash will always be special to him: "It did leave a print in the history of nightclubs on South Beach."

Best Dance Club

Club Space

Since opening in April 2000 in downtown Miami, Club Space has lured throngs of South Beach regulars across the causeway. Created from four warehouses, Space, true to its name, offers more than 9000 square feet of dance floor. The door staff -- firm, polite, and unhindered by the essential Beach ego -- remains as cool as the cavernous joint, which stays chilled even when fully packed, thanks to a powerful air-conditioning unit. Developing a reputation for importing internationally known DJ talent for special events, the club hosted the URB magazine/Giant Step party during this year's Winter Music Conference, where Roni Size, the undisputed King of Jungle, kicked his dirty beats for a capacity crowd. A 24-hour liquor license ensures never-ending festivities. This March Space's first neighborhood competitor, Fuel, debuted. Time will tell if downtown has space enough for two.

Best Gay Bar

The Laundry Bar

Attitude-drenched bars full of the sleek and beautiful have become redundant. The most glamorous gay hangout for slumming: The Laundry Bar. Not entirely devoid of South Beach pretension, it's the kind of place where unassuming nerds can breathe easily alongside narcissistic muscle boys while waiting for their clothes to come clean. High-tech décor rules, but flip-flops and surfer shorts outnumber the Kenneth Cole getups. Sassy types can bring a pillowcase full of their most provocative undies to clean in the predawn hours. Those who prefer to air their dirty laundry at home can just sit at the bar and shoot the breeze with a healthy contingent of lesbians -- an increasing rarity in the gay bar scene. Veteran South Beach bartender Dot Larkin (formerly of Club Deuce and the now-defunct West End) will keep you awash in alcohol. A happy-hour special offers two-for-one drinks until 8:00 p.m. daily, and until 9:30 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Best Gimlet

Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant

For such a simple drink, the gimlet has a salty history. This classic cocktail was delivered into the annals of mixology by British sailors who stirred together medicinal rations of Rose's lime juice and gin, discovering that it was possible to catch a nice buzz and ward off scurvy in one swing of the boom. The sailors probably didn't enjoy their libation shaken with ice, though, the preferred preparation method today. Author Raymond Chandler probably did, doing for the gimlet what Ian Fleming did for the martini. In the 1953 mystery The Long Goodbye, a character declares: "A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice, and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow." Not quite. Since we're fortunate to be moored in a place with an abundance of limes and no threat of scurvy, there's no reason to ruin a gimlet with the cloying flavor of Rose's. Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant has improved upon the original recipe with refreshing results. Their gimlet boasts fresh-squeezed lime juice, a little sugar syrup, and gin shaken with ice. Created in a handsome mahogany bar reminiscent of a dignified gentlemen's club, Joe's version delivers a tart bang that feels as right as Big Ben. A gimlet the way those British sailors could only have dreamed.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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