Best Sports Bar (Spanish) 2001 | Adelita's Cafeteria | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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Best Sports Bar (Spanish)

Adelita's Cafeteria

Enjoyment of this charming dive bar may be aided by citizenship in a Central American nation. Or by appreciation for soccer, the sport the regulars pile in to watch on the big-screen TV, sitting on wooden benches and listening to the play-by-play on a makeshift SurroundSound system anchored by bullhorns bolted to the ceiling. Yet even someone unfamiliar with the back roads of Tegucigalpa can -- and should -- enjoy the camaraderie, the ice-cold beer, and what we assure you is the best steak sandwich anywhere on the planet.

Best Martini

Nemo

At six ounces it's not the most generous pour in town. And at eleven dollars a pop, it's certainly no bargain. But about a year ago Nemo, a first-rate restaurant with a highly creative kitchen and a lovely ambiance, changed its martini presentation in a way that deserves recognition. After complaints from customers that their martinis were losing their chill before the last drop (a common predicament in the subtropics, especially if you dine on Nemo's open-air patio), staffers sought a solution. The result: A chilled-cone glass embellished with the garnish of your choice and accompanied by a miniature ice bucket holding a small carafe. Inside the carafe is your hypothermic gin (or vodka for heathens) and hint of vermouth. Voilà! Pour at your own pace and with assurance that the gin (or vodka for heathens) can be returned to ice for prolonged cooling without dilution. A truly elegant method of preserving the delicate essence of this most sophisticated of cocktails.

Best Latin Club

La Covacha

A million-dollar renovation undertaken last August by owner Aurelio Rodriguez added a gourmet kitchen, back-yard stage, and air conditioning for VIPs, yet this rustic roadhouse retains all its long-standing open-air charm. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, La Covacha remains South Florida's best bet for classic and contemporary salsa as well as the latest in merengue and vallenato. Sunday rocks as hard as ever, with Latin alternative bands blaring for a young Latin-American crowd. And any day at La Covacha is ideal for noted visiting national acts to launch their music among the stars.

Best Sports Bar

Corbett's Sports Bar & Grill

It's the bathroom tile that truly tells you the folks at Corbett's take their sports very seriously. Not that you would have to unzip your pants to figure this out. The NASCAR schedule on the front wall gives a strong hint, as do more than a dozen televisions. Logically all manner of sporting recreation is available, including foosball, pinball, pool tables, and dart boards. A glass case exhibits a variety of dart accessories for sale. Banners hanging on the walls salute local heroes of the fields, hardwood, and ice. What is decidedly un-sports bar-like is the alcohol selection, which features 23 flavors of schnapps. No average little sports joint buried in the back of an innocuous strip mall carries this varied a stock of liquor: eighteen kinds of rum, sixteen single-malt scotches, and how about a different shot of tequila each day for more than three weeks? Quality comfort food is plentiful, which is all a true sports fan experiencing hunger pangs really wants. A clear message of Corbett's priorities also can be found in the beer special. Six-dollar pitchers of domestic draft beer are available to softball teams in uniform and to anyone else during hometown-team sporting events. But if you still remain unconvinced of Corbett's sports bona fides, and all those pitchers have warranted a leak, just notice the bands of garish Miami Hurricane orange-and-green tile that the bathroom, er, sports.

Best Haitian Club

Tap Tap

Alas for lovers of Haitian compas music, McArthur International Café, with its weekly roster of local and national compas acts, is no more. Roots fans, however, can still find choice vodou rhythms and balladry at old standby Tap Tap. Venerable singer-songwriter (and former Port-au-Prince mayor) Manno Charlemagne is a regular presence on Saturday nights. Fridays bring a shifting set of rasin musicians including Papaloko of Loray Mistik and Richard LaGuerre, formerly of Boukan Ginen, accompanied on vodou feast days by dancers from local troupes such as Sosyete Koukouy. Beneath the watchful eyes of the lwa peering down from the colorful murals, patrons fueled by Barbancourt rum punch can practice their yanvalou and conga steps late into the night.

Best Bar Food

Norman's American Bar & Grill

It's almost a disservice to call Norman's steaks, sandwiches, salads, and appetizers "bar food." The term implies food for an empty stomach and churning head (or is it the other way around?), and Lord knows anything that'll soak up that last drink or two you shouldn't have had usually qualifies as good eats in the wee hours of the morning. Norman's offerings, on the other hand, are just plain delicious: caesar and caprese salads, mahi-mahi fingers (lightly battered and fried), tenderloin sandwiches, black Angus burgers, and chicken Philly cheese sandwiches, in addition to the usual bar fare. Feel like having an honest-to-goodness sit-down dinner? Try the filet mignon, porterhouse chops, or grilled fresh fish. And don't worry, you've got all night to work up an appetite -- the kitchen stays open until 2:00 a.m.

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 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 Bacchanalia

Opium

South Beach may be slipping as a club hot spot, but it's not Opium's fault. The Asian-theme restaurant south of Fifth Street transmogrifies late at night into the raunchy, ostentatious epicenter of superficial glitz. Opium has emerged as the very best place for middle-age men to display their topless table-dancing (and often teenage) trophy chicks. Ergo the waitstaff at street-level Café Tabac, located directly below the joint, is inured to the unusual. "On Halloween," one waitress told us, "there was a woman who came down here in a completely transparent garbage bag, wearing no underwear and no bra. She pointed to a tear in her plastic bag and asked if we had a stapler." Suitably sutured, the reveler scurried upstairs, back into the still-breathing soul of South Beach.

Best Open-Mike Night

Sundays at Shantel's Lounge

They call it "old-school" at Shantel's Lounge in Liberty City, where each week a group of African-American musicians, who have played jazz, blues, oldies, and soul around Miami, gathers to jam. Other music makers and singers are welcome to join the horns, keyboards, and drums that rock the room. During a spoken-word segment, about ten poets deliver short readings, ranging from brilliant rants on the African diaspora, to rap-a-logues, to embarrassingly bad Barry White-style schlocky bedroom whisperings. On the first Sunday of the month, Shantel's offers barbecue, collard greens, pigeon peas, rice, and other fixings for three dollars. The songs, the words, and the friendly conversation are free.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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