When I got married in Miami ten years ago, it was the most glamorous place on Earth. The faded deco grandeur of South Beach reeked of decadence and vice. We arrived a couple of days early, and spent our time seeking out dive bars with duke boxes, where we drank Dos Equis and played pool. We were 20-something music industry hipsters, in the days before “hipsters” were a thing. You know, when trucker caps were still cool. And when the time came, we scrubbed up (me in Miu Miu, him in a while Dolce & Gabbana tux and a pair of box-fresh Converse All Stars) and wafted through the lobby of the Delano in a cloud of Gucci Rush to the cabana by the pool where we would pledge our undying love and allegiance. We celebrated with a bottle of Moët Rosé (it was just us, did I forget to mention?) and forgot to take any photos. That’s what I call true romance.
I’ve been back to Miami for work a couple of times since, interviewing pop stars and women who design bikinis, and took note on those occasions of the shiny new additions to the scene: the spankingly shouty (but fabulous) W South Beach, and Lincoln Road taking over from Ocean Drive as the place to shop and be seen. But it wasn’t until I returned with my husband to celebrate our first decade of marriage that I noticed how much the place has changed.
Maybe our taste levels have undergone an adjustment since 2003, but as the Versace mansion loomed into view we knew it couldn’t just be us – there’s no way Gianni would have pitched his tent in the midst of this
When I first discovered South Beach it had real wow factor. Wow hotels, a wow beach, wow-wow beautiful bodies. But strolling down Ocean Drive last month, we were wowing for all the wrong reasons. “Wow, they’re doing an all-day happy hour at The Tides.” “Wow, those goldfish bowls of frozen Margarita have bottles of Corona upended in them.” “Wow, the EDM pumping out of the SLS at three in the afternoon is LOUD.” And maybe our taste levels have undergone an adjustment since 2003, but as the Versace mansion loomed into view we knew it couldn’t just be us – there’s no way Gianni would have pitched his tent in the midst of this.
Which is not to say the glamour is gone, or that we didn’t find some of that old school wow to woo us. Anniversary night found us back at the Delano for a cocktail (me in the very same Miu Miu, him in the vintage Rolex I bought him to celebrate), where the lobby is still the coolest around, with its hedged-in exclusivity and Alice in Wonderland proportions. We even took a photograph this time. And then we went for dinner.
Presiding over the westerly end of Lincoln Drive, Juvia is one of the new additions to South Beach and has the same shiny, look-at-me feel as the W. Designers have also made liberal use of the same purple W is known for, which I like to call “Ibiza Purple” (except in Ibiza it’s always in neon). But the location – an open-air penthouse terrace, overlooking the blazing lights of the city – is properly take-your-breath-away special. Almost as special as the garden at the Delano felt the first time I walked out onto the wide steps down to the pool and decided that this was where it would happen.
Looking at the menu, you know without asking that chef Sunny Oh spent ten years in the kitchen at Nobu. Which tells you everything you need to know. Seafood – raw, cooked or cured – dominates the beginning, with a beef carpaccio thrown in. After a round of oysters from Maine (which seems silly seeing as we’ve travelled from NYC where they’re obviously much fresher), we share dishes of Tuna Poke and Salmon Nashi. The latter turns out to be a highlight of the meal: podgy pink squares of perfectly cut raw salmon dressed with a risotto’s worth of truffle and made pretty with a shimmy of micro arugula. Caught on camera (it’s pretty dark up here, actually), the tuna dish is revealed as a rather slapdash tartare (sauce all over the plate), but is satisfyingly salty and sesame-nutty, if lacking something to pile it onto and bite into.
It actually makes me salivate to remember a main of seared scallops served over shiitake, trumpet royal and maitake mushrooms. Done to the very edge of opaque, the buttery scallops are topped with capers and crispy garlic chips, while an unexpected side of broccoli makes for a hat-trick of my favourite things on one plate. He thinks his Chilean seabass is better, which it’s not (see “hat-trick of favourite things”), but it is very moreish, drenched in basil soy butter and served with a heap of maple glazed eggplant. It also comes with a small trench of Hawaiian heart of palm salad, which sort of makes the extra side of the same dish we ordered superfluous. They might have mentioned.
We’re not usually pudding people, but it is our anniversary and so we let the restaurant choose one for us – and it looks like something the pastry chef made up on the spot. A scoop of chocolate ice-cream, in coffee, topped with marshmallow and whipped cream and served in a tumbler with a sort of chocolate “crown” resting on the rim. Oh, and dotted with some little chocolate balls. We didn’t need it, and perhaps that’s why it didn’t really taste of much – just left a sickly sort of film on the teeth. We’d have been better off with a cocktail, but that how’s the music industry hipsters would have played it, before finding some club to dance it off. Miami has changed and so have we. C
Juvia, 1111 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, Florida USA 33139
Juviamiami.com*; +1 305 763 8272
*Brace yourself – it’s a website with music