On the heels of this fall's auction season that included the record $450m DaVinci sale, Art Basel Miami Beach arrives with a tailwind spanning Dec. 7th- 10th. The epic parties, always-eccentric entertainment - and of course the art - seems to arrive with vibrato this year with a booming US economy, art market on fire, and international elite looking for any reason to fete. And fete they will at their usual boltholes that include W South Beach, Soho Beach House and the Edition with some opting for newer hotel spots like The Surf Club even if it’s not technically in Miami Beach. The high-end game of Miami Beach real estate has cooled a bit of recent, with the scaled-back Faena residential towers and endless barren plots of land with advertisements of what could have been - or could be one day.
On a sunny December day, there is no city in the US that’s better than Miami Beach. Morning workouts, lavish lunches and afternoons at the beach define the local life, best sought out with a 1pm reservation in the Design District and longtime spots like Mandolin Bistro or 1800-Lucky that’s Miami's first food hall serving 10,000-square-feet of sushi, buns, Peking duck, ramen, and dim sum in Wynwood. For those that prefer Bal Harbour, do you go old-school with Carpaccio or new-school with Stephen Starr’s Makoto offering Japanese dishes and charcoal robata? For dinner there's always a new crop of showy international eateries from the dose of Greek by Kiki’s on the River (pictured) to Le Sirenuse that's been deemed a bit more style than substance and La Petite Maison that’s a little dose of South of France perfection. .
By night, there are few better times to be in Miami Beach, ever. If privy, accept the invite to W Magazine’s soiree, Thursday’s Artsy Projects Party co-hosted by Gucci's Alessandro Michele at The Bath Club or opening reception of Loewe Foundation's Chance Encounters. More public parties include the Up&Down at the beachside tent at Nautilus, 1Oak taking over Rockwell and the Surf Lodge pop-up on the shores of the W South Beach. And should 2am roll around and you still aren't in the dancing mood, LIV will host sequential nights of Diplo, Cardi B and DJ Khaled that's the hottest 4am dance floor in town.
