Last weekend, my sister and some of her friends were in town for a vacation. Since I had just returned from Spain, I could not spend time with them during the day, so I sent them to a few of my favorite Miami spots. One of the places I sent them and where I almost always send tourists is Lincoln Road on South Beach.
Lincoln Road is a large street perpendicular to the actual beach that is a closed-off pedestrian mall. For the entire 6 or 7 blocks, people and their pets can stroll without the disturbance of vehicles.
Lincoln Road is a great place to go both day and night. In the daytime, there are numerous restaurants open for brunch and lunch. My favorite brunch spot is Balans, which originated in London. Their brunch is solid and very reasonably priced. At Balans, and at all restaurants on Lincoln Road, you can sit inside in the cool air conditioning or outside and people watch. Unless it is super hot, I always pick outside -- the people watching on Lincoln Road is fantastic! After brunch, there is a ton of great shopping to do. There are chain stores such as Anthropologie and Williams-Sonoma and local shops such as the kids' store Genius Jones. On certain days, there is even a market where you can buy farmer's market type-goods, along with flea market finds. If you are not a big shopper, you can also pop into one of the art galleries. Pop artist Romero Britto's gallery is located here. On a hot Miami day, I highly recommend stopping at Frieze for some locally-produced ice cream.
At night, there are even more options for dining. One of my favorites is Quattro, an upscale Italian restaurant. If you don't want to spend alot of money, a local pizza place, Sosta is excellent as well. After dinner, you can choose to go to the movies -- there is a fantastic movie theatre showing both popular movies, plus more art house finds. Or you can go bar hopping -- Segafredo is a coffee house that is an extremely popular bar after the sun goes down. Regardless, you should end your night at the Ice Box Cafe -- their desserts are to die for, Oprah even named one of their cakes as one of the best cakes in America. A new addition to the area is the New World Center, home of the New World Symphony. This building was designed by Frank Gehry and is stunning. It is only one block off of Lincoln Road. New World Center features numerous spaces for performance and presentation; a flexible and variable seating performance hall, and a 7,000 square foot projection wall on which concerts, video art and films will be shown free-of-charge to audiences in Soundscape, a 2.5 acre public park, designed by Dutch architectural firm West 8.
Many of you may have heard the joke that Miami is the fifth borough of New York City. Well, nowhere is that more obvious than down Lincoln Road. A bunch of the New York City stables are located here including Shake Shack, Rosa Mexicano and the soon to be open Five Napkin Burger. This is great for us folks who used to live in New York and desperately missed the Shake Shack's frozen custards!
So, regardless of when you go, Lincoln Road is a great place to spend some time strolling and people-watching. At times, it seems like all of Miami is there!Lincoln Road
Between Alton Road and Washington Avenue
Miami Beach, FL
