I live in Miami. This is where you should go instead of South Beach

Times

20 hours ago

To many, a trip to Miami means South Beach, the flashy, celeb-speckled peninsula famous for its white sand beaches, nightlife and scantily clad, excessively smooth Beautiful People. Some may venture to the part of the city that's on the mainland, particularly the Design District, South Florida's public art-infused luxury zone, or Wynwood to explore the street art. But to me, a Miami native, the most exciting neighbourhood is Little River, which sits just north of those two and is named after one of the city's four rivers, which it straddles. In a predominantly Haitian community, it has become a hive of repurposed warehouses and strip malls, a bastion of non-commercial cool.
Grit has everything to do with my zeal for this quadrant. You see, since 2021, Miami has become excessively manicured. This shiny new Miami developed courtesy of the Covid pandemic, when balmy climes and lax lockdown rules enticed tech, finance and real estate honchos to migrate south, escalating the demand for luxury. Miami Beach is now stippled with fancy shops and outposts of glitzy NYC restaurants such as Carbone, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Ha Salon and Estiatorio Milos.
When it comes to hotels, in addition to the Setai, Faena, St Regis Bal Harbor, Four Seasons Surf Club and a new Andaz already open, properties from the luxury chains Aman, Cipriani, Rosewood, Bulgari and Auberge are in the works.
The Design District, for a long time considered a posh paradise, is even more so now. Its palm tree-lined streets teem with the designer boutiques of Balenciaga, Dior and Fendi; its alleys, car parks and inner courtyards are accented with A-list art installations. Restaurants include Simon Kim's Cote, the only Korean steakhouse in the world to hold a Michelin star, and Mother Wolf, the chef Evan Funke's opulent paean to Roman flavours.
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And Wynwood? The graffiti murals are fun, and the calibre of restaurants — Hiyakawa, Pastis, Sparrow Italia and Ghee — is impressive. But the proliferation of high-rise residential buildings and touristy shops, including one that sells 'Wynwood Walls' merchandise, has corporatised the vibe.
Which brings me back to Little River. Where Miami 2.0 is swanky, Little River's maze of single-storey warehouses turned creative enterprises burbles with edge. Caribbean holes-in-the-wall live alongside trendy breweries and coffee shops packed with headphoned hipsters. Art galleries bloom next to seedy mini-marts. Across from residential bungalows and a commercial boat-rigging service is the Cyclades-inspired studio of the artist Carlos Betancourt, whose work hangs in the Smithsonian's Portrait Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and his architect partner Alberto Latorre (he designed the space), who spend their summers in Greece. It has become a magnet for Miami's cognoscenti. The area is all anchored by St Mary's cathedral and school, where the lawn buzzes with rowdy children.
'We, along with many other art galleries, recreated our creative communities in Little River when Wynwood rents skyrocketed,' says Paloma Teppa, the artist behind Plant the Future, a biophilic design studio known for its preserved moss installations. 'We are all small, independent businesses. There's a real soul here.'
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If you like the artsy, cross-cultural grit of Dalston and Hackney in London, you'll feel at home in Little River, where high-end shops, botanicas and goat butchers inhabit the same block. If you do not have a car, you can Uber (Miami does not have an efficient public transportation system) to one destination and then walk from one spot to the next using Google Maps. My recommendation is to go in the late morning for a coffee, a wander and lunch, or later in the day for cocktails and dinner. Check independent shop opening times as they can vary.
Here's my guide to Little River:
Start at Imperial Moto, a motorcycle-themed coffee shop where 'hog' enthusiasts (Harley-Davidson fans) and locals gather for sustainably farmed, Miami-roasted coffee. The distressed leather seating inside is cosy, but I prefer bringing my nitro brew and empanada to the front patio, where I can watch the scene unfold to the clang of church bells (coffee from £3, empanadas from £4; imperialmoto.com).
Across the street is Casa de Barcelona, a warehouse turned showroom selling high-end sculptural furniture from the 1970s. Best friends Duda Teixeira and Cristina Mantilla of Éliou design costume jewellery inspired by seaside living using cowrie seashells, freshwater pearls and colourful beads. Their whimsical baubles shot to fame when Harry Styles wore their necklace in his Golden music video (eliou.com; @casadebarcelona).
At Carolina K, the Argentine designer Carolina Kleinman serves up wowza prints and home goods that channel faraway markets. Kleinman, a sustainable fashion pioneer, collaborates with artisans in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and India to make contemporary pieces with ancestral craftsmanship. My favourites? The statement-making silk jumpsuits and swimwear upcycled from plastic containers (carolinak.com).
As an avid second-hand shopper who hates clutter, I appreciate Mids Market, which offers 12,000 sq ft of reasonably priced clothing, arranged into easy-to-navigate categories such as music, TV and movies, college, sports and denim. There's more: clothing has been pre-washed, so no contending with noxious odours. A 'rework station' (sewing machine and fabric shears) lets you personalise your purchases (midsmarket.com).
Housed in a Standard Oil petrol station from the 1960s, Plant the Future is a fairytale of a plant emporium with decorative objects designed to generate a deeper connection to nature; think groovy zodiac moss constellations for the wall and floating gardens dripping with plumes of Spanish moss. Outside, a lushly landscaped garden (overlooking the actual Little River) is a perfect perch for repose (plantthefuture.com).
From the midcentury palm-tree mirrored screens to the martini-filled elephant ice buckets and the massive, twinkle light-adorned banyan tree, Sunny's is so of the moment. It's a place you want to dress up for, even though the decidedly non-fancypants co-owner Will Thompson, a former bartender, will insist it's not exclusive. 'Sunny's is a democratic dinner party. People can drink a Miller Light at the bar or spend the big bucks on a wagyu strip.' Atmosphere aside, that's the beauty of this restaurant; you'll rub shoulders with artists, the local stone crab fisherman, billionaires and tech bros. The menu's centrepiece is steaks cooked over fire, and there's an excellent raw bar — oysters, Hokkaido scallops topped with lime zest and torched aguachile (seafood in lime juice) and pasta, specifically corn agnolotti with blue crab and saffron (mains from £20; sunnysmia.com).
Sushi is omnipresent in Miami, but omakase? Not so much. Alvaro Perez Miranda, who spent 15 years in Japan, changed that in 2023 when he opened Ogawa (which means Little River in Japanese), a bamboo-ceilinged, burgundy-walled, Michelin-starred bolt hole with just 11 seats. The 19 or so courses (really, each is a bite) feature fish flown in from Tokyo — spiny king crab and fatty sandfish — along with cooked dishes such as a dashi-doused vegetable dumpling and marbled A5 wagyu (tasting menu £258pp; ogawamiami.com).
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La Natural, with its zen whitewashed wall and tropical funk playlist, is my go-to for pizza. The 40-seat space excels at sourdough-started, perfectly charred, simply topped Neopolitan-style pizza pies and a standout list of minimal-intervention wines (mains from £14; lanaturalmiami.com).
For cheap eats, I like the Citadel, a chic 14-vendor food hall for churros, burgers, burritos or ramen. The rooftop bar is popular with the cool kids.
The sister/brother duo behind Macchialina, a South Beach hotspot, have expand its rustic Italian footprint when it opens Bar Bucce, an open-all-day eatery for espresso and pastries, pizza (New York crust with Neapolitan toppings), antipasti and hard-to-find Italian wines. 'We have been eyeing this neighbourhood for almost a decade,' says the co-owner Jacqueline Pirolo. 'Our 150-seat patio will expand café culture in Little River' (mains from £23; barbucce.com.)
Art is the backbone of Little River's dynamism. At Dot Fiftyone, contemporary work ranges from large-scale charcoal drawings by the emerging Colombian artist Gonzalo Fuenmayor to Anastasia Samoylova, whose environmental themed photography has been exhibited at the V&A, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Kunst Haus in Vienna.
What began with street-art 'urban takeovers' has evolved into Primary, when Books Bischof, Cristina Gonzalez and Typoe Gran opened their sleek, Terence Riley-designed gallery devoted to boundary-pushing exhibitions. Two more galleries of note are Homework and Nina Johnson.
Oolite Arts, a 40-year-old visual arts nonprofit, is slated to open a massive campus in 2026. The‌ complex of five converted warehouses designed by the Spanish architecture firm Barozzi Veiga‌ will be devoted to artist residencies, exhibition galleries, a theatre, an interior garden and programmes for the public‌.
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Since 2004, the Setai has been South Beach's swankiest hotel. A stay here means you'll be mingling with locals before you even leave as the restaurants — the beachfront Ocean Grill and the alfresco Asian-style courtyard Jaya — are staple dining spots for Miamians. There are several pools surrounded by tall palms, and modern rooms.Details Room-only doubles from £602 (thesetaihotel.com)
This newly opened oceanfront property in Mid-Beach, formerly the art deco gem the Confidante, features an open-air lobby, rooftop pool and beachfront restaurant by the renowned chef José Andrés.Details Room-only doubles from £258 (hyatt.com/andaz)
A few walkable blocks from the ocean, a former artists' colony spread across eight Spanish-Mediterranean revival buildings offers 145 rooms, five restaurants and a rooftop pool. The hotel runs alongside lively Espanola Way in the heart of South Beach.Details Room-only doubles from £120 (esmehotel.com)
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