The magic of Miami is that “you can still discover places,” mentioned the creator and manufacturer Eric Newman. “It doesn’t feel like people have a chip on their shoulder. There’s a healthy civic pride and gratitude.”
Mr. Newman, who created the Netflix display “Narcos” and produced “Griselda,” starring Sofia Vergara, has, over time, spent months at a time on location in Miami. To Mr. Newman, a California local, the attraction of this southern Florida playground isn’t simply what it’s — it’s additionally what it’s now not. “There’s an appreciation in Miami that you don’t see in other places,” he mentioned. “Maybe it’s because a lot of people here came from somewhere else. Maybe you came to escape East Coast winters, or you came to escape Castro, or you came to escape taxes. People in Miami are genuinely happy to be here.”
Mr. Newman, 53, produced the Academy Award-winning film “Children of Men” and, extra just lately, was once the manager manufacturer of “Painkiller” and “Narcos: Mexico.” He favors an aspect of Miami now not simply present in guidebooks. An after-hours salsa membership, a Xanadu hiding in simple sight, the most efficient Cuban sandwich round: These are the secrets and techniques that Miami has slowly published to him.
“The diversity of Miami makes it feel like the least American city, which is kind of what makes it incredibly American,” Mr. Newman mentioned. “It feels wonderfully foreign and yet uniquely American.”
Here, his 5 favourite spots within the town.
“La Trova is a show,” defined Mr. Newman. “The waiters are all immaculately dressed, they dance. You can tell that working there is a career, not a job.”
La Trova, owned through the grasp bartender Julio Cabrera and the chef Michelle Bernstein, is loved for its impeccable beverages and its theatricality. Although the status quo, in the midst of Little Havana, has a strong menu that leans closely towards empanadas, croquetas and Cuban fare, the specialties are mojitos and different cocktails — made with the entire flare of efficiency artwork. (La Trova was once a James Beard semifinalist for its “Outstanding Bar Program” in 2022.) The décor, just like the uniforms, is planned — an extended bar coated with pink barstools, low lights and an excellent wall of spirits.
“You feel like you are in Havana in 1958. It reminds me of ‘The Godfather Part II,’” mentioned the showrunner. “It’s a place where you go to drink and end up eating, or go to eat and end up drinking.
“These sandwiches are phenomenal,” mentioned Mr. Newman, of the choices at Sanguich.
He favors the home uniqueness: the pan con lechon, a sandwich of shredded red meat, pickled onions and garlic cilantro aioli on Cuban bread.
“I don’t know how many of these sandwiches I have left in my life. You don’t want to eat one every day or even every week at this age. But I have decided that any more that I’m ever going to have are going to come from Sanguich.”
The sandwich store, its menu impressed through “pre-revolutionary Cuba,” has places in Little Havana and in Little Haiti. The stars of the menu are, now not unusually, the sandwiches, all of that have red meat or red meat (vegetarian choices are principally milkshakes and fries). And the restricted hours serve an excessively helpful goal, a minimum of for Mr. Newman: “Thankfully, it closes at 6 p.m. — because I would get into horrible trouble if they were open late.”
“It looks like something that belongs in Newport, R.I., surrounded by beautiful gardens,” mentioned Mr. Newman of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, a sprawling property constructed as a holiday house within the early 1900s through a rich businessman named James Deering.
In 1953, Vizcaya, which sits at the water in Coconut Grove, formally opened as a museum. A kind of American Versailles, Vizcaya has acres of outside gardens, a dozen constructions impressed through Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean types, a restaurant, match areas and, naturally, secret passageways all through.
“There’s something kind of melancholy about it for me, like Xanadu in ‘Citizen Kane’ or the Hearst Castle — sort of monuments to oneself. But it’s beautiful,” Mr. Newman mentioned.
Vizcaya has had many notable visitors over time, together with Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II. “As much as I appreciate the exhibits, I love to sort of wander around the gardens and get a bit lost,” Mr. Newman mentioned. “You can look out at the bay from this Gatsby-esque house and just lose yourself. I remember liking the way that felt very much.”
“I went here for the first time last night, and it was amazing — kind of this weird, strange, wonderful experience. My wife and I walked into what appeared to be a hostel. There was a guy behind a desk who was going over a bill with some backpacker, and my wife and I were like, ‘this cannot be the place.’”
In reality, 27 Restaurant is a part of the Freehand Hotel, an upscale hostel a few blocks from the Miami Beach. “Then we’re in this pool area lit by tiki torches, and I finally asked someone, ‘Is there a restaurant here?’ Around the corner, as you got closer, you heard how alive it was,” Mr. Newman mentioned.
The menu borrows from American South and Afro-Caribbean meals. The décor is eclectic and mismatched, the tables are communal, and “the oyster mushrooms are amazing,” Mr. Newman mentioned. “So are the shrimp dumplings. We had three orders of them.”
“I’m 53, I don’t really go out anywhere anymore, but Miami has a different energy,” mentioned Mr. Newman, whose favourite after-hours spot is Siboney Night Club in West Miami. The salsa membership, open Thursdays to Saturdays from 11 p.m. to five a.m., is “very no frills,” he mentioned. Its authenticity makes him a repeat customer.
“It’s not one of those places that you would walk by it and go, ‘Oh, we’ve got to go in and see what’s going on,’” he mentioned. “It’s entirely Latin and there’s something transportive about it.”
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