The magic of Miami is that “you can still discover places,” said writer and producer Eric Newman. “I don’t feel like people have a chip on their shoulder. There is a healthy civic pride and gratitude.”
Mr. Newman, who created the Netflix show “Narcos” and produced “Griselda,” starring Sofia Vergara, has spent months on location in Miami over the years. For Mr. Newman, a California resident, the appeal of this south Florida playground isn’t just what it is — it’s also what it isn’t. “There’s an appreciation in Miami that you don’t see in other places,” he said. “Maybe it’s because a lot of people here came from somewhere else. Maybe you came to escape the East Coast winters, or you came to escape the Castle, or you came to escape the taxes. People in Miami are really happy to be here.”
Mr. Newman, 53, produced the Oscar-winning “Children of Men” and, more recently, executive produced “Painkiller” and “Narcos: Mexico.” It favors a side of Miami that doesn’t come easily to drivers. An after-hours salsa club, a Xanadu hiding in plain sight, the best Cuban sandwich around: These are the secrets Miami slowly revealed to him.
“Miami’s diversity makes it feel like the least American city, which makes it incredibly American,” Mr. Newman said. “It feels wonderfully foreign and yet uniquely American.”
Here, his five favorite spots in the city.
“La Trova is a show,” Mr. Newman explained. “The waiters are all impeccably dressed, dancing. You can say that working there is a career, not a job.”
La Trova, owned by master bartender Julio Cabrera and chef Michelle Bernstein, is beloved for its impeccable drinks and theatricality. Although the establishment, in the middle of Little Havana, has an extensive menu that leans heavily toward empanadas, croquettes and Cuban dishes, the specialties are mojitos and other cocktails — made with all the glamor of performance art. (La Trova was a James Beard semifinalist for “Outstanding Bar Program” in 2022.) The decor, like the uniforms, is purposeful — a long bar with red stools, dim lighting and an impressive wall of spirits.
“You feel like you’re in Havana in 1958. It reminds me of ‘The Godfather Part II,'” the host said. “It’s a place where you go to drink and end up eating, or you go to eat and end up drinking.
“These sandwiches are amazing,” Mr. Newman said of the offerings at Sanguich.
He prefers the house specialty: pan con lechon, a sandwich of shredded pork, 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’ve decided that everything I’ll ever have will come from Sanguich.”
The sandwich, its menu inspired by “pre-revolutionary Cuba,” has locations in Little Havana and Little Haiti. The stars of the menu are, unsurprisingly, the sandwiches, all of which have beef or pork (vegetarian options are basically milkshakes and fries). And the limited hours serve a very useful purpose, at least for Mr. Newman: “Luckily, it closes at 6 p.m. — because I’d be in awful trouble if they were open late.’
”It looks like something that belongs in Newport, RI, surrounded by beautiful gardens,” said Mr. Newman of the Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, a large estate built as a country home in the early 1900s by a wealthy businessman named James Deering.
In 1953, Vizcaya, located on the water in Coconut Grove, officially opened as a museum. A kind of American Versailles, Vizcaya has acres of outdoor gardens, a dozen buildings inspired by Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean styles, a cafe, event spaces and, of course, secret passages throughout.
“There’s something melancholy to me, like Xanadu in ‘Citizen Kane’ or Hearst Castle — kind of monuments to themselves. But it’s beautiful,” Mr Newman said.
Vizcaya has had many notable guests over the years, including Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II. “As much as I appreciate the exhibits, I like to kind of wander around the gardens and get a little lost,” Mr Newman said. “You can look out over the bay from this Gatsby house and just lose yourself. I remember really liking that feeling.”
“I went here for the first time last night and it was amazing — kind of this weird, weird, wonderful experience. My wife and I checked into what appeared to be a guest house. There was a guy behind a desk looking at a bill with a traveler, and my wife and I were like, “it can’t be this place.”
In fact, 27 Restaurant is part of the Freehand Hotel, a luxury guesthouse a few blocks from 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 approached, you could hear how alive it was,” Mr Newman said.
The menu borrows from the American South and Afro-Caribbean food. The decor is eclectic and mismatched, the tables are communal and “the oyster mushrooms are amazing,” Mr. Newman said. “So is the shrimp pasta. We had three orders from them.”
“I’m 53, I don’t really go out anymore, but Miami has a different energy,” said Mr. Newman, whose favorite after-hours spot is Siboney Night Club in West Miami. The salsa club, open Thursday through Saturday from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., is “pretty insignificant,” he said. Its authenticity makes it a repeat visitor.
“It’s not one of those places where you’d walk by it and go, ‘Oh, we’ve got to go in and see what’s going on,'” he said. “It is entirely Latin, and there is something metaphorical about it.”
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