Miami Vice

Miami Vice

We’ve had a great time here at the Fontainebleau. Amazingly, it’s at 100% occupancy! The last time I was here was with a client, long before the renovations.

Like most successful operations, the hotel attracts a wide diversity of guests. There are older people revisiting a memory in their lives; middle-aged people seeking out some elegance and fun; and younger people on the prowl. (There are some families with young children, but not many.)

At one of the pools, three women strut by in heels.
“Why don’t they just carry a sign, ‘Looking for a man’?” asks The Lovely Maria.
“If I saw such a sign,” I inquire, “what would be my proper reaction?”
TLM: “You’d probably have to correct the spelling.”

We dined at Red Meat the first night, in South Beach, and I’ll go back. Great steaks, fine wine list, with an entire glassed-in wall holding the wines. (We had a Caymus Special Selection.) The sommelier spends most of the night on a ladder scrambling around like a spider. Last night we went to A Fish Called Avalon, right on Ocean Drive, and we had a table on the veranda next to the street. From that perch I can sip a martini and watch the parade of people, dogs, and cars. (A 1958 Buick was at curbside.) I’ve seen five or six Bentleys just at the hotel thus far, but no GTC Speeds. We wound up at The Delano for drinks, which was surprisingly subdued.

The Fontainebleau serves drinks and meals on the beach and at the pools. The weather has been partly cloudy but tolerable. The open air bar in the main lobby has a terrific, lighted blue floor, must be a thousand square feet, and provides a fabulous atmosphere.

Tonight we’ll dine in Gotham, a sister restaurant of the great place in Manhattan.

Last night I used our “living room balcony,” which wraps around the side of the suite, offering a “Miami Vice” view of downtown as well as ocean front. I smoked a very nice Macanudo Madura, accompanied by some chestnut chocolate, and listened on my iPhone to Steve Tyrell’s “The New Standard” album. We saw him last week in New York at the Café Carlisle, from about five feet away, best seats in the house. He does a super job on the Great American Songbook.

We return Sunday morning, and I might just make the late afternoon football game.

Meanwhile, though I wouldn’t return to the Fontainebleau as a regular haunt, I’m fascinated by imagining how the celebrities of the late 40s and 50s would take a luxury train out of New York to travel to Miami, spend weeks (or the entire summer) in this and other beachfront hotels, circulating among clubs and parties nightly. Not much television, post-war boom times, café society.

Then I remember Billy Joel (who helped close the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame special the other night, hosted by Bruce Springsteen, which is a MUST-see): “The good old days weren’t all that good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”

Here’s to tomorrow.

(The Sunset Island Restaurant at Key Largo)

(The Sunset Island Restaurant at Key Largo)

(Sunset)

(The beach at the Fontainebleau)

(The street scene from A Fish Called Avalon in South Beach)

(The Blue Bar at the Fontainebleau)

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.