A Night Guide to Miami

Night Guide Miami, your Single Source for Nightlife Information. It brings you information that includes Miami – Dade club locations.

Greater Miami's legendary night scene sizzles with possibility, driven by fashion and entertainment industry mavens. Miami Beach has since evolved into America's Riviera and a Latin Hollywood, with theatrical flair. Made-in-Miami television and motion pictures are all memorable, and celebrity spotting are de rigueur especially in and around the South Beach nightlife scene, on the dance floors of hipper-than-thou clubs, at live Latin jazz bars, and tablehopping in lounges of chi-chi restaurants that transform as evenings progress from cafes with guava cheesecake dessert courses to all out revelry at wee hours nightclubs. Staying on top of what's hot poses a challenge, as ever-more fabulous concepts open each season.

Clubs

Here's how it breaks down: the South Beach club scene plays on the appeal of celebrity. More famous customers equal more regular customers. Eventually, a strange equilibrium establishes itself where there are enough regular customers to make people assume famous people are there, even if they're not. But those regular customers can't appear too regular. So a little social engineering is committed by club-owners and those titans of the cultural scene (ie bouncers) in the form of the red rope. So, how do you get by it?

Be polite don't be skittish, but don't act like you're J Lo, either. And whatever you do, don't yell at the doorman – or touch him or yank on his clothing – to try to get his attention.

Get guest-listed Ask the concierge at your hotel to help you out, or simply call the club and leave your name; it's often that simple.

Remain confidently aloof don't stare at the doorman; it's pathetic. Look elsewhere – but look hot doing it.

Get there early Do you want to be cool, or do you wants to get in? From 10:30pm to 11pm is a golden time for bouncer leniency, but you can't club-hop with this strategy.

If you're a man, bring a woman A man alone is not worth much up your value by having a beautiful woman – or two or three – on your arm.

Bars

There is a surprising glut of dives in South Beach, the perfect yin to the flash yang of the club scene. And both dives and hot bars abound in Miami proper. But the best place for a simple drink in this city may well be your hotel lobby. For years now, hotel lounges have been the clubs of the season, and on almost any given night, front desks hire DJs for their lobbies and pool areas. Plenty of people use their hotel lobby as a jumping-off point to bigger things, but for many, the lobby is the be-all, end-all destination for the evening out. Restaurant bars have started to build on the same cachet, and the most popular hotels blend all of the genres, keeping a hot eatery on site that happens to have a hotter attached bar.

Live music

When most people think about the live music scene in Miami, they'll start hearing one of two sounds: Latin or hip-hop. And while it's true that these are still the beats that rule this town, there is a lot more going on. Electronica rules at more Design District and Downtown clubs, lovely jazz spots aren't hard to find, and a cozy but strong indie-rock scene centres around Sweat Records (5505 NE 2nd Ave) and Churchill's (5501 NE 2nd Avenue). Still, Miami is the Latin music capital of America; if you want to hear what's emerging in this genre, head on down to La Covacha (10730 NW 25th Street) and get your dancing shoes on.

And finally, make sure you get your beauty sleep in before you hit the town. Miami's one of the most late-night friendly towns in America, and clubs generally stay open from 9pm to 5am. Bars open earlier but often shut at the same time. The only district you're likely to get an 'early night' in is Coconut Grove, where the closing time is now 3am.