Wednesday, September 2, 2026

The Top 43 Places to Drink Near John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park



  1. The scallop-shaped pool behind this Art Deco cocktail bar is what most guests are actually aiming for, which makes the bar itself a pleasantly unhurried place to land. Andre Balazs owns the Raleigh Hotel around it, which explains the crowd that looks like it wandered off a casting call. Order something with gin, find a seat, and let the Collins Avenue faithful do their thing.


  2. Live music fills the room most nights at this Cuban cocktail bar and restaurant on Calle Ocho, where the décor slides between Havana and mid-century Miami without quite landing in either. Michelle Bernstein and cocktail veteran Julio Cabrera run the place together, which means the food and the drinks get equal attention. It holds a spot on The World's 50 Best Bars list, and the James Beard Foundation named it an Outstanding Bar Semifinalist.






  3. Rank 9. Zuma

    Japanese

    The terrace hangs over the mouth of the Miami River where it meets Biscayne Bay, which sets the tone for everything else. This is the bar inside Zuma, the Japanese cocktail and sake operation anchored inside the Epic Hotel, done up in granite, rice paper paneling, and Indonesian wood by a Tokyo designer. The crowd arrives dressed for a scene, which is more or less the point. Sake flights and Japanese-inflected cocktails are the move.


  4. Rank 10. Sexy Fish

    Japanese Cocktail Bar


  5. Rank 11. Panamericano Bar

    Pan-American Cocktail Bar



  6. The long pearl bar counter is the first thing that registers, backlit against dark wood and warm gold light, with loose rosebuds packed into displays that somehow don't look like a wedding. This is a cocktail bar inside one of Miami Beach's sleeker luxury hotels, all Asian-modernist design and reclaimed Shanghai brick underfoot. Outside, Martinis get sipped poolside under palms by people who have clearly packed better than you did.


  7. The lounge bar inside the Mandarin Oriental sits beneath a triple-height lobby ceiling with water views and a front-row look at the bridge tying Brickell Key to the mainland. The clientele arrives with generous expense accounts and matching expectations, and the room meets them precisely there. Everything is exactly so, which is another way of saying the drinks are polished and the energy is not.
























  8. The DJ booth alone is larger than some British bars, which tells you something about the scale Blackbird Ordinary is operating at. This is a sprawling American bar, pool table competing with the DJ for the room's soul, and the unspoken rule is that you do not dance. Out back, a terrace with its own bar and an open-air cinema keeps things properly Miami. Office workers and locals find common ground here without trying too hard.








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