Own The Night
Years ago, if you were on the prowl for a raucous night out in Miami, your options were limited to a finite number of stadium-size clubs, or a handful of banal hotel bars. But the city is experiencing something of a seismic nightlife shift lately—which means there’s more to do after dark than ever before. Come spring, all eyes will be on Ora, a new VIP nightlife concept that promises to turn Miami’s club industry on its head. It’s designed to be the antithesis of other supersized venues: High-rolling groups will have personal butlers at their beck and call, and bottle service menus will be elevated by “Vintage and Rare” selections (like Dom Pérignon’s coveted P2, or Ruinart’s 1982 vintage rosé). The intimate South Beach space has 26 tables and an impressive art collection with works by Banksy and Murakami.
“We’re trying to take every segment of the evening and make it different, from the moment you arrive until you leave,” says Dana Dwyer, a Miami nightlife veteran and one of the club’s three co-owners. “If it’s raining, we’ll have people outside with umbrellas escorting you from your car. At the end of the night, you’ll be sent home with a special gift so you don’t wake up the next day feeling like you bought all of this Champagne and have nothing to show for it.”
Dwyer spent a year traveling to the best nightclubs around the world—from Dubai to the Philippines, Mykonos to the Maldives—in search of inspiration. “We’re taking little bits and pieces of things and incorporating those influences here,” says Dwyer. “What we’re doing… I haven’t seen it anywhere else.”
Go Big or Go Home
No Miami experience is complete without at least one night at LIV, the more than 18,000-square-foot mainstay of South Beach’s bottle-popping elite. If you’ve never been, imagine this: strobe lights, world-class DJs and a gargantuan space filled to the brim with scantily clad women. For the ultimate treatment, you’ll want to book one of the six private skyboxes, where you can watch the action from above. A similarly wild time can be had at Story or Set—even larger clubs, at 27,000 square feet each. After one too many shots of Patrón, you may be tempted to keep the momentum going into the morning. But the best open-all-night clubs only exist in Vegas, right? Wrong. E11EVEN (yes, it’s pronounced “Eleven”) is the kind of place you can roll into at 4 A.M.—when everything else is closed—and still find the party raging on.
Megaclub Alternatives
El Tucán
Burlesque in Brickell? Believe it. The 1940sinspired cabaret and cocktail lounge has live Latin music, provocative performances and international DJs spinning late at night— a contemporary take on classic dinner theater.
Sweet Liberty
A “quick pre-dinner drink” will inevitably turn into three at Sweet Liberty, where the libations are expertly crafted and the setting is sophisticated yet unpretentious. Settle into one of the leather banquettes, order a few dozen oysters and prepare to stay a while.
