Stories & Snaps: Miami Music Week 2023.

When my friends first asked me if I wanted to fly to Miami to attend Miami Music Week with them, it was a resounding ‘No’ from me. I don’t like EDM or dance music, and I couldn’t think of anything worse than attending a giant festival.

But slowly they broke me down.

What swayed me was the fact they weren’t going to Ultra Festival, which is the main music festival during Miami Music Week. They were just going to do the club nights and pool parties instead, which was more my thing.

The other thing was that my brother had bought me special earplugs for Christmas that would protect my ears when I go to clubs and concerts, and they would likely help prevent me from getting too overwhelmed by the loudness of the music, too.

And, I’d never been to Miami before but had always wanted to go.

And then they told me about the pool parties.

And I was sold.

And you know what? I had the BEST time. So I wanted to tell you all about it, and hopefully show you why sometimes, doing something outside of your comfort zone is really bloody fun and good for you.

So, ready to find out what I got up to over my 4 days in Miami? Let’s go!

Day 1 at Miami Music Week

My friends – Scott, Pia, John, and Carl – all flew out on the Tuesday, while I flew out two days later on the Thursday. I arrived in Miami late in the evening and checked-in at the Esme Miami Beach, where Pia was also staying (the boys were all at the Nautilus).

We enjoyed dinner and cocktails and listened to live music and it was so, so lovely. And then the boys joined us for a couple of drinks before they all went off to a nightclub (I on the other hand, went to bed to make sure I was on top form the next day).

The following day was my first proper day in Miami, and it was honestly so perfect. It was SO much fun and if I had had just one day to enjoy Miami, this would have been the perfect day…

Sunrise walk along the beach

I woke up before dawn on the Friday morning, so strolled over to the beach and sat myself down on the sand to watch the sunrise. It was bliss – a really beautiful way to start my trip.

With the sun up in the sky I then walked all the way down Miami Beach Ocean Walk, and through Lummus Park, where I saw locals working out at outside gyms, Art Deco buildings lining Ocean Drive, and the famous Art Deco lifeguard station! I even stopped by the playground and made my inner child very happy with a quick go on the swings.

After a quick trip to Target to pick up some snacks and drinks for my room, I headed to The Big Pink for breakfast.

The Big Pink for breakfast

I loved The Big Pink! Like, really, really loved it. I sat up at the counter on a bright pink seat, and tucked into pancakes and eggs and bacon, whilst sipping on an iced tea. A proper diner breakfast is always my favourite thing about visiting the US, so it was nice to do this on my first morning.

Pool time and lunch at Zuma

Full and satisfied, I popped back to the hotel and headed up to the rooftop pool for a bit of a sunbathe before getting ready and changed for lunch and the pool party.

Lunch was at Zuma, with Pia and John. And it was delicious. We’d chosen the lunchtime Omakase tasting menu and each course was just perfection, but the dessert platter really was the pièce de résistance – we promptly demolished it!

‘It’s all gone Pete Tong’ pool party at the Surfcomber Hotel

And then finally, it was time for my very first Miami Music Week event! We had tickets for the Pete Tong ‘It’s all gone Pete Tong’ pool party at the Surfcomber hotel, and YOU GUYS. It was my favourite event of the entire weekend! It was just SO much fun!

And you know what? Everyone there was super friendly, I made so many random new friends and just loved every minute of it. Although I did accidentally befriend a really lovely man who turned out to be a drug dealer – oops. Honestly it was a massive shock because I never expected someone so nice to be a drug dealer lol, so I quickly moved away and re-joined my friends towards the front of the stage.

I also met a few women in the queue for the bar who offered to put glitter on my face for me, and in my drunk state I was all “OMG YES PLZ!” not thinking about how ridiculously difficult it would be to get the damn stuff off later!

Anyway, we all had the best time and spent hours dancing and making new friends and just having fun. Idris Elba was also a special guest and did a DJ set with Pete Tong, which was awesome!

The party went on late into the night, but we had dinner booked at Marion Miami, so left the pool party around 8pm to get to dinner.

Dinner at Marion Miami

We had a table booked for 9pm, but to be honest, by this point I was so exhausted and jetlagged I wasn’t really in the best mood for the Marion vibe.

Marion is a party restaurant, so it’s the kind of place you go to for the vibes and party, rather than the food. Let me tell you, the food is *not* good. In fact it was awful. But the vibes were fun and it was a cool experience – I just wouldn’t go back.

I’d also forgotten my earplugs, and we were sat next to a speaker, so after a couple of hours I was getting quite overwhelmed and combined with the jetlag, I just needed my bed. So I left my friends to continue the party without me, and I got an Uber back to my hotel to try and get a decent sleep before our busy day the following day.

Day 2 in Miami

Day two was a rather hungover one! The others had had a very late one the night before, so while they were all sleeping off their hangovers, I went to the rooftop pool in the morning and read my book, then took myself off to The Drexel for a late brunch, where I found myself sitting next to Penn Badgley and his family!

The Drexel was really beautiful, the staff were super lovely, and the food was *chefs kiss*. I highly, highly recommend going there for brunch if you’re visiting Miami!

Shopping on Lincoln Road

Suitably full from my two breakfast dishes, I walked up to Lincoln Road for a wander around the shops, and bought myself yet another jumper from Aerie (I swear they do the comfiest, cosiest oversized jumpers!), and loved seeing the H&M that’s housed inside an old movie theatre.

The shops on Lincoln Road are decent, and the road has a nice vibe and some cool pieces of artwork/sculptures. It is quite small though, so you don’t need a huge amount of time there!

The others had woken up by this point, but decided to head to the beach to make the most of the warmth and sunshine, whereas I really wanted to see Little Havana while I was in Miami. So I called an Uber and agreed to meet the others later in the afternoon.

Exploring Little Havana

As soon as I stepped out of the Uber in Little Havana, I fell in love.

The driver had dropped me right outside Azucar Ice Cream Company, and the sound of salsa music emenated from the bar next door. I quickly popped into Azucar to grab an ‘Helado’ – choosing a scoop of ‘Guava’ and a scoop of ‘Condensed milk with malt’ flavours. Although I loved the name of the ‘Burn in hell Fidel’ flavour, I wasn’t so keen on the cayenne pepper part!!

After scoffing my helado, I popped next door to the Ball & Chain, aka, the bar with the music. The bar was open onto the street, with no walls at the front, and the band were playing in one of the ‘windows’ giving anyone walking by a full view and opportunity to stop and watch, which I loved.

I sat up at the bar and ordered a Guava Sangria (can you tell yet that I’m obsessed with Guava?!), and just sat there for ages watching the band and sipping my drink.

When I’d finished, I paid and left, and walked down 8th Street – past the famous Domino Park, and the coolest McDonald’s I’ve ever seen. I strolled past dozens of beautiful pieces of street art, and even saw the Cuban Walk of Fame.

Although I was in Miami, it was glorious to experience a small snippet of Cuba and feel as though I were back in Havana almost ten years after my trip to Cuba back in 2014. It made me desperately want to return, but sadly the US have made it really hard for Brits to visit Cuba now – if anyone has visited since 2021, you’re no longer eligible for the ESTA, and instead have to attend an in-person interview and get a much more expensive visa type to enter the US.

Dinner at KLAW

After heading back to the Esme hotel to pick up my bags and get a taxi to the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, I quickly changed and re-did my make-up, and then my friends picked me up in an Uber. They rocked up in a humungous great big Cadillac Escalade, and it was so much fun driving through Miami, the music turned up to the max, all of us singing and excited for our night out!

We started the night with dinner at KLAW. It. Was. Epic.

I think KLAW was my favourite restaurant of the whole trip – the interiors were just stunning and the food was incredible. We ordered cocktails and champagne, and then perused the menu, which is a sharing concept.

We decided on our sharing starters (crab tacos, stracciatella di bufala, and a huge and delicious salad), and then also chose a couple of rather large steaks and sides (veggies, and truffle and parmesan chips) to share, and everything was delicious!

Finally, we ended the meal with the carrot cake dessert and the chocolate and kumquat slice!

And then, it was time to jump back into another beast of a car and head to the Fontainebleau Miami Beach…

Drinks at Bleau & Seeing Tiesto at LIV

We were going to the Fontainebleau Miami Beach because we had tickets to see Tiesto play at LIV nightclub, but it was only 11pm so we stopped by the Bleau bar first for drinks. I spotted a spare table so we jumped on it and quickly got a bottle of champagne ordered.

We loved the Bleau bar so much we actually ended up staying far longer than we’d planned and didn’t end up going into LIV until 1am! Thankfully it was timed perfectly, as Tiesto came on at 1:30.

Now, LIV was actually a major disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, it was epic seeing Tiesto. But it was pretty painful.

The nightclub floorspace was mostly tables, so if you just had the basic entrance ticket like we had (which was still $100), there was basically nowhere to go and nowhere to stand. We were just constantly being moved round and round the nightclub by the staff – everywhere we stood we were told we couldn’t stand there, so we spent the whole time walking round in circles…

It was absolutely mad, so we only stayed until about 2am-ish and then left. Also, I am ridiculously grateful I remembered my earplugs that night, because they saved my ears. I took them out briefly to hear the difference and the difference was insane!

I’m not sure if LIV is like this all the time, but I would definitely say to think twice about going to a big night there.

Day 3 in Miami

Sunday was all about brunch and more pool parties! I woke up early again thanks to jetlag, so started the morning with a walk along the beach and a read of a good book by the swimming pool. Then it was time to get ready for brunch and Anjunabeats!

After an hour of trying to get an Uber (honestly, getting Uber’s in Miami was a nightmare – all of them would constantly accept and then cancel as soon as they got close to you, meaning you’d have to start all over again when you’d already waited 10mins for them to arrive), I finally managed to get one, and arrived at the Goodtime Hotel very late.

Brunch at Strawberry Moon at the Goodtime hotel

On the rooftop of the Goodtime Hotel is Strawberry Moon, a restaurant owned by Pharrell Williams and David Grutman. It’s a spectacular space – very Wes Anderson with a muted colour palette of soft peachy pinks, blues and greens. In fact, the entire hotel is breathtakingly beautiful.

The rest of the gang had already ordered their drinks, so I quickly ordered a ‘Strawberry moon forever’ cocktail, and we chose our food. Three of us had the Chocolate babka french toast, while the other two had the Swordfish Shawarma and Yellowtail.

The Chocolate babka french toast was one of the best french toast dishes I’ve ever had – and of course, Chocolate babka is the superior babka (if you know, you know), so it was bound to be good,  but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so good.

After a lovely lazy brunch, we then got another epicly huge car up to the Nautilus hotel for some beach time and the Anjunabeats pool party.

Anjunabeats Pool Party at Nautilus Hotel

The boys decided to hit the pool party immediately, while Pia and I headed to the beach first for a bit of girlie chill time. We sipped cocktails on our sunloungers and it was just so nice to have some relaxation time.

When we finally decided to go to the pool party, it was such a nice vibe – it was super chilled and everyone was just in the pool chatting to strangers and having a good time. It wasn’t as crazy as the Pete Tong pool party on Friday, I think everyone was just exhausted from such a busy few days of partying and very little sleep!

It got quite chilly after the sun had gone down, so we decided to get showered and changed and then me, Scott and Pia went to Papi Steak for a low-key dinner, while Carl and John went to a party in Brickell (I honestly don’t know how the two of them had the energy haha)…

Dinner at Papi Steak

Papi Steak is *the* place to go in Miami right now. It’s a major celebrity haunt and is famous for its Papi Steak, which is a $1000 Tomahawk-cut named in honor of David “Papi” Einhorn, a partner in the restaurant. The steak arrives with a fanfare of wait-staff carrying it to the table in a suitcase, where they brand it in-front of you before taking it away to grill it. The family next to us got this steak, and I won’t lie, it was truly insane and OTT.

With just 93 seats, Papi Steak is a super intimate but very high-octaine dining experience, with DJ’s spinning until the early hours. The food was mostly very good, although my starter was awful (a hugeee salad made with really old gross leaves).

The steaks were tasty though, and I really enjoyed the lobster mac & cheese! The desserts (apple strudel for me and Pia, and Strawberry cheesecake for Scott) were the perfect way to end the meal.

The three of us were honestly absolutely knackered, so we enjoyed our meal and then headed back to our respective hotels to get a good night of sleep before our final day.

Day 4 in Miami

Our fourth and final day in Miami was more of a half-day, as we needed to leave for the airport at 1pm. Once again I woke up early, so had another beach/pool morning at the hotel before meeting John and Scott for brunch at The Big Pink (Pia wanted a full morning on the beach, and Carl wanted to go and explore Brickell).

I’d raved about it to them all on the Friday, so John & Scott were keen to go before we left Miami, and we thought our last day would be the perfect opportunity for them to try it!

We ordered an insane amount of food. We figured it would be our one meal of the day as it was 11am, we hadn’t had breakfast, and all the restaurants at the airport were rubbish.

So, while I went for my usual eggs, bacon, and pancakes, Scott ordered the chicken wings and a burger and chips, and John ordered the poached eggs on toast.

The boys then also shared a giant portion of pancakes – and I mean giant, like look at the size of them compared to my hand!!

But, we couldn’t leave Miami without having some Key Lime Pie – so we finished with a slice (although we only managed half so had to take the other half with us in a doggy bag).

And then, just like that, it was time to head to the airport to get our flight home.

I had the most incredible four days in Miami for Miami Music Week. Some things were disappointing, but you’re going to get that wherever you go really, and the majority of it was 100% worth the experience.

So, next time you don’t go to something because you think it won’t be your thing, maybe just go and do it anyway!

And if you’re going to Miami Music Week? Make sure you get the Alpine MusicSafe Earplugs before you go – they quite literally saved my ears and my sanity.