While much of Miami is about the shiny and new, two of the city’s once run-down neighborhoods have gained new energy by repurposing dilapidated buildings as hotels, restaurants and shops, all locally owned and delightfully devoid of name-brand glitz.
MiMo (an acronym for Miami Modern) refers to Biscayne Boulevard between NE 50th Street and NE 77th Street, an area filled with 1950s-era motels.
Nearby, just north of Wynwood and the Design District, is Little River, named for its proximity to one of Miami’s only natural rivers, where shuttered warehouses and strip malls are the backdrop for artsy businesses and some of the city’s most exciting restaurants.
Here, a guide to exploring both neighborhoods.
Little River
For artists and entrepreneurs, a run-down neighborhood with cheap rent is a form of fairy dust. Cool artist enclaves soon attract restaurants and retail. That’s what has happened in Little River, where a local real estate developer began buying up the grid of gritty warehouses in the predominantly Haitian neighborhood. Gentrification may follow, but for now, the area blooms with tropical fauna and the kind of commerce that defines Miami as a hot spot.
Restaurants
Imperial Moto Cafe, tricked out with gleaming vintage Harley-Davidsons and distressed leather seating, made Little River a prime destination when it opened in 2016. It’s still where locals and a cross section of cycle and car enthusiasts gather for sustainably farmed, Miami-roasted coffee.
La Natural, a 40-seat space, is laser-focused on “neo-Neopolitan” pizza and natural wine, which has earned it three Michelin Bib Gourmands (an award that denotes value for money) since it opened in 2020. Whitewashed walls and rustic ceramics set the stage for sourdough-started, cold-fermented pies. Minimal-intervention wines complement the pizza and vegetable-forward small plates (prices range from $12 to $26).
In 2023, the restaurateur Alvaro Perez Miranda, who spent 15 years in Tokyo, changed the omakase game in Miami with Ogawa (which means Little River in Japanese), which has just 11 counter seats and an outdoor garden that maintains its Zen even when the hourly cargo train rumbles by. Ogawa recently won a Michelin star, and many of the 19 or so courses (really, each a mouthful), like vinegar-and- egg-yolk-flecked spiny king crab, mirin-glazed monkfish liver and caviar atop swordtip squid, involve watching the chef Masayuki Komatsu hand-paint soy sauce, grate wasabi and meticulously drop lime juice onto fish that has been flown in from Tokyo (omakase menu is $350; drink pairings, add $250).
Sunny’s Steakhouse, a beloved pandemic pop-up known for parties under its twinkle-light-covered banyan tree, has become a permanent restaurant, delighting legions of local movers, shakers and their nattily dressed crews drawn to the distressed palm tree mirrored screens, whimsical martini-filled elephant ice buckets and “grandma fabulous” touches like mismatched serving platters. The showpiece on the menu is a 30-ounce steak cooked over live fire. But there are plenty of other proteins, along with pasta and an expansive raw bar that can be mixed with charcuterie plates with star fruit mostarda for a satisfying meal (entrees are $24 to $260 for the steak, which serves up to four people; pastas are about $25; and raw bar and charcuterie plates are about $20 for most items).
The Citadel is a stepped-up food hall with 14 vendors where you can score everything from churros or an all-day breakfast burrito at Gueritos ($12) to a heaping portion of housemade cacio e pepe at Borti Pasta Bar ($18) to knock-your-socks-off affogato at Vice City Bean ($6.50). The rooftop’s Key West-inspired bar with $15 frozen cocktails and snacks from the food hall (honey jerk chicken bowl, $18; burgers, $8; shrimp tacos, $11) make it a popular local perch.
Shopping and art
Carolina K’s boutique feels like gallivanting through remote Latin America and India via heritage textiles from the Argentine designer Carolina Kleinman, whose embroidered pillows and ottomans, woven hats, swimwear, and fantastical silk pajamas are produced in collaboration with artisans whose story is printed on each tag (pajama sets, $249 to $325; pillows start at $180; ottomans, $1,339 to 1,890; hats, $315 to $550).
Mids Market is a deal finder’s paradise for reasonably priced secondhand clothing; the average price hovers around $30. Garments are spread over 12,000 square feet and cleverly divided into categories (lmusic, TV and movie; college and pro sports; and more) and washed so the air is not suffused with thrift store funk. There is also a vinyl listening lounge, a “rework station” (sewing machine and fabric shears to cut/fray/embellish purchases) and community programming.
Contemporary galleries are stippled throughout the neighborhood, including Primary Projects, Homework and Dot Fiftyone, all showcasing edgy, boundary-pushing work, and a printmaking studio called Miami Paper & Printing Museum, which holds bookbinding and pattern block printing classes. The neighborhood’s creative footprint will expand when the 40-year-old visual arts nonprofit Oolite Arts, which provides resources to local artists, opens its new campus (set for 2026) in a complex of five converted warehouses designed by the architecture firm Barozzi Veiga.
MiMo
Lined with royal palms and bordered by the ritzy communities of Belle Meade, Bayside, Morningside and Palm Grove, the 27 blocks of Biscayne Boulevard from NE 79th Street to the edge of downtown were once a welcome-to-Miami mat, where dozens of “subtropical modernist” motels with neon signs beckoned to motorists.
The neighborhood is walkable and, because of restrictions on building heights, devoid of soaring condos and office towers. Playful hallmarks of the 1950s abound in stucco motels turned into mixed-use spaces and the iconic 35-foot-tall Coppertone Girl sign.
Hotels
The 1970s turned this corridor into a sun-drenched skid row until 2014 when the local developer Avra Jain rehabilitated Vagabond motel, a storied hangout for the Rat Pack, and began a cleanup of the area. Now, that kitschy-cool hotel is the linchpin of the district for tourists who appreciate the 42 stylish, reasonably priced rooms (starting at $179) and locals who enjoy the bar next to the lushly landscaped pool.
Another renovated gem is the New Yorker, designed by Norman Giller, the architect behind the Carillon Hotel and the Standard in Miami Beach, as well as the futuristic Miami Beach band shell. The 51 rooms are cheap and cheery (starting at $100), with teal-colored walls and leafy grounds featuring a pool and a fire pit. Over at the Biscayne, the 53 updated rooms (starting at $130) have modern finishes and crisp new bedding.
Restaurants
Trout-roe-topped latkes? Shrimp and grits? Duroc pork chop with dirty rice? At Blue Collar, the neighborhood’s go-to spot for comfort food (especially at happy hour for half-price cocktails and $9 Buffalo wings on the patio), the chef Danny Serfer serves a decidedly anti-small-plates menu that mixes Southern heartiness with Jewish classics and dishes that speak to Miami’s Caribbean culture. The food may read casual, but the moody interior is glamorous. (At lunch, salads are $15; sandwiches, $20. Dinner entrees start at $27.)
The weekend scene outside teensy El Bagel is a snapshot of Mimo: young families, hung-over bros, Gen Z-ers, and carb-loving 40- and 50-somethings all diving into their hand-rolled, long-fermented sourdough bagels while dozens wait in line. Worth the wait? Yes, definitely, (Bagel with schmear, $6.50; sandwiches, $10 to $16.)
Other casual restaurants: Uptown 66, a shack with outdoor seating selling tacos al pastor and other Mexican street food (tacos $5; burritos, $14); La Social, a bright pink indoor-outdoor cafe for protein-packed salads and pastries like mini s’mores and coconut dulce de leche cakes (salads, $12 to $20; cakes, $8.50); and Caracas Bakery for sweet, ham-filled cachitos, or Venezuelan breakfast pastries ($5), and various toasts (like lamb sausage and soft scrambled eggs, $19) made on the bakery’s crusty sourdough bread.
Shopping
All over Miami, there are scores of vintage shops with ho-hum merchandise and sky-high prices. Fly Boutique, run for 25 years by the husband-and-wife team Jean Marie and Maximiliano De Bernardi, has neither. Old-school Lee denim and no-name silk blouses (from $20) hang opposite contemporary Dolce & Gabbana leather jackets, Missoni sweaters (from $200) and slinky, party-ready dresses (from $150). Inside vitrines, Gucci belts from the ’80s and Louis Vuitton bags beckon. Mr. De Bernardi’s vintage furniture finds are also offered at the shop.
Legion Park backs onto Biscayne Bay and morphs into a farmers’ market on Saturdays, with 40 vendors selling everything from grown-in-Miami produce and fresh eggs to arepas, ceviche, barbecue and homemade yogurts. Eat and tap into the free yoga under the Spanish-moss-draped trees. Then meander back in time on a walk through the surrounding streets lined with midcentury bungalows and Mediterranean Revival houses.
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