DK Travel : Miami : Coral Gables and Coconut Grove

Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, taken together, constitute one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Greater Miami. The former is actually a separate city, while the latter is a district of Miami, its oldest, and the site of the Miami City Hall. Coral Gables was one of the nation’s first “planned” cities and is consistently posh from end to end. Coconut Grove is a more variegated mosaic, historically the focus of Miami’s intellectual, bohemian community but also incorporating the blighted “Black Grove”, where the descendants of Bahamian workers often live in real squalor.

For more about George Merrick’s fabulous buildings in Coral Gables See Merrick’s Coral Gables Fantasies

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Merrick Villages

Driving around Coral Gables to take in these charming residences, done up in the styles of various national and regional cultures, will take perhaps a couple of hours (see Merrick’s Coral Gables Fantasies).
Miami International Orchid Show

Florida has become one of the world centers for the orchid industry. More than half a million blooms are displayed at this show.
Miami-Bahamas Goombay Festival

A Bahamian party that includes a parade, Island food, Caribbean music, and junkanoo dancers parading through the streets. It claims to be the biggest African-American heritage festival in the US.
Midori Gallery

Exquisite, museum-quality Chinese and Japanese ceramics, lacquers and ivories, some as old as the Eastern Han Dynasty, 25–220 AD. Other sublime pieces date from the Sung Dynasty, about 1,000 years ago.
Miracle Mile

In 1940, a developer hyped the town’s main shopping street by naming it Miracle Mile (a mile if you walk up one side and down the other). Colorful canopies adorn shops as prim and proper as their clientele. Buildings of note are Merrick’s Colonnade Building, at 169, with its splendid rotunda; the Doc Dammers’ Saloon, with great photos of old Coral Gables; and, on nearby Salzedo Street at Aragon Avenue, the Old Police and Fire Station, 1939, with square-jawed sculpted firemen.
Miracle Mile

Though not really quite a mile, nor particularly miraculous, this street and parallel ones are mostly about nice shops and elegant eateries.
Modernism Gallery

One of the country’s top dealers in ultracool furniture, lighting fixtures, and accessories, including Art Deco.
Monty’s Stone Crab Seafood House and Raw Bar

A vast dining room in an old airplane hangar. Try the Jamaican jerk spiced fish, or just go for the excellent peel-and-eat shrimp and raw oysters. It’s a Miami insititution.
Norman’s

Norman Van Aiken is the country’s chief protagonist of New World fusion cuisine. Experience opulent aspects of tuna, foie gras, fish, seafood, and even simple salad greens that you never knew existed.
Out of Africa

The sound of African drums fills the air, and hand-carved wooden figures and masks, and silver jewelry fill the space.

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Restaurant price categories

For a three-course meal for one with half a bottle of wine (or equivalent meal), taxes and extra charges.
- under $20
- $20–$40
- $40–$55
- $55–$80
- over $80