Puttin' on the Glitz
In the wake of the megabucks makeover of the Fontainebleau—high profile restaurants plus bars and pools galore—Miami Beach regains its rhinestone strapped footing as glam slam mecca for tourists and locals alike. Insatiable critic Gael Greene dances with the ghost of Morris Lapidus, then embraces Je
Posted: June 8, 2009
On one of those sublime Miami blue sky January days—warm but not too warm, with a little breeze and not a drop of humidity—the crowd blissed out in the interlocking multiple pool areas of the new gussied up Fontainebleau Miami Beach looks beatific. You might not guess credit is paralyzed and that the newly unemployed are reeling in shock. Pale bodies stretch out caramelizing in the sun, cool off with cocktails at the poolside bars, or wander around looking for lunch, passing by the luxurious VIP cabanas with their wrap-around sofas, flat panel TVs, and sparkling refrigerators.
My guy and I have fled Manhattan's arctic gusts for a week in Florida. And lured by bargain flights and discounted rooms, so have enough Northerners and Europeans to make the new Fontainebleau look like a destination again. Well, if you're giving yourself a tropical respite, why wouldn't you want to see what a billion dollar makeover has wrought in a zip code of Miami Beach that needed a little Viagra.
Granted, the splashy opening of the Fontainebleau's new condo towers and the expansive, never mind how wildly expensive, hotel rehab, with a pair of star chefs from New York City driving the kitchens at Scarpetta and Gotham Steak, was bravura in the face of the economy meltdown. The timing toyed cruelly with the ambitions of Turnberry developer Jeffrey Soffer, who stinted on no detail in his dream of making this corridor of Miami Beach the heat belt, a new center above revitalized South Beach. Presumably it will take time to fill those condos, but Fontainebleau Miami Beach is the new big deal in town, and for those flying in anyway with credit cards still pulsating, it's the place to be. Five different bars. Five different pools. Alan Yau has been lured to open an outpost of his London hit Hakkasan (after failing to come to terms with Ian Schrager at the Gramercy Park Hotel). And New York architect Jeffery Beers promises the white plastered duplex La Côte (as in Côte d'Azur) after the Saint Tropez original, Les Palmiers, as bringing Fontainebleau glitz and glamour to the beach and boardwalk beyond the pool area: chartreuse glass, travertine and oiled teak, oysters nesting in glowing ice on the Mediterranean menu, with a glass elevator to the roof deck for sunning on custom-made communal beds.
I was a Miami baby years ago. My family came south from Detroit for two months every winter, and my sister and I were enrolled in local schools. Unlike my richer cousins, we always stayed at last year's hotel. The Saxony. The Diplomat. The Eden Roc. But we visited Morris Lapidus' mythic Fontainebleau, with its monolithic, revolutionary curving façade and the restored black and white bow tie pattern of marble floors. I am actually excited to return decades later and see what liberties Beers has taken from the flashy showbizzyness of Lapidus—reviled in his time for that Ziegfeld touch and now revered as a creative Titan.
The drive where cars pull up and are surrendered to the valet parkers is unchanged. The revolving doors are untouched. Even the smudges where the black rubber brushes the floor remain. But inside the 45,000-square-foot lobby brand-new sofas and settees that curve make small chatting zones set on circles of carpet in blue, azure, and purple. There are pedestal tables and organic polished wood tuffets to perch on. Beers brought in artist James Turrell to do the color-changing light installation at the check-in desk. The essential vintage glamour is reclaimed in blue tinted mirrored walls, a trio of gargantuan pink jeweled chandeliers, and the famous "stairway to nowhere," where 1950s and '60s guests liked to pose in taffeta and mink stoles. I imagine the ghost of Lapidus giggling and sliding down the banister in glee at the homage.
We've come for dinner with Miami friends, but quickly we're distracted by the azure glow of Bleau, Beers' lobby bar. Impossible to ignore that blowsy blue. There are columns that change color, but the blue reigns, coming up from the glass floor till the raised stage set glows like a unidentified flying object. I see mating, flirting, good-old-boying at the bar, and cocktail-sipping at surrounding lounge tables. Spike heels. Thigh high boots (well, it's winter somewhere). Jeans. A mix of hotel guests, tourist sightseers, and locals. I hear Russian, Spanish, what I'm guessing is Japanese, and Midwestern twang.
Across from the stone and glass entry to Alfred Portale's Gotham Steak, we look into a pastry shop and eye a rack of blouses and an outrageously expensive red snake tote in the window of a boutique designed to motivate sugar daddies. And then we're checking into the Gotham duplex at the greeting stand and being led downstairs past the 10,000-bottle wine wall to a sprawling room with varying ceiling heights, dominated by the long glassed-in kitchen with what seems like an excess of crew except if you know Portale's reputation for military perfection. "Alfred's attention to detail reminded me how important that is," says Beers. "He knew before we started construction where every service station would go." Crystal fish-like shapes swim in the steeple-like space above us. The fact that the serving staff is a little slow and perhaps a bit green—Miami fresh—is actually a relief.
A request for bread brings a response: "It will be a few minutes because our bread is special." Our host, a man not used to waiting, is dumbfounded. But when the bulbous bread arrives, a miniature buttery brioche in its baking pan fresh from the oven, the plot is clear.
Though the menu offers caviar and seafood towers for big spenders, Portale's signature dishes from Gotham Bar and Grill—lobster, grouper, salmon, chicken—and starters like tartares, sashimi, and seviche as well as soups and salads and his classic wild mushroom pasta with truffle oil, cow grilled over hardwood charcoal and finished in a 1,200°F broiler is the theme. And meat is what we've come for: the 20 ounce Brandt Farm rib eye, a classic New York strip, and rack of lamb.
By the time we've refreshed with sorbet and gone the nibble-too-far with mignardises, Bleau is really jumping—mating action on what seems like fast-forward to me. And there's a line hoping to get a nod into the club, Liv, with its disco and bottle action. Soffer, who's opening a huge new Fontainebleau this fall in ailing Las Vegas—with another Gotham Steak and Scarpetta by Scott Conant—had hoped for a beachside casino too. According to the Miami Herald, developers of the downtown Miami World Center included a casino for the Fontainebleau in a pro-casino petition filed in 2008 that got turned down. If the state should decide gambling is the way to go, the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach is ready. Given the hotel's Rat Pack heritage, it only seems fair.
Miami pals tell me Scarpetta, in one of the new condo towers connected to the hotel by a pedestrian causeway, is a hit with the locals. But the two of us only have time for the $49.95 brunch. White-washed wicker greeting stands add a Southern verandah feel to architect David Collins' nautical portholes, white-piped blue leather chairs, and tall mirrored columns. From a pillowy tropical banquette, I can see the tips of palms rustling in the breeze and the ocean beyond framed by sheer white cotton. The menu is a hit parade of Conant favorites: a choice of pasta, that fabulous polenta with wild mushroom ragù. Given a roaring appetite, the shameless buffet athlete could make it an all-day affair: Bellinis, Mimosas, and Bloody Marys. Breakfast (bagels, muffins, Danish, juice, and fruit). Lunch from a vast array of antipasti on display. And dinner—eggs or pasta, chicken, short ribs or a steak (choose one), followed by the buffet desserts. Suddenly $49.95 seems like a bargain. As noon shifts into late afternoon, huge family groups are arriving. It's looking like Scarpetta can stand on its own as a destination while Miami waits to see if art and culture, like the Basel dance of art, Art Deco weekends, and South Beach Wine & Food Festival can keep the ship afloat.
