When it comes to travelling long-haul, I have a pre-requisite. I need to get into my hotel room as speedily as possible. For this reason, I tend to book small hotels where there won’t be a long line of people snaking across the lobby nor an agonising wait for my suitcase. In Miami, a city I return to most springs, I’ll book Casa Faena or Hotel Trouvail, both charming and boutique, located in Mid-Beach. This year, enamoured by the idea of an Aveda spa, I went a bit rogue and booked The Palms, a whopping 250-room hotel on Collins Avenue. Still Mid-Beach but definitely not the norm.
Check-in didn’t go well. Bleary-eyed and barely able to stand after a sleepless ten-hour flight, someone bright and cheerful asked me to fill out a form on an iPad. Forget it. Next, I was informed the lift was out of order (my room was on the tenth floor). Once in my room, I couldn’t find anything to drink. I’m not talking scotch or tequila. There wasn’t any drinking water! OK, that’s not entirely true. Two aluminium canisters of H20 might have winked at me from the sideboard but, I’m sorry, I refuse to pay $6 a pop for water. After some effing and blinding, I managed to locate an ice-machine with a water dispenser in a corridor and filled four glasses of water before crashing out, convinced I’d made a terrible mistake.
The next morning I woke to the best view I’ve had in any hotel, anywhere. Spread out ten floors below was a vivid panorama of palm-filled gardens (1.5 acres to be exact), swimming pools and sun umbrellas yielding to a yawning swathe of South Beach dotted with tiny people doing early-morning things such as yoga and jogging, then ocean for a far as the eye could see. Coming from a landscape of greys, it was a bit of shock to see blues, yellows and greens.
By magic, the lift had been mended overnight so I descended calmly to the ground floor then out to an elegant terrace that wouldn’t look out of place in The Hamptons or Anguilla, white picket fence and all. Peter, a delightful Jamaican gentleman in his 70s whizzed up some eggs for me and, smiling with relief, I plunged my cafetiere. Exploring the rest of the hotel, I was delighted by what I found.
Art Deco flourishes (the property was built in the 1940s), tropical vibes and a peppermint colour palette. Independently owned and run since 1992 by a German family, the hotel has an upscale European feel: polished flagstone tiles, rattan ceiling fans and palm-filled urns. The lobby brought to mind the Four Seasons Surf Club which, for the uninitiated, is one of the most beautiful hotels in Florida, if not America.
Outdoors, giant palm leaves swat you at every turn and rare orchids invite you to lean closer. A member of the Beyond Green portfolio (Earth’s most sustainable properties), the hotel is properly eco but it never feels earnest. They make it fun: fill a bucket with rubbish from the beach and you’ll get a scoop of gelato, that sort of thing.
The food at The Palms is stand-out. Chef Diana Tandia came up under the tutelage of culinary heavyweights Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Daniel Boulud. Dishes are fresh, wholesome and zesty with ingredients sourced from fully certified organic suppliers. My short stay (just 48 hours) passed in a blur of Aveda oils, boardwalk strolls, Palomas and palm heart salads. These a few of my favourite things…Tra la la.
Miami was one of the fastest cities to bounce back from the pandemic. There are currently 13 luxury hotels under construction in the metropolis including, excitingly, a new Aman overlooking the ocean two blocks from The Palms. I’m not sure how many rooms it will have but thanks to this latest jaunt, I think I may have overcome my phobia of big hotels. I’ve learned they can be characterful. They can be green. And they can feel like home. Note to self: never judge a hotel by its check-in procedure.
Rooms at The Palms start from $199 (not including 14% room tax and hotel fee of $38 per night). For more information, including details of deals and packages, please visit www.thepalmshotel.com.
