The vessel was a Sea Sprite 23, a sailboat that had seen a lot of living since 1977. Below decks was roomier than you might think, with the kind of hidden spaces in the bilge compartment that would be particularly appealing in an oceangoing vessel to a certain kind of sailor in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. But
(Google.com)
A day on the water visiting the Biscayne Corridor’s most beloved dockside bars is a day to remember – if you can.
we weren’t transporting cargo across international borders. We were just on a boat in the Intracoastal, looking for a way to spend the weekend.
Let the monomaniacal mariner plot out every bend in life’s waterway. The Biscayne Tippler is happy to drift along with the bow pointed away from the shallows and the mast beneath bridge level. We’d find our direction soon enough.
But as the captain pointed out, we needed momentum. We started by docking at Duffy’s Sports Grill.
The family-friendly bar across 163rd from Oleta River State Park is unlikely to earn any Michelin stars, but it’s got craft beers, a cocktail bar, hamburgers and large, loud TVs showing sports other than sailing. We focused our attention on the dock where we’d tied up. Some sipped flavored martinis. The captain favored a Blue Point Toasted Lager.
(Thrillist.com)
Spicy Samba
“You know,” he said, “there’s another place we could go just south of here a ways.”
South sounded good, but one of us had to ask: “What kind of place?”
“A bar,” the captain said. “In fact, a couple of ’em.”
“A boating bar crawl?” someone asked.
“It ain’t crawling if you’re under sail,” the captain said.
(Shuckers Waterfront Bar & Grill)
Begin a Biscayne boater’s bar-crawl at Shuckers in North Bay Village.
And there the weekend began to take shape.
The sun was still high as we reached a yellow awning on the northern shore of the oddly square-sided island of North Bay Village. Our first stop was Shuckers Waterfront Bar & Grill. It’s been a favorite for the boating crowd for 30 years. Nowadays, you can even call ahead and have your order brought out to the dock. Life is good here. We split beer-steamed shrimp and ice-cold beers, and the captain had us stow bottles of gin and ginger ale below before pushing off and hoisting sail again.
“To the city! To the Lido!” he cried.
His enthusiasm could be forgiven because we’d just entered the wide water of Biscayne Bay proper. It wasn’t the open ocean, but it gave a sailboat like ours room to catch the wind. The captain preferred not to use the outboard unless absolutely necessary. We were in no hurry, and the sun and wind were more intoxicating than anything we were drinking.
(LidoBayside.com)
The Lido Bayside Grill serves Mediterranean-style dishes made with locally sourced ingredients, and has a menu that boasts a copious selection of wines and spirits.
Shuckers is adjacent to a Best Western; our next stop took us to the ever so slightly more elegant Standard Spa on Belle Isle, the easternmost of the Venetian Islands. The Lido Bayside Grill serves Mediterranean-style dishes made with locally sourced ingredients, and has a menu that boasts a copious selection of wines and spirits. The captain acquiesced to a tot of Casa Dragones Anejo Tequila; others indulged in a Provence rosé called Whispering Angel and a sweet Marie Duffau Napoleon Armagnac. Suitably fortified, we took a heading south by southwest toward the sunset, the skyline and the mouth of the Miami River.
Across from Brickell Point and the Miami Circle, in the Kimpton EPIC Hotel, is Zuma Miami, the kind of place that could actually earn a Michelin star. After a day on deck, we were hardly presentable enough to dine inside a restaurant that offered wagyu beef sushi. But Zuma has outside dining and a takeout menu, and pours lychee
(Zuma Miami)
Zuma Miami offers yacht catering menus, complete with a dockside dining experience.
martinis and junmai daiginjo sake.
By this point, it was getting late. We left the upscale hotel for the lower-altitude comforts of a gently rocking V-berth under the bow, moored at a place the captain knew and which the writers among us swore not to reveal. In the morning (technically, just before noon), we had our choice of venues on the same bend of the river: Would it be Kiki on the River? Seaspice Brasserie? We rock-paper-scissored our way to Garcia’s Seafood Grille & Fish Market and its next-door neighbor, Casablanca Seafood Fish Market.
Both serve fresh-caught seafood – Garcia’s since 1966 – but Casablanca, in this one instance, won out by having eggs Benedict and a lobster and shrimp omelet on the menu, not to mention a decent prosecco and limoncello (which has a day’s allowance of vitamin C).
1 of 3
(Total Wine)
The Boating Bar Crawl
Marie Duffau Napoleon Armagnac
2 of 3
(Business Wire)
The Boating Bar Crawl
Casa Dragones Anejo Tequila
3 of 3
(TheSportingBrews.com)
Blue Point Toasted Lager
Down the river and past the bridges again and we were at Brickell Key, ready for a pit stop. There was no choice, really – the Mandarin Oriental was right there. The MO Bar + Lounge was in full swing, serving classic cocktails like Salty Dogs and Aperol spritzes, but also something called a Spicy Samba made with cachasa, mezcal, ginger liquor
and pineapple juice. The captain was forbidden from having more than one sip – someone had to keep the boat
(Saq.com)
Lychee Martini
upright. The views were outstanding but the boat was better, so on we sailed, across the bay to Virginia Key, on the Rickenbacker Causeway.
Here, the Rusty Pelican is an institution, slightly upscale, and earns points for having an original, classic margarita on the menu along with creative concoctions like a Moscow mule mixed with a grilled strawberry. On the other end of the docks, Whiskey Joe’s Bar & Grill (more casual, but run by the same owners) had pulled pork, spicy gumbo and an ideal boater-bar vibe. Six kinds of fruity margaritas, and more kinds of craft beer. Someone was going to be singing Jimmy Buffett covers any minute now. One more drink and we’d probably be singing along, so we opted to cast off. Our final destination was waiting.
“Hard to leeward!” the captain called. “Monty’s off the starboard rail!”
The person on the tiller pulled us into a 90-degree turn to the right, and a sudden gust of wind filled the sail so hard that certain members of the crew fell backward into the cockpit. It was a graceless approach, but fast, and in some sense the perfect arrival at this Coconut Grove landmark.
Monty’s Raw Bar is, if anything, dedicated to the beauty of the unfinished. It mostly consists of traditional chickee huts, made of rough-hewn cedar logs and palm-frond thatch, and some of the best food items on the menu have never known the touch of flame. The marinated seafood tostada was outstanding, and the Pain Remover #1 – a blend of dark rum, pineapple, coconut and orange juice – is the equal of any Painkiller poured in the British Virgin Islands, where this cocktail originated. It’s a beer drinker’s bar for sure, but just ask the bartender for something more interesting and a whole world of mixological experience opens up.
(TripAdvisor)
Monty's Coconut Grove, the best place to end a boating bar crawl.
Monty’s more than any of our prior stops had what executive types call “institutional memory.” The bar has been
serving drinks on the water since 1969, and its founder, Key West native Monty Trainer, went on to open restaurants across Florida and as far north as Atlanta. But this was the first and as far as we were concerned, the best. Classic mojitos, frozen rumrunners (with blackberry and banana liqueur as well as three kinds of rum, pineapple, coconut and orange juice), a shot of sherry in the conch chowder, with a light and cool Cucumber Lemon (consisting of Tanqueray muddled with cucumber and lemon, topped with soda) to follow.
The sun sank low and we did not want to leave. We could moor for the night at the Bayshore Landing Marina. Or …
“I know another place,” the captain said. “Just a bit south of here, in Key Largo.”
It was a possibility worth considering. But for now, we were happy right where we were.