In South Beach, Menu Means Venue : Try Ocean Drive for people-watching. Washington Avenue for calm dining. Undecided? Order 'Floribbean.'

By JANE WOOLDRIDGE

May 16, 1993 12 AM PT

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MIAMI —

When it comes to dining in South Beach, how you want to eat is as important as what. Say it’s Sunday afternoon. You’ve just come from the beach, and you want to plop down in your shorts or bikini and just keep watching the amazing array of humanity roller-blade by. You want a beach-front cafe on Ocean Drive.

If, however, it’s 10 p.m. and the wind is blustery, the night is hot or you just want to eat in peaceful trendiness, you probably want a place indoors on Washington Avenue, a few blocks inland.

Or suppose you want to dine outdoors--but you don’t want to deal with Ocean Drive insanity. Head for nearby Espanola Way, a European-feeling street, or Lincoln Road Mall, a pedestrian shopping area that is enjoying a resurgence.

Italian, American, Cuban, Jamaican and “Floribbean,” our local cooking style--the food is mix and match, with a variety of cuisines often holding court on a single plate. Like the city itself, the ethnicities may be all mixed up, but nearly all menus include pasta, fish and chicken in somewhat standard modern American cuisine with Floribbean flourishes, such as mango chutney and papaya salsa.

Since a good number of popular restaurants have taken over the first floors of boutique hotels or apartment buildings and breakfast on the beach is considered very “in,” many open at 8 a.m. and most serve until 11 p.m. or midnight. The average entree price is $10 to $17, though budget joints abound and you’ll find a few big-bucks restaurants, too. Of special note: South Beach has become such a Euro hangout that many restaurants include a 15% gratuity in the check--the same as in Europe--though you’ll have to ask or look at the bill closely to know for sure.

And somewhere on South Beach, there’s a dining experience for every mood and palate.

OCEAN DRIVE

Ocean Drive is the line of demarcation between the sandy beach and the Art Deco hotels--and therefore the natural site for the see-and-be-seen parade. Models with legs bared up to there stride past, clutching portfolios. A septuagenarian dances to the music on his headset. One guy wears a boa constrictor like a shawl. Sometime residents such as Madonna, Mickey Rourke, Julio Iglesias, Spike Lee and, most recently, Sylvester Stallone, may walk by.

A few recommendations, all on Ocean Drive: The Palace Grill (always packed on weekends) has great burgers (about $7), grilled chicken sandwiches ($8) and French toast with fruit (about $5).

Italian restaurants abound, and generally they’re pretty good. The newly opened Fashion Cafe is my current favorite; the food is light and fresh. I recently sampled their spaghetti pomodoro ($6.95), made from tomatoes that tasted just off the vine. Most South Beach restaurant bars are cramped; this one is spacious and airy.

If you put this kind of airy style together with standard but well-executed Cuban food, you get Larios on the Beach. Throw in Gloria and Emilio Estefan as owners, and you get Cuban chic. Roasted pork, thin palomilla steaks, black beans and rice and fried sweet plantains, and entrees under $15 all combine with live music on weekends to make for a lively eating experience. But be warned: The wait here is often long, and the Estefans aren’t usually around.

The popular News Cafe is the quintessential Beach hangout, open 24 hours. Its outdoor tables sprawl over half the block and they are constantly filled--often with owners of bulldogs, wolfhounds and other beasts-of-the-moment (the staff is very animal friendly). The menu includes a dozen cheeses, cold cuts, tabbouleh, various tomato salads, granola and yogurt and delightful fresh apple juice with lemons ($4 to $9).

At American Bistro, formerly called 720 Ocean and still at the same address, everything seems cooked exactly right. What’s more, the menu is fairly inventive, with entrees such as grilled sea scallops with ginger (light and flavorful; $12.50) and Southwestern pizza with chicken, cheeses, barbecue sauce and jalapeno ($7.50).

A Fish Called Avalon is truly a seafood restaurant--more a rarity than you would expect in Miami. Its prices are heftier than at most Ocean Drive restaurants (entrees about $19) but the steamed yellowtail in paper with ginger and mushrooms is worth the tariff.

On the un-cool end of Ocean--that is, south of 5th Street--is one of the Beach’s most cool dining rooms: Century Restaurant at the Century Hotel. There’s no beach view here, but the cactus garden, tiny reflecting pool, flagstone table tops and wrought iron chairs make up for it. Dinner selections include grilled cilantro shrimp with Creole remoulade ($9) and crab cakes with papaya, mango and avocado salsa ($10).

WASHINGTON AVENUE

Washington Avenue, two blocks inland from Ocean Ave. is another great restaurant row. A commercial street clearly on its way up, it’s a place where the hip South Beach crowd and European visitors mix with some of the area’s less prosperous residents.

Four One One is generally considered one of best of the new breed of restaurants in the South Beach area, with a menu that features curried turnovers with green papaya chutney and mango yogurt appetizer ($5.95), grilled eggplant pizza ($9.95) and guava tamarind barbecued half chicken with scotch bonnet chili watermelon relish ($14.95). The high ceilings, chandelier, yellow walls and Art Deco decor create an ambience that is pleasantly different from its neighbors.

The restaurant WPA takes its name from Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and is adorned with wall murals that harken from that era. If you’re really hungry--and don’t mind yelling over the DJ’s choice of oldies--this is the place to go, because the portions are massive. The food is also uniformly good, from the nachos ($8.50) to seafood pasta ($9.50) to Oriental-flavored chopstick chicken salad ($7.50). The fudge brownie sundae topped with a virtual Mt. Everest of vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce is well worth the calories.

Bang, sister to the trendy New York restaurant, Boom, is the South Beach in-spot of the moment. One local critic called it the best new restaurant on the Beach, and the food is both creative and tasty: avocado blinis with grilled lobster creme fraiche and sevruga caviar ($12.50 for two tiny blinis); grilled blue prawns with a Hawaiian passion fruit basil butter and macadamia nut stir fried rice ($18.50); Koh Samui Thai seafood curry ($18). Unfortunately, I have found the service and attitude close to rude. The decor is pseudo-industrial (rough patina walls) mixed with mild jungle and Greek mythology.

Cassis Bistro is one of the Beach’s few French restaurants. It’s also one of the more elegant spots. On the menu: sauteed sweet bread appetizer ($8.50), wild mushroom ravioli with pine nuts ($13.95) and steak au poivre ($22.95).

Lulu’s is cheap, funky, turquoise and Southern. Specialties include fried catfish sandwiches ($5.75) and chicken fried steak ($7.95); the restaurant makes the best mashed potatoes on the Beach. And don’t miss the Elvis memorabilia in the loft.

ELSEWHERE, SOUTH BEACH

Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant, at the south end of Miami Beach away from the hoopla, existed decades before the others and continues to pack ‘em in despite a two-hour wait at dinner. The meaty claws are served with drawn butter and a rich mustard sauce. Don’t miss the fried sweets and grilled tomatoes. (Expect to spend $35 per person, excluding alcohol.) If you can’t bear the wait at dinner, go at lunch. But don’t wear shorts . . . ever, and know that Joe’s is open only November to May.

ShaBeen Cook Shack and Bar is a glorious beacon on otherwise drab Collins Avenue, a main artery that has yet to really catch on in the new South Beach. The exception here is this restaurant and the hotel where it dwells: Marlin hotel, a pastel showpiece co-owned by Island Records mogul Chris Blackwell. Located downstairs from the Gaudi-esque bar, ShaBeen is exactly what it seems: a colorfully recreated shack. Selections include curried goat ($9) and pumpkin soup ($3.50). The ambience alone is worth the visit.

And only a few blocks away, one of my favorite places to eat isn’t a restaurant at all.

Lyon Freres started out as a gourmet market with a sandwich-and-cappucino bar. Now the sandwiches (salmon and creme cheese, mozzarella and basil on French, $2-$3) and salad bar have become so popular that it has spilled onto the pedestrian-only Lincoln Road Mall as a cafe. One plus: the New World Symphony Lincoln Theater concert hall is just across the mall. Many Sundays you can catch strains of Mozart as you nibble the three-bean salsa.

GUIDEBOOK

Where to Eat in South Beach

The Palace Grill, 1200 Ocean Drive, telephone (305) 531-9077.

Fashion Cafe, 834 Ocean Drive, tel. (305) 674-1330.

Larios on the Beach, 820 Ocean Drive, tel. (305) 532-9577.

News Cafe, 800 Ocean Drive, tel. (305) 538-6397.

American Bistro, 720 Ocean Drive, tel. (305) 672-7360.

A Fish Called Avalon, 700 Ocean Drive, tel. (305) 532-1727.

Century Restaurant, 140 Ocean Drive, tel. (305) 674-8855.

Four One One, 411 Washington Ave., tel. (305) 673-5873.

WPA, 685 Washington Ave., tel. (305) 534-1684.

Bang, 1516 Washington Ave., tel. (305) 531-2361.