Miami advice

Because away from its tanned volleyball players and rollerbladers, posing on Ocean Drive, and its neon lights welcoming a night of hedonistic partying, Miami is changing.

This seaside city has only recently marked its 100th birthday and has at last decided to grow up. It is still a place for partying, but if New York is the city that never sleeps, then Miami is an insomniac schizophrenic boosted by steroids.

I say schizophrenic because Miami has a split personality, summed up by massive redevelopment in gritty Downtown Miami, only 20 minutes from the beach resorts and sparkling hotels. At the heart of this cultural reinvention is the Carnival Centre for Performing Arts, down by the harbour.

Boasting four stunning performance areas, it looks like a giant cruise ship moored in the middle of the city. Like many brave new buildings, the Centre is as beguiling on the outside as it is inside. And indeed, to the visitor on foot, much of this area of downtown Miami would seem to have its back turned to you.

Everyone is either stuck safely in their air conditioned offices or in the rare car that passes by. The only people seemingly out on the streets are the occasional beggars, but because it is so stiflingly hot, even the homeless are chilled out and polite - it is just too hot to be hectic in Miami.

Throughout the city skyscrapers, offices and hotels are appearing on the skyline. At every turn is a half-finished multi-storey building eager to welcome the thousands expected to descend on downtown Miami.

In fact, I remember thinking how nice it would be, once it's all finished...

Still, as if to illustrate how serious Miami is about implementing its cultural makeover, the city has not just one art district, but two. And a design district with trendy shops, boutiques and furnishings aimed at rivalling New York's Greenwich Village.

Again, it will be some time before it can be seen in all its glory, but as a friendly Miami cop told me: "People want this to be the new New York. Just give it a couple of years and we'll see."

Refreshingly, because these art and design districts are virtually traffic-free, you can actually walk down the roads, which has got to be a first in America...

You'll never go hungry in Miami.

It is true that the portions are bigger across the pond and in Miami and some of the fish and meat that lands on your plate looks like it have been genetically modified (they aren't, in case a lawyer is reading).

Pavement restaurants line Ocean Drive and the shoppers' paradise Lincoln Road, where visitors are spoilt for choice.

The Ice Box not only serves a range of tasty lunches and smoothies but its cakes - including the artery-choking Chocolate Bomb - come with the recommendation of chat show Queen Oprah Winfrey.

A few blocks from the Carnival Centre is the ambitious Karu & Y, a $20m restaurant with valet parking and its own gun-toting cop outside for protection, as it borders the Miami projects'.

Incidentally, our cop for the night proudly announced he was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire (he told us this as he stroked his gun). It is worth a visit if your credit card can take the hit just to see the wacky and daring artwork, including a blue ice sculpture. So tuck in to the $70 steak, safe in the knowledge a Yorkshire man has your back covered.

In the growing Design District, Miami's first Ethiopian restaurant Sheba has opened and doubles as a museum. Good fun - if you enjoy eating with your hands.

Of course the Miami nightclubber is not forgotten, and has his or her own special place for the morning hangovers with a brunch restaurant at the Nikki Beach Club on Ocean Drive.

Open on Sunday mornings attracting playboys and jet-setters, a bottle of wine can cost more than three nights in a hotel and even boasts tee-pees for that ultimate wind down.

A special mention must go to a not-very-ordinary Starbucks on Lincoln Road. Inside you can while away a good couple of hours slurping coffee as you search through 60,000 tracks to make your own personalised CD as a memento.

The nightlife only sizzles at Miami Beach far away from the cultural heartland and where the sun-tanned, muscle-bound, young and rich come to mingle.

The Clevelander is a favourite haunt of American Snowbirds' as it's smack bang in the middle of Ocean Drive, and has revellers lounging poolside and a stage for dancing girls - and a surprising number of boys volunteering too. Imagine Wham's Club Tropicana video with worse music, but surrounded with tropical bars and a view of beach volleyball players. Further down Ocean Drive are clubs Pearl and Opium Gardens, where punters queue round the block for entry.

Pearl has an ocean view with orange fur walls and white fur-lined curtains with a seashell shaped bar, semi-naked ladies dancing on the tables and a sweaty funky dance floor beside the beach. While at the Opium Gardens, Miami's great, glorious and gorgeous wait for hours to get the nod from the door staff to dance the night away on this funky open-air club.

One thing you will realise when you wander into any of these clubs or nightspots dotted along Ocean Drive - most of the music is terrible.

It's fun but Miami seems to be stuck in a 1980s electric pop purgatory. Although Miami is well on its way to becoming a future city of culture, it still has not forgotten what made it, well, Miami.

Ocean Drive in all its glory must not be missed, however much you want to enjoy the museums, restaurants or performances at the Carnival Centre.

For starters the stylised Art Deco buildings, acres of wide sandy beach and warm sea means you can safely relax in the knowledge there are few better places to be.

So go to Miami to see how it is growing up. But remember to take time out to check both the city's personalities and search for that impossibly perfect poolside mojito.