Faena Hotel Miami Beach

Faena is less a hotel than a stage set with room keys. The reimagined 1940s Saxony building on Mid-Beach was drenched by its creators in crimson, gold and animal-print maximalism, its cathedral-like walkway frescoed floor to ceiling, its garden centrepiece a gilded mammoth skeleton in a glass vitrine. Subtle it is not; coherent, astonishingly, it is—a complete theatrical vision executed without a single beige compromise.

Rooms continue the drama with scarlet-accented interiors, butler service and ocean views over the hotel's cabana-lined beach. The famous theatre hosts a genuinely excellent dinner-cabaret, and the velvet-swagged living-room bar is one of Miami's great evening scenes. This is a hotel that expects guests to dress for dinner and rewards those who do.

The culinary programme brings serious credentials to the spectacle, led by acclaimed South American grill cooking, and the beach and pool scene runs with full Miami energy in season. The hammam-centred spa provides recovery from all of the above. Those seeking minimalist calm should look elsewhere; those who want Miami at its most operatic will find nothing else comes close.