On day four, our final full day before returning to San Francisco, we hit the ground running to cover five of the remaining unofficial Basel shows in Miami’s Design District. This viewing marathon included Sculpt (all sculpture), Photo Miami (photography), Aqua, Red Dot Gallery, and Pulse.

Of the five, I would say the must-sees are Photo Miami – where we discovered Puerto Rican talent Carlos Mercado who manipulates portraits to exaggerate features and then adds Warhol-esque color accents (pictured left), Art Miami – the largest of the unofficial shows which exhibits the a mix of prestigious galleries with unknown indies (this show is essentially for all of the galleries who are one step removed from the official Art Basel lineup), and Pulse – a mix of some known and some unknown emerging contemporary and modern talent (Scope and Pulse are the two everyone recommended this year, of the two, I preferred the artists exhibited at Scope).

Upon completing our coverage, we returned to our hotel to ready ourselves for dinner, which, I was assured, would be the dining highlight of the trip. What is so fabulous about South Beach is that, depending on where you’re staying, you can pretty much walk the main section of Collins Avenue where all of the best hotels, art deco and otherwise, are situated making for a lovely evening stroll.

With time to kill, we popped in the Delano for drinks at the famous Rose Bar (pictured right) which is illuminated with, as one would guess, rose lighting. The Delano is part of the uber trendy Morgans Hotel Group which features a portfolio of properties designed by Philippe Starck. While the Delano is unequivocally chic, it clearly has been replaced by the W as ground zero for Basel party-goers.

After swilling our mojitos, we continued our evening across the street a few blocks at the magical house-turned-restaurant and private club, Casa Tua. Italian for “your house,” this wonderfully warm setting owned by an Italian family sits on a residential corner framed by tall hedges. The romantic patio twinkles with candle encased lanterns hanging from the trees and has a similar aesthetic and intimacy to The Ivy on L.A.’s Robertson Boulevard. It also clearly welcomes the same clientele and was a complete sellout at 9 p.m. on a Sunday evening. While the downstairs of the house features a dining room, it also has a tiny bar and a separate room for the communal table with a view of the kitchen. Only Casa Tua club members and VIP’s can ascend the stairs to the private lounge with balcony and stay in one of the few hotel rooms. We were given a tour by Lucio, the General Manager, and the club lounge is every bit as chic as one would expect. What I especially love is that all of the art work is for sale and within the menus, each page is backed with 8×10 photos of the owning family.

Casa Tua harmoniously represents all of the international flavor that is what makes Miami special.

And we all know variety is the spice of life.