Booked
Dinner with neighbors at Carbone VINO
Dinner with neighbors. Reservation confirmed on OpenTable for a party of 6. Not a weekly pick.
Miami Life · Week of Sun Oct 18
Miami Life · Oct 18–24, 2026
This week’s dinners, films and evenings out, picked for Guille, Mireia and Oliver. This week runs Sun Oct 18 – Sat Oct 24; the look-ahead covers Halloween weekend through Sun Nov 1, when the Miami Film Festival’s GEMS takes over half the screens in town.
Last updated Sun Oct 18, 2026 · ET
Booked events · actual commitments, in writing
Booked
Anniversary dinner at To Be Determined (TBD)
Anniversary dinner for two at TBD in Coral Gables, Fri Nov 6 at 9:00pm, booked on OpenTable. Reservation confirmed for 2 · Standard seating. Not a weekly pick.
Changes online until 24h before; $25/person no-show or late cancel.
Booked
Frequency: The Secret of Everything · screening & Q&A
Reserved seats for an immersive screening & Q&A (doors 3:00 · sound activation · film). Yes, “sound activation.” Nobody knows what it is, and Guille already paid for two. Not a weekly pick.
2 Eventbrite tickets held (Ticket 1 of 2 + Ticket 2 of 2).
If you only do one thing
Marie Antoinette at Vizcaya, Wed Oct 28 at 7pm. $25, ten minutes from Brickell, and an Italianate villa on the bay doing its best impression of Versailles.
Top picks · Oct 18 – Nov 1
1
Marie Antoinette · 20th anniversary at Vizcaya
Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Kirsten Dunst as the teenage queen, with the post-punk soundtrack, screened on the estate as a Miami Film Festival GEMS special presentation. James Deering built Vizcaya to look centuries older than it is; Coppola made 18th-century France look like a music video. They should get along.
Vizcaya doesn’t say where on the estate it screens, so dress for an October evening outdoors just in case. Oliver: call Vizcaya (305-250-9133) about seating.
2
Reich, Stravinsky & Glass · New World Symphony
Jennifer Koh plays Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 1; after the interval come Reich’s Three Movements for Orchestra and Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, with Daníel Bjarnason conducting and opening with his own Emergence. Last week this was the look-ahead; now it’s this weekend. The theme, judging by the titles, is the number three.
Sunday at 2pm leaves the evening free. Buy seats in the hall.
3
Sammy Figueroa & Aymée Nuviola · Faena Jazz Series
Figueroa has played percussion for Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and David Bowie; Nuviola, the Cuban singer and pianist billed as “La Sonera del Mundo,” has three Grammy and Latin Grammy wins and works across son, bolero, bossa nova and salsa. The theater is all red and gold, so the room will be overdressed even if you aren’t.
Ends at 9:30, which puts dinner right at your usual hour. Oliver: Faena Theater, 786-655-5742.
Dinner · Spice ends Oct 31
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon · Spice Reserve
Four courses: foie gras royale, heirloom tomato with coconut-yogurt flan, halibut brandade, Ibérico pork presa, olive-oil cake with honey ice cream. Roughly $475–550 for two with a modest bottle, tax and tip. By Barcelona standards that’s a normal two-star bill rather than a bargain, but it’s a fair-priced way to find out whether this counter deserves its stars. The main is Ibérico presa, so Mireia gets to judge the pork on home turf.
The dinner opens with foie gras (liver, in other words); ask for a swap when you book. The Fri/Sat $95 lunch skips it and starts with melon in pineapple broth.
Stubborn Seed · Spice dinner
Jeremy Ford’s room, and the Spice menu is a real one: crunchy truffle bravas with soppressata, koji-marinated lamb with Lion’s Farm mushrooms, citrus pavlova with matcha meringue. You can pay a supplement to get both options of a course. About $220–260 for two with drinks. Against Barcelona it reads as a confident modern bistro meal rather than a tasting menu; for South Beach, it’s a lot of skill for $65.
Small room (about 40 seats), so book the 9pm table rather than hoping. Phone 786-322-5211.
Elcielo · Spice dinner, walkable
Juan Manuel Barrientos’s Colombian kitchen, a short walk from home. The Spice menu is the cautious version (hiramasa with golden berry, yuca gnocchi with sweet plantain, lulo mousse) rather than the theatrical tasting menu the star came from. About $200 for two with drinks. Good for a Sunday when nobody wants to cross a bridge.
Order the hiramasa, gnocchi and lulo; the ribs and chicken cutlet are there for the cautious.
Anako · new
Chefs Leicel Ros (Nobu, Cote) and Nancy Dominguez (Jean-Georges, Robuchon), who ran Sili at 1-800-Lucky, now with their own room of about 40 seats: lumpia with a whole Gulf shrimp inside, hiramasa kinilaw with coconut-calamansi, oxtail kare-kare, banana fritters with sesame caramel. Modern Filipino cooking is something Miami is genuinely short on, and this team has the résumé to do it properly. Hiramasa appears twice on this page; the city seems to have agreed on a fish.
Skip the sisig, which is crispy pig ears. Some dining-room tables and the back bar are kept for walk-ins. Menu prices aren’t published yet; budget roughly $150–200 for two (our estimate).
Film · GEMS starts Oct 29
Wicker · GEMS preview night
Olivia Colman plays an ostracized fisherwoman who commissions a husband from the village basketmaker (Peter Dinklage). What she gets is Alexander Skarsgård, made of wicker. The festival calls it “a raunchy romp,” which is the only honest way to sum up that plot.
A short drive from Brickell; parking on site.
The Beloved (El ser querido)
Rodrigo Sorogoyen with Javier Bardem as a celebrated Spanish director with a past of addiction and excess, who casts his estranged daughter (Victoria Luengo) in his comeback film. Sorogoyen’s last one, As bestas, was about neighbors; this one is about family, so expect it to go worse for everyone.
A Halloween lunchtime slot, so no costumes required or likely.
La Bola Negra · Los Javis
Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s film, built from an unfinished Lorca play: three generations of gay men in 1932, 1937 and 2017, with Guitarricadelafuente, Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close. The festival lists a Toronto audience award and best director at Cannes. One of the three timelines is 1937, so the Civil War is part of it; it’s billed as a drama about desire and repression, not a war film.
Currently at rush (sold out; standby line before the show). Los Javis and Guitarricadelafuente also do a Variety conversation Wed Nov 4, 7pm, MDC Wolfson ($40 + fee).
The Love Witch · 35mm, 10th anniversary
Anna Biller’s horror comedy about a witch whose love potions work rather too well, shot to look like a 1960s Technicolor thriller. On film, on Halloween, in the Gables: about as civilized as the night gets.
Live, Halloween & one-offs
Ghostbusters in Concert · Arsht
The 1984 film on a big screen with Elmer Bernstein’s score played live by an orchestra. Costumes are encouraged and local fan groups Magic City Ghostbusters and Ecto Force will be there. The costume rules ban props that look like weapons, which is a tough brief for a proton pack.
Oliver: Arsht Accessibility, 305-949-6722.
Halloween Doggie Costume Contest
A dog costume parade with prizes in several categories, part of the city’s Trick-or-Treat on the Mile. Oliver is a working dog; one afternoon as a pumpkin won’t hurt his reputation. Gables Cinema is across the street if you want to stay for The Love Witch.
Registration required to compete.
Journey to Día de Muertos · Arsht
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company tells a love story across the line between the living and the dead, with folk song, classical music and dance, and La Catrina ruling the underworld. Ofrendas, sugar-skull decorating and mariachi beforehand.
RSVP needed for everyone; six tickets per household; first come, first served.
Folklore & Foliage · Miami Beach Botanical Garden
The garden after dark: “Old Florida” ghost stories from author Thomas Smith with Books & Books, a site-specific shadow-puppet piece by Christina Pettersson, vintage haunted-South-Florida news footage from the Wolfson archive, live music and tarot. The bar has been named the Boo-tanical Bar, and we have nothing to add.