The Setai, Miami Beach

Character and identity

The Setai occupies a 1930s Art Deco building and an adjacent oceanfront tower on Collins Avenue, with 130 suites done in what the property calls Asian Style Deco: dark teak, black granite, French limestone, and antique grey brick lifted from a Shanghai building and relaid in the two-storey lobby. Three Art Deco infinity pools, each held at a different temperature and hedged for privacy, sit between the lobby and a private beach. Dining runs from Jaya's Asian cooking to The Ocean Grill's seafood and the solar-powered Setai Beach Kitchen. The spa, a Valmont partnership, has just four private suites drawing on Balinese, Indian and Tibetan traditions. Service is quietly anticipatory, with a deliberate hush across the public spaces.

Who's it for

Bottom line

What you are paying for here is silence and polish in a part of Miami that offers very little of either, delivered through genuinely beautiful architecture and a bed worth the airfare alone. Book a Tower Ocean Suite for the floor-to-ceiling Atlantic views; couples and spa-minded travellers will feel the rate justified, while families and night-life seekers should look elsewhere on the strip.