The best things to do in Miami this week

If there was ever a time to call in sick, hop on a boat, and go for a dive, let it be lobster mini-season. For two days only, July 29 and July 30, Florida’s spiny lobsters are up for grabs in select waterways. Those with a valid license can catch up to 12 lobsters per person, or up to six per person for Biscayne National Park and Monroe County. There are several rules in place regarding carapace size and harvest location, so check the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation website before you go.

For those missing out on a European summer, Pastis offers a glint of Parisian glamour in the most unlikely of places: Wynwood. To further ease your vacation woes, Pastis has just debuted a new weekday happy hour featuring $10 cocktails, $10 wine glasses, and a selection of bar bites including $3 oysters and a $7 platter of fromage (that’s fancy French for ‘cheese’). Le Happy Hour is offered Monday through Friday, 3pm to 6pm, all summer long.

Jazz at MOCA is a monthly ritual for music lovers in North Miami. On the last Friday of the month, the Museum of Contemporary Art (aka MOCA) welcomes the public for a free live jazz concert on the plaza, featuring local artists and world-renowned musicians. On Friday, July 31, the series continues with a performance by Magela Herrera, a Havana-born flutist, vocalist, and composer whose signature sound draws from her Afro-Cuban heritage, Latin jazz, and global improvisation. The outdoor event has first-come, first-served seating starting at 7pm. (You can bring your own chairs, too!) Music kicks off at 8pm. Concert-goers can also enjoy free admission to MOCA galleries that same evening, from 7pm to 10pm. All ages welcome.

Fooq's and Lion's Den have launched a Sunday series on their Little River patio, running weekly through the summer. Each edition brings in a different DJ along with food and beverage pop-ups. Come for brunch, linger past sunset. Free, 4–10pm.

Summer in Miami is for melting away any stress, and self-care is never more accessible than during Miami Spa Months. Whether your skin is feeling a little parched from the heat, all those Pilates classes have you pining for a massage, or you’ve been meaning to try out that cute new medspa down the street, July and August are prime time to get out and explore all of the top Miami spas participating in the annual summertime promotion. 

Some of the best hotel spas in Miami Beach, Brickell and Sunny Isles have signed on this year, along with boutique medspas and facial spas from down south in Coral Gables up north to Aventura. They’re curating special treatment menus for the occasion, with luxurious experiences priced at $109, $159 or $199. Beyond all the amazing massages, facials and body scrubs, most of these spas sweeten the deal even further with access to amenities like steam rooms, saunas, resort pools and beaches, plus complimentary parking, welcome drinks and more. 

Availability varies, but a majority of the Miami Spa Months deals are offered daily. Just be sure to book in advance, as the best time slots tend to get snapped up quickly. For a full day of discounted indulgence, get acquainted with the Miami Spice Restaurant Months, which overlap with Spa Months in August. 

Little Havana's street party and gallery walk, Viernes Culturales, happens every last Friday of the month along Calle Ocho from 8th to 27th Avenue. Running strong since 2000, it celebrates Latin culture with an old-school pachanga, featuring art exhibits from over 30 local artists, an artisan market at Domino Plaza, live music, and dancing in one of Miami's most famous cultural hubs. Dr. Paul George's free Little Havana Walking Tour begins at 7pm from the Historic Tower Theater for anyone who wants the deeper history alongside the party.

Now in its 31st season, the International Ballet Festival of Miami is the only festival of its kind in Florida, bringing over 100 principal dancers from 17 companies across 11 countries to stages throughout South Florida. Under the artistic direction of Eriberto Jiménez, the festival spans Miami, Miami Beach, South Miami, and Fort Lauderdale, with performances taking place at venues including the Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center, Lincoln Road, the Fillmore Miami Beach, and Broward Center for the Performing Arts. This year's notable debuts include the National Ballet Theatre of Košice from Slovakia and Marez Contemporary Dance, alongside the Cincinnati Ballet under new artistic director Cervilio Amador and local companies Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida and Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami. The program moves through three phases: Young Medalist Performances, Contemporary Performances, and the Classical Ballet Galas to close. Beyond the stage, the festival also encompasses art exhibits, film screenings, master classes, and workshops. Specific dates, venues, and tickets for each performance are available at internationalballetfestival.org.

Magie Wine Bar is swapping stemware for coffee cups this summer by opening its Little River location every Friday as a daytime workspace. There's complimentary coffee and tea, and to keep your workday energy up, pastries from Ficelle Bakery and $5 bacon, egg & cheese sandwiches by Chef Ivan Barros. La Colombe canned coffees and free, reliable Wi-Fi round out the perks.

The ICA Miami is devoting its third floor to the first U.S. museum survey of Harmony Korine, the filmmaker behind Spring Breakers and Kids who has spent three decades confounding and captivating audiences in equal measure. Perfect Nonsense brings together over 50 works spanning film, painting, photography, collage and drawing, tracing a career that has always resisted easy categorization, from his early Southern gothic explorations to recent films shot through gaming engines and iPhone footage. Korine has lived in Miami since 2015, and the city is woven into his recent work in ways the exhibition makes tangible. Beyond the films most people know, the paintings are the revelation here — particularly the "Twitchy" series, which combines iPhone-captured images with painterly techniques into something genuinely strange and new. The exhibition will be on view through October 4.

The largest presentation of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work ever mounted in Florida opens at PAMM on June 25. Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols brings together ten works from the collection of Kenneth C. Griffin, including Untitled (1982), the painting that sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby's and reportedly changed hands again for $200 million in 2024. But the exhibition is less interested in the market mythology around Basquiat than in the work itself, concentrating on his portraiture, his use of text and coded language, and the layered visual vocabulary he built from world history, Renaissance anatomy, hip-hop, and the street culture of 1980s New York. As the son of a Puerto Rican mother and Haitian father, Basquiat's relationship to migration and cultural hybridity lands with particular resonance in Miami. Curated by PAMM director Franklin Sirmans, who has been central to the posthumous study of Basquiat's work for over two decades. On view through June 2027.