The Italian word aperitivo is meant to signify a pre-dinner ritual, that golden hour when the palate begins to hum in anticipation. In Miami, the concept has often been transformed into bottomless spritzes by the pool, which, let’s be clear, sounds lovely. But at ViceVersa, bartender Valentino Longo has built something truer to the Roman spirit of aperitivo, of the culture he grew up with—while also leaning into Miami’s irrepressible thirst for spectacle.
The spectacle begins before you’ve even tasted a drop. ViceVersa opens directly into the chic lobby of the Elser Hotel, and by the time my friend and I arrived, just as the doors unlocked at five, the space was already filling with young professionals who looked like they’d been waiting for this moment all week.
The centerpiece bar glows like a crescent moon, and if you can grab one of its dozen seats early, do so. From there, you can watch the choreography of plates parading out from the kitchen and the quiet confidence of bartenders stirring drinks with the precision of metronomes.
The menu, ambitious to the point of audacity, devotes an entire section to negronis. I began with the Americano—carbonated, bitter, sweet in exactly the right ratio—and managed to finish mine before my friend had dented her gargantuan Sbagliato. Served in an absurdly oversized wine glass, it looked as if it belonged in a Fellini film, which is perhaps the point. The drinks here walk that fine line between excess and elegance, a trick Miami itself never quite masters but which ViceVersa somehow does.
Brucio in Bocca
Mushroom-leek-red pepper pizza
If the cocktails are the headline act, the food is the chorus line that refuses to stay in the background. A friend of a friend swore ViceVersa’s pizzas were the best in the city, and our mushroom-leek-red pepper pie made me inclined to believe it. The crust bore the leopard-spotted char that any self-respecting pizzaiolo chases, airy yet substantial, the right blend of Naples and New World. The burrata arrived on floral china, the kind your grandmother might have set out for her bridge friends, crowned with slices of plum so sweet we mistook them, in the dim light, for strawberries. A drizzle of olive oil and a storm of cracked pepper made the cheese sing in a register somewhere between rustic and refined.
Scallop with coconut and poppy seed
I noticed plates of crudo—tuna, scallop, shrimp, oysters—darting past us toward other tables, and made a silent note to return. The menu, created in collaboration with Jaguar Sun’s former chefs Carey Hynes and Justin Flit, insists on simplicity: the sort of dishes you think you could attempt at home but never quite would. They are measured, assured, and deeply aware that aperitivo dining is about pace as much as flavor.
The main seating, for a quick bite or all night
What impresses most, though, is how the place feels. ViceVersa hums with a European conviviality, though filtered through Miami’s neon light. The bartenders are approachable, the playlist veers toward the stylishly moody, and the air itself seems infused with anticipation. When you leave, you are not quite full and not quite drunk, which is precisely how aperitivo is supposed to work: an opening act, a prelude, an invitation.
And if you linger just long enough, drink in hand, the room begins to blur into that sweet suspension between day and night, when you half believe time might actually stop—and you’ll find yourself wishing it would.
