Cheap chic or cheap ick -- you decide -- in a Miami hotel

By Louise Kiernan | Tribune Reporter

May 4, 2008

Is there anywhere in the United States that's more a jumble of the high and the low than South Beach?

Here, Barney's Co-Op shares the sun with the Sassy Assy shop. A Burger King sits on the same street as the luxury hotel restaurant where we once infamously paid more than $30 for an order of fried rice. And, during our most recent visit, we stayed at a hotel that, at $160 a night, cost about the same as our share of dinner at the legendary Joe's Stone Crab.

We visited Miami during the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, a four-day orgy of consumption where foodies, wine lovers and their very fortunate friends mingle with the likes of Rick Bayless and Jamie Oliver while trolling around tents full of free grub and drinks, wine glasses looped on lanyards around their necks.

When we tried to find a room for the event weekend, we found that many hotels were requiring two- or three-night minimum stays and charging rates that made as much fiscal sense as that bowl of fried rice. So while our friends, on a corporate expense account, booked a $900-a-night room at the Ritz, we opted for the Kent.

CHECKING IN: The Kent is on Collins Avenue, a congested, lively street lined with shops, restaurants and dozens of Art Deco hotels ranging from the pristine to the pre-renovated. Compared with swooping stunners like the Raleigh, the Kent is modest and a little boxy but moderately attractive.

Inside, the lobby featured colorful furniture that looked almost like oversized children's blocks and tables set with games of chess and checkers, a playful look offset by the massive flat-screen television blaring from one wall. The desk clerk gave us our room keys and told us where to find the elevator—a necessity because it's hidden behind a nondescript door—but that was the extent of his greeting.

ROOMS: The sleekness of Art Deco design is a mixed blessing. At its best, it's the Chrysler Building. But it can also serve as a cover for cheap. You can't do much to fake Louis XIV, but toss around a little brushed stainless steel and blond wood and you've got yourself an "Art Deco" decor. Our room felt as much Ikea as iconic, but it was cute.

Lavender paint covered almost every inch, including the ceiling. There was no dresser, just a pair of small rolling file cabinets under the desk. Still, given its small size, the room managed to contain, often quite ingeniously, most necessities for a short stay, including a corkscrew, an iron and pint-sized ironing board and wall-mounted magazine rack.

A large flat-screen television sat on the desk, along with a DVD player and portable CD player plus a handful of discs by artists we had never heard of. A small refrigerator/bar and mirror stood against one wall; an air conditioner punctuated another. Closed blinds shielded us from the view of the alley and construction site next door. (The blinds, however, didn't shield us from the noise of garbage trucks and various pounding in the morning.)

No featherbeds or pillow menus here. A lightweight bedspread—lavender, of course—covered the queen-size bed, but the box springs had been left bare, and the limp, worn sheets did not invite lolling.

Most of the hotel's 54 rooms are fitted, like ours, with a queen bed or two doubles, but there are four deluxe rooms with king-size beds. And there's the "Lucite Suite," which is decorated with clear Lucite furniture and accessories.

BATHROOM: Tiny but bright and clean. The Kent makes no pretense with the toiletries, offering only a house-labeled lotion and "conditioning shampoo" along with mini-bars of soap. The shower was weak and never got much above lukewarm. The towels were thin and scrawny.

KID-FRIENDLY: The Kent doesn't seem kid-unfriendly, but the question here really isn't if your kids would feel comfortable at the hotel. It's whether you would feel comfortable having them read the sayings on the ladies' underwear at the thong shop around the corner.

ROOM SERVICE: Not available now, but the hotel is building a restaurant that is scheduled for completion in July.

PERKS & PEEVES: The hotel provides a computer with Internet access in the lobby and free towels for the beach, which is just a block away. Free wireless Internet service is available in all the rooms. There's also a small garden off the lobby.

Like its decor, the Kent teeters on the ledge between cheap chic and cheap ick. It's an affordable option in an area that can be notoriously expensive, and if you're out enjoying the many temptations of South Beach, you're probably not going to fret about the sloppy paint job in your room.

But would it kill the hotel to provide some decent towels and sheets?

BOTTOM LINE: We paid $160 plus $20.80 in taxes for a standard room with a queen-size bed, but rates vary depending on the season and event.

Also, there are four handicap-accessible rooms.