Unlock the Key

Key West offers up culinary, cultural and outdoor adventures

The island of Key West, on the southernmost tip of Florida, may be just 4 miles long and 1 mile wide, but it is packed with more history, culture, music, food and fun than places 10 times its size. Here’s a look.

Culture is key

Key West culture is celebrated in its food and drink. Start your day with a café con leche or cortadito at one of the three Cuban Coffee Queen locations, along with a Cuban breakfast burrito or cheese toast made with Cuban bread. If you go to the location on Southard and Duval, you’re less than a 10-minute walk from the Hemingway Home & Museum, a National Historic Landmark, where you can study the legacy of Ernest Hemingway, who lived and wrote in Key West in the 1930s.

Key West has a reputation for being a writers’ muse. Legend has it that Hemingway wrote part of A Farewell to Arms, as well as To Have and Have Not, Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, in Key West, and that author and playwright Tennessee Williams wrote the first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire while visiting the island.

Try to get to the Hemingway Home when it opens, at 9 a.m. daily, and you’ll not only have a brush with history, but you’ll also be greeted by the 61 polydactyl (six-toed) cats on the property (at last count). The museum claims some of the cats are descendants of Hemingway’s six-toed cat, Snow White.

Another way to experience Hemingway’s legacy is at Papa’s Pilar Rum Distillery, home to the Hemingway Rum Company, where both blonde and dark rums are distilled and bottled on-site. And the distillery even offers a cocktail-making class, where a mixologist will teach you how to make (and drink) such cocktails as a Papa’s Manhattan or a Hemingway Daiquiri.

Water, water everywhere

The waters surrounding Key West are home to the only living coral reef in North America. On a tour, you’ll have the chance to snorkel on the coral reef, and also see turtles, rays, octopus, dozens of species of fish and, of course, dolphins.

From November through April, when the winter winds are higher and dolphins are closer to shore, you can book a sunset sail and dolphin search trip, which will take you out on a 42-foot sailing catamaran on the lookout for wild bottlenose dolphins.

Scrumptious seafood

In my book, no visit to Key West is complete without enjoying its seafood. At the Half Shell Raw Bar, join the locals for happy hour, and feast on Key West peel-and-eat shrimp, broiled garlic oysters and conch ceviche. Half Shell also runs a fish market; if you come down by car and want to take some freshly caught seafood home, be sure to bring a cooler and some ice for the drive back.

For romantic, upscale dining, make a reservation at Latitudes, located on the private island of Sunset Key, 500 yards west of Key West. (A boat launch is located at 245 Front St., behind the Opal Key Resort; look for Slip 29. They’ll confirm the boat ride when you make your dinner reservation.) I recommend the lobster bisque, crispy salmon served with dill smoked salmon salad or the real winner: fennel-charred yellowfin tuna.

At the end of the day, join the locals to celebrate the sunset at Mallory Square, one of the main gathering points on the island.

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