The sun rises with intensity in Palm Beach. Don’t ask me why, and definitely not how, but the sun felt brighter than normal on my recent excursion to the tony island known for picture-perfect palm trees, designer dresses, and glamorous hotels and restaurants. To experience this enclave in the spring is to step into an island’s effortless rhythm, when bougainvillea flowers dance across building facades and lunches in the French bistro Le Bilboquet’s courtyard accidentally last most of the afternoon.
The atmosphere feels almost custom-made for wandering. Which is exactly my itinerary. I live a thirty-minute drive from the island and for the longest time have witnessed how resistant Palm Beach’s old guard was to change. Until recently. On this visit, I noted that the pandemic had brought a diaspora of younger, hipper mindsets, and with them a new set of rules, standards, and swag.
Stay & Play
The bright pink Colony Hotel, just off the main Worth Avenue strip, is still a historic mainstay, but the weekly activities are totally of-the-moment. I always keep an eye on Wednesday evening’s Living Room Series talks with local luminaries, such as design icon Jonathan Adler. Another dose of youthful energy comes through in the forty-one-room Vineta Hotel Palm Beach, which opened in March in the historic building that once held the cherished Chesterfield Hotel. Gone are the Chesterfield’s austere dark tones, and in are the Vineta’s cheerful palette of periwinkle and peachy coral that welcomed a flow of guests nonstop into its buzzy bar the night I met up there with friends.
On the other end of the size spectrum, there’s the Breakers Palm Beach, a 534-room Italian Renaissance–style masterpiece that has wowed guests since opening in 1896. What wowed me in 2026? The newly installed grass tennis courts at the property’s racket facilities, where it felt as if I could be a star at Wimbledon, if it hadn’t been for my all-black attire. Another star at the Breakers is its new restaurant, the Beach Club, according to Palm Beach photographer Nick Mele. “It will be one of the few places in town with great food that isn’t overcrowded on a Friday night,” he says.
My family and I overnighted at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach. Sitting right on the Atlantic Ocean, the luxury hotel ties together the beauty of the water with the vision of interior architect Martin Brudnizki, who leaned into the island’s affinity for pink coral and pistachio-green colors, as well as natural materials such as terrazzo flooring and warm woods. My whole crew enjoyed the water-view digs, and my kids gave their seal of approval to the club outfitted just for them, with such activities as sandcastle building and shell hunting (the Four Seasons has the only complimentary, hotel-based supervised drop-off spot on the island).
A Canvas Under the Palms
It’s easy for Palm Beach’s natural beauty to take a back seat to all the man-made glitz, but on my morning stroll along the posh Worth Avenue, I couldn’t stop noticing the cooing of birds enjoying the springtime vibes as much as I was. Mornings in Palm Beach are slow, and that relaxing energy pulled me along a string of hidden courtyards, each with their own arrangements of sculptures and palm fronds
To understand the island’s many layers, it’s worth learning a bit more about Henry Flagler, the nineteenth-century industrialist who is credited as the town’s founder. His epic Gilded Age residence, Whitehall, has been converted into the Flagler Museum, where I spent the rest of my morning getting my steps in, peering around at the Grecian columns, sphinxes carved into benches, and oil paintings aplenty. I wandered up to the second-floor exhibit space to see May I Help You, Madame? The Making of the Modern Department Store (through May 24). The exhibition celebrates historic and modern shopping experiences, including window displays created by Simon Doonan, who had a decades-long career at Barneys New York. On a mirror in bright pink lipstick, Doonan wrote, “J’adore le Shopping XXX”—“part of Simon’s fun quirkiness,” says curator Campbell Mobley.
Palm Beach’s newest addition to the arts scene is Glazer Hall, a performing arts venue opened this year along the Intracoastal Waterway. Booked headliners include Sheryl Crow and Herbie Hancock, the jazz great who hasn’t performed in Palm Beach since 2012. If visual arts are more your thing, I recommend a quick jaunt across the bridge to West Palm Beach’s Norton Museum of Art, where the garden filled with sculptures includes Keith Haring’s sunshine-yellow Julia (1987).
Boutiques, Bites, and Bubbly
Palm Beach prohibits chain restaurants (or “formula restaurants,” as the town council has called them), deliberately allowing only independent restaurants to open. A few standouts: Chik Monk Coffee, a tiny but mighty shop that serves single-origin Indian coffee directly from the owners’ family estates in Chikmagalur, India. At Celis Juice Bar, located at the heart of Royal Poinciana Plaza, the coconut-and-mango Palm Breezy smoothie is well worth the long line that weekends bring. A fun secret: Walk around the corner of Celis for the pastel-pink converted refrigerator filled with kids’ coloring books and a freezer packed with ice pops.
At the critically acclaimed—and local favorite—dinner restaurant Buccan, James Beard–nominated chef Clay Conley opened an adjacent and bustling shop serving gourmet sandwiches at lunch. “I personally love their Cuban,” photographer Mele says of the menu item dubbed Cubano 2.0. “And don’t forget their homemade potato chips and Arnold Palmer.”
Just around the corner and tucked into a neighborhood, the discreet Brazilian Court Hotel & Beach Club plays host to Café Boulud, chef Daniel Boulud’s elegant Palm Beach dining destination. At the fifteen-seat bar, a slate of cocktails, including the famed White Cosmopolitan, makes you feel like a posh Kennedy from the midcentury. “The trick is to order the Popsicle on the side—plus an extra,” says Brazilian Court owner Bobby Schlesinger, “so that my two kids can enjoy them while I have the cocktail.”
And I can’t go any further without mentioning a name that’s nearly synonymous with Palm Beach: Lilly Pulitzer, the late, famed designer known for her chic shift dresses in sunshine-perfect pastels. This year, her long-standing brand debuted the Shift Shop, located in the flagship store on Worth Avenue. “You can design your own shift dress, or blazers for the gents, using archival prints and a selection of Lilly lace,” says Katherine Lande, a fashion editor who lives in town. “It’s the only Shift Shop in the country, making it a true Palm Beach experience.” A custom Lilly would make the perfect parting souvenir.
