Food for thought: Miami-style David Whitley learns an invaluable lesson as he takes a round-the-world culinary adventure in Miami.

It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that Ocean Drive *is* Miami Beach. It’s where most of the posing happens, where the beautiful and the plain weird permanently inhabit the terrace cafés that morph into bars at night. It’s a place where the art of looking laid-back and cool is taken very seriously. After all, this is the Ocean Drive popularised by everyone’s favourite hipster band, the Lighthouse Family.

Step back a couple of blocks, however, and you can start pulling together a few different perspectives. It’s the early evening, and we’re stood outside a relatively unpromising block of shops on Washington Street. Our guide emerges and tells us that this is the starting point. She ushers us into La Ventana, a tiny Colombian place with little wooden tables and a distinctly un-posey vibe. It is to be the start of a trip around the world via the medium of food.

The girl from behind the counter brings us out a refajo, a peculiarly Colombian concoction made from beer and Colombiana. The latter is a fizzy drink that tastes like cream soda with hints of pineapple; hardly the most sophisticated cocktail ingredient, but bloody hell it works.

The same applies to the food samples. Out comes a chicken and potato empanada – moreish, if you’re wanting a gourmet opinion – and something that I could quite happily eat all day. On top of an undercooked plantain is a shredded beef, tomato and onion concoction that sounds simple, but leaves a taste party going on in your mouth. It’s the first time I’ve tried Colombian food. And, lo, it is good. Sitting humbly around the streets of South Beach are numerous small eateries that represent much of the world (albeit with a heavy Latin slant).

Next up is Goyo El Pollo, a narrow Peruvian joint. Apparently Peruvian is America’s new trendy cuisine; restaurants are cropping up all over the place, and there’s a vast diversity in the range of grub on offer. We tuck into the best known Peruvian dish – the citrusy fish and veg chop-up known as ceviche – and a spiced rotisserie chicken dipped into a yellow sauce of unknown provenance. Again, I like muchly.

The whole point of these foodie tasting tours is that spirit of adventure; it’s not necessarily about eating in the best restaurants in town - it’s about discovering the little places that you’d ordinarily walk past without taking a second look. Our evening swerves through Cuban coffee, sweet and sour soup at a Jewish bakery and gelato made in some seriously hi-tech Italian machines. The common theme is that none of the places we venture into are obvious stand-outs.

They’re the ones that clued-up locals might know about, but your average Johnny Tourist would probably skip. As the last of the gelato goes down, I’m kicking myself. It’s our last night, and we really should have done this the first night we arrived. It’d have saved us some deeply average, overpriced meals, that’s for sure. More than anything though, the exercise gave me one of those golden travel tips that I should use more often myself and pass on to others. These foodie tours (reputable ones that have good reviews, anyway) are a fantastic way to explore part of a strange city on your first night there. You find a few good, unexpected places to eat, do a bit of sightseeing and have a local expert on hand to ask questions about where’s good for a drink and what’s worth doing.

I’d say that’s usually going to be a good investment.  

Do it yourself: David went food-tasting around South Beach with Miami Culinary Tours (miamiculinarytours.com)

Disclosure: David stayed at the newly-renovated and really rather impressive Breakwater Hotel (breakwatersouthbeach.com)

He was a guest of the Breakwater and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitor Bureau (miamiandbeaches.com)