Kaona Room Featured on WSVN Deco Drive: Inside Miami's Hidden Tiki Speakeasy

WSVN-Channel 7's Deco Drive spent an evening at Kaona Room this week, taking viewers behind the unmarked door that conceals one of the most distinctive bars in the city. The segment — titled "Deco gives ultimate guide to Irish bar and tropical speakeasy" — aired across three editions on FOX-affiliate WSVN-7 and ABC-affiliate Channel 18 Miami, with hosts Shireen Sandoval and Cheryll Del Mundo walking viewers through both The Leinster Irish Pub on NE 1st Avenue and the hidden tiki speakeasy tucked inside it. Combined, the broadcasts reached more than 1.8 million viewers across South Florida.

The piece worked as a true two-in-one feature — spotlighting The Leinster's authentic Irish pub atmosphere as the public-facing entrance, then crossing the threshold into Kaona to reveal the speakeasy's tropical interior. That contrast is exactly what gives the format its identity, and Deco Drive captured it beautifully.

For anyone who has ever wandered past 1600 NE 1st Ave and missed the unmarked door entirely, the Deco Drive segment is the next best thing to finding it yourself. Here is a recap of what aired, what was said, and what to look for if you want to experience the speaky-tiki for yourself.

The Setup: An Irish Pub With a Secret

The Deco Drive crew opened the segment at The Leinster, the lively, full-volume Irish pub that fronts NE 1st Avenue in Edgewater Miami. Cold pints of Guinness, live sports on the screens, plates of fish and chips, the warm chaos of a proper Irish bar — that is the world that greets you when you walk through the front door.

Then, somewhere quieter, the segment shifts. The crew is led to an unmarked door — located, as the segment notes, near the bathroom corridor — and steps through into something completely different. The volume drops. The temperature of the light shifts from warm bar amber to deep, smoky red. Bamboo replaces wood paneling. And what was, a moment earlier, an Irish pub becomes a hidden Polynesian-inspired tiki room: Kaona, the Hidden Tiki Room.

The contrast is the whole point. The format is what we call "speaky-tiki" — a hidden, intimate, atmospheric tiki bar inside a working Irish pub. (We wrote a longer guide on the genre here: What Is a Tiki Speakeasy?) The Deco Drive segment captured the transition perfectly — the moment of stepping through the door is when the speakeasy begins to do its work.

Inside Kaona With Co-Owner Billy Dalla Pola

The on-camera tour was led by Billy Dalla Pola, co-owner of Kaona Room, who walked Shireen Sandoval and Cheryll Del Mundo through the room, the program, and the philosophy behind the bar. The Deco Drive crew described the room as feeling like "a little museum" — a fitting comparison, given that many of the carved decorative pieces along the walls and bar are hand-carved by the owners themselves.

That detail matters. A lot of tiki bars source their decor from the same handful of suppliers, which gives newer venues a strangely uniform look. Kaona Room's decor is built piece by piece, in-house, with carved tikis and details that exist nowhere else. The result is a room that feels personal — closer to a private collector's lounge than a themed restaurant.

The lighting throughout the room is intentionally minimal, which is part of why the carved details and the cocktail presentations stand out so clearly. Music in the speakeasy is calmer than in the Irish pub out front, supporting conversations rather than competing with them. Together, the lighting and the audio create a different energy from anywhere else inside the building — the speakeasy's defining trick.

"We Play With Fire" — The Signature Presentations

The most-photographed moments at Kaona Room are usually the cocktail presentations, and Billy Dalla Pola explained the logic behind them on camera in one of the segment's defining quotes:

"We play with fire. We use dry ice to illuminate and engulf the tables." — Billy Dalla Pola, Co-Owner, Kaona Room (Deco Drive)

The theatrics are not gimmicks — they are part of how the cocktails are designed. Dry ice is used both for visual effect and for cooling certain drinks at service. Fire appears in flamed garnishes, in absinthe rinses set alight at the table, and in occasional flaming drinks that arrive in ceramic tiki vessels. When a Kaona cocktail reaches your table, it usually arrives — with smoke drifting up from the glass, a flame settling on a piece of citrus peel, or fog spilling out across the tabletop.

What sets the cocktail program apart from a lot of presentation-heavy bars is what is in the glass under the spectacle. The drinks are built around homemade syrups and fresh juices — no bottled mixers, no artificial sweetness — and the rum program is one of the deepest in South Florida. (More on that in our guide to the best rum bars in Miami.) The theater is the entrance. The cocktail is the substance.

The Food Menu: Island-Inspired Small Plates

The Deco Drive segment also touched on the food side of Kaona Room, which has quietly grown into one of the more interesting small-plate programs in Edgewater. The kitchen turns out island-inspired bites built to pair with the rum and tropical cocktail program rather than to compete with the Irish pub menu next door. Highlights mentioned on air include:

• Fried rice — a tropical-leaning take on the classic, designed to pair with rum-forward drinks.
• Dumplings — handmade and steamed in bamboo, a quiet favorite of regulars.
• Bao buns — a recently released addition to the menu, layering soft steamed buns with island flavors.

The combination of small Asian-influenced plates with a Caribbean rum program might sound unusual on paper, but it works the way good tiki cooking has always worked — treating the South Pacific and Caribbean as a single, loose, flavor-friendly region. The kitchen rotates plates with the seasons, so what is on the board this month may change next month.

The Speakeasy Format: Why the Hidden Door Matters

One of the things the Deco Drive segment captured best is the moment of entry. Kaona Room's entrance is intentionally unmarked. There is no sign on NE 1st Avenue. No neon arrow. No host stand outside. You have to walk into The Leinster, navigate past the bar, and find the door — tucked discreetly near the bathroom corridor, exactly as the segment described.

That moment of discovery is part of why the speakeasy format works. By the time you have stepped through the door and the warm amber of the Irish pub has fallen away behind you, you are already mentally somewhere else. The bar is doing its job before you have even ordered a drink.

For more on the format and how it differs from a regular tiki bar or a regular speakeasy, read our deeper dive: What Is a Tiki Speakeasy? A Guide to the "Speaky-Tiki" Genre.

What the Segment Means for the Miami Tiki Scene

The Deco Drive feature is a meaningful moment for Miami's growing tiki and rum bar scene. South Florida has spent the last several years quietly building a serious tropical cocktail community — venues that take rum, presentation, and atmosphere as seriously as anywhere in the country — and Kaona Room sits squarely in the middle of that conversation. Coverage like the WSVN-7 segment puts the format on the radar of Miami residents and visitors who might never have known the door was there.

It also reflects the way the city has come to think about Edgewater. Five years ago, the neighborhood was mostly residential towers and quick-service restaurants. Today, it is one of the most interesting bar and restaurant corridors in Miami, with The Leinster and Kaona Room sitting near the geographic and cultural center of the shift. A hidden tiki speakeasy inside an Irish pub is a very Edgewater idea: layered, slightly contradictory, more interesting than the surface suggests.

How to Visit Kaona Room After Watching Deco Drive

If you saw the Deco Drive segment and want to find the door yourself, here is what to know.

Where to Go

Kaona Room is located inside The Leinster Irish Pub at 1600 NE 1st Ave, Miami, FL 33132, in the heart of Edgewater Miami. Walk into The Leinster, follow the bar, and look for the unmarked door near the back. (You may want to ask a staff member to point you in the right direction the first time.) Full directions and parking notes are on our Find Us page.

When to Come

Kaona Room is open Tuesday through Saturday from 6 PM. Closing time is 1 AM Tuesday through Thursday and 2 AM Friday and Saturday. We are closed Sunday and Monday. Tuesdays are our new Tiki Tuesdays, with special programming rolling out over the coming weeks.

Reservations

The room caps at 45 seats. Walk-ins are welcome when capacity allows, but Friday and Saturday nights routinely sell out. Booking ahead is strongly recommended — reserve a table here.

What to Order First

If it is your first visit, ask the bartender for The Kaona — our signature rum cocktail and a house secret — or order a curated rum flight to calibrate your palate before settling into the cocktail menu. From there, you cannot really go wrong: try the Volcano Prayer (aged rum, falernum, passion fruit, lime, absinthe mist), the Midnight Monsoon (navy-strength rum, coconut, blue curacao, orgeat, citrus), or whichever house original the bartender recommends.

What to Order to Eat

Order the bao buns while they are new on the menu. Add the dumplings if you are sharing, and the fried rice if you want something more substantial alongside the cocktails. The full menu is on our menu page.

Thank You, Deco Drive

A genuine thank-you to Shireen Sandoval, Cheryll Del Mundo, and the WSVN-7 Deco Drive team for the visit, the storytelling, and the segment — and for crafting it as a two-in-one feature that gave both The Leinster and Kaona Room their fair share of screen time. Reaching more than 1.8 million viewers across South Florida is a milestone we do not take lightly. Press coverage that takes the time to capture what a place actually feels like — rather than just running through a checklist of menu items — is rare and appreciated. The segment did right by the room.

Thanks also to the regulars who keep showing up, the bartenders who pour every cocktail like it matters, and the team in the kitchen who put the bao buns on the menu. The room is what it is because of the people.

If you saw the segment and want to come find the door, we look forward to having you. The unmarked entrance is waiting.

Mahalo.