Lounge styles run the gamut from classy to kitschy. In New York, suave slackers are drawn to dimly lit, couch-filled boites like the Tenth Street Lounge, Fez and MercBar. Others dress in Rat Pack Retro at spots like Marion’s, a JFK-era-style bistro in New York, or L.A.’s Lava Lounge: a Honolulu-themed bar with cork-bead curtains and fish-tank-backed bar.
Some scenesters rub elbows with their well-heeled elders: nibbling caviar at Miami Beach’s Lua or cutting a zebra-skin rug to jazz at Otto’s in Atlanta. Coolest may be lounges that are unchanged since VJ Day, like the Dresden Room, a grotto piano bar in L.A., or Chicago’s booth-lined, art-deco Green Mill Jazz Club. Says one patron: “You walk in there and you think it’s 1947.” A good year for martinis.
