Best Hotel Bar in San Francisco: The Redwood Room at the Clift Hotel

You have to outgrow this city's other hotel bars (the kitschy Tonga Room at the Fairmont, the trendy XYZ Bar at the W) before you can appreciate everything inside the iconic Redwood Room. This is a grown-up's playground. Though it opened in 1933 (the year Prohibition ended), and languished over the decades, über-hotelier Ian Schrager breathed new life into it in 2001—with the help of hotshot designer Philippe Starck. Yes, the wood inside really is red: The original redwood paneling lines the walls and columns, surrounded by red leather couches, Art Deco sconces, candles and a long bar. But this was no restoration of a stodgy institution: Plasma screens display digital art and the bartenders offer unusual twists on classic cocktails, like the Tamarind Sidecar made with Hennessy VSOP, tamarind juice, fresh lemon and lime juice and triple sec with a sugared rim. It's hard to go wrong with a bar at a Morgans Hotel Group property (which also includes the Hudson, Morgans and Royalton in New York; and the Mondrian in Los Angeles); the Redwood Room, however, is in a league of its own.