Your crazy if you go to Nighttown and order anything but the Dublin Lawyer. This is what I told some newbies in the group as we headed off to my favorite Cleveland restaurant- the only place I ever want to take guests.  And I hate to say it (well, not really) but I was right. Three new converts to the Lawyer which is made with Cayenne butter, heavy cream, white rice pilaf, and chunks of lobster. 

And lucky me, since it is independent restaurant week, I was able to get the P.E.I Mussels in a garlic white wine broth, my Lawyer, and bread pudding (not a huge dessert person but the rest of the table enjoyed it) for $33.00.

I just love everything about this place -

The atmosphere is cool without trying.

Eclectic, literary, relaxed, hedonistic, sexy - all at once. I'm not sure you can even use literary and hedonistic as adjectives to describe a restaurant but I am! And Nighttown would let me - it is a place where anything and everything seem to go - and go perfectly well together.

In my head I picture myself sitting in a booth in the back of the dimly lit room, smoking a cigarette, sipping a gimlet, listening to jazz and just 'being.'

In reality you can't smoke in restaurants anymore (and I quit some five years ago anyway, we didn't hear music last night or strangely enough ever there even though Nighttown is rated one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world by Down Beat magazine, and I opted for the cosmo last night as opposed to the gimlet (both are favs of mine).

Already planning my next visit...

Linked below are some of my favorite write-ups on my favorite place:

http://www.nighttowncleveland.com/history.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/129550985/Nighttown-TheStoryteller