Smoke Jazz Club

On our lists of the best live music venues and special-occasion restaurants in New York.

Paul Stache opened Smoke in 1999 in the shell of Augie's, the Broadway dive bar near 106th Street where jazz musicians had jammed for decades before him, after starting there himself as a dishwasher. The room keeps a red-curtained stage and a connected lounge next door where the music carries in without the cover charge. His wife, Molly Sparrow Johnson, runs the kitchen as executive chef, working from local meat, seafood and vegetables, while the booking runs from modern names like Vijay Iyer to veterans like the Branford Marsalis Quartet. Reservations are recommended for anyone planning to eat during a set, to guarantee a table.