Club Macanudo

The name says club. The door says otherwise — walk in dressed for it, and the Upper East Side's cigar institution is yours for the evening.

Edgar Cullman Jr. of General Cigar opened Club Macanudo in 1996 in the bones of Quo Vadis, the restaurant where Jackie Onassis once kept a table. Thirty years on, it remains the most complete cigar evening in New York: full bar, full dinner menu, and a wall of engraved private lockers that reads like a who's-who of people who take this seriously.

The Table

No other room on this list serves a real dinner. Steaks, proper courses, whiskey-pairing events — the full white-tablecloth treatment with a cigar where dessert usually goes. It makes Club Mac the list's best answer to "dinner and smoke, one address."

The Lockers

The engraved humidor lockers are the club within the club — leased by members, read by everyone. Membership adds perks and a private floor, but it's optional: the main room takes walk-ins, and always has. In the dining room, a house painting gathers the famous smokers — Churchill, JFK, Jordan, De Niro — into one impossible party.

The Room

Business casual, enforced — no shorts, no flip-flops, no exceptions. Sunday hours come and go seasonally; check before a weekend plan. The crowd runs deal-closers, date nights, and men who've had the same locker since the nineties.

Why We Picked It

Because thirty years of celebrity lore and the city's best cigar dinner earn the spot, even with a public rating that runs a notch below the rooms above it. Some institutions you rank; this one you also just owe.