The 10 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Cleveland

The cocktail menu pays tribute to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, which makes sense given the museum is practically next door. This is a full-service luxury hotel in downtown Cleveland, where housekeepers note which side of the bed you sleep on and leave the water bottle there accordingly. The Club Floor runs food from breakfast through cordials and opens the bar at noon, which is a civilized policy. Pets are welcome, too.

The Fidelity Hotel Cleveland sits in a restored 1920s mortgage building on what was Short Vincent, the old strip of jazz joints and whiskey bars that once made this city feel briefly like Manhattan. Ninety-seven rooms with Bellino linens, sculptural lighting, and deep, considered color throughout. The Club Room downstairs earns its keep with low light and strong drinks. A Michelin Key hotel, for those keeping score.

Extended-stay apartments occupying three floors of a century-old former department store, ROOST brings a boutique-hotel sensibility to a category not exactly known for it. The loft-style rooms are clean-lined and well-considered, which sounds like faint praise but stands out here. It's a good base if you'd rather feel like a temporary Clevelander than a conference attendee.

The mugs lining the walls are collector pieces rescued from legendary tropical bars that have since closed, which sets the tone for what Porco is: a tiki cocktail bar that takes the genre seriously without taking itself too seriously. Bartenders in Hawaiian shirts build mai tais and zombies from proper spirits and house syrups, and the dry-ice garnishes are genuinely theatrical. A patio out back handles the overflow when the enchanting interior fills up.

Pool tables, darts, foosball, and enough televisions to catch the Premier League and a Cleveland Browns meltdown simultaneously. Iggy's is a dive bar on Madison Avenue where the beer list does most of the heavy lifting, though the cocktail menu holds its own and bartenders will mix you something proper when the room quiets down. Themed specials rotate through the week, keeping the regulars from getting too comfortable with the menu.