The original location of legendary Harlem jazz venue Minton's Playhouse has been turned into a jazz club once again, invoking the ghosts of the greats who have played here—Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and so many more. Specializing in the "low country seafood" of the Carolinas and Georgia, Minton's offers three courses of mesmerizing soul food, from firsts like seared Hudson Valley foie gras on skillet cornbread and roasted garlic mac and cheese with gouda and white cheddar to seconds like a wild arugula salad with mustard vinaigrette and a sherry she-crab soup with crisp yams. For that final course, there's the requisite New York steak, smartly prepared with a truffle glaze, king trumpet mushrooms, and sweet potato daphinoise. But you'd be missing out if you passed over the smothered lobster and shrimp casserole, served with pimento cheese grits and crawfish gravy.

Of course, resurrecting such a hallowed name would be an empty gesture without a compelling schedule of live jazz, and Minton's serves live jazz as a side to every single seating, with a rotating coterie of season musicians, the Minton's Players, filling the air when local and national acts aren't taking the stage.