Throwback lounging in the DTX

Since you're already headed to Downtown Crossing to hit Windsor Button for their crazy sexy selection of quality buttons, sewing, and craft notions, you might as well show off all those newly purchased (sewing) threads afterwards at GEM, an ornate, Parisian-influenced "gastro-lounge meets ultra-exclusive supper club" slinging "American brasserie" vittles in the old Kennedy's space.

So as not to be startled by the changes, expect to:

See The choose-your-own-adventure comes in three areas: a) a reservation-only 11-table dining room appointed w/ upholstered chairs and tasseled lights on exposed brick that would appreciate you not staring; b) a dimly lit granite slab bar w/ a Moroccan-style brown glass-tiled backdrop, plush red banquettes, and 13 massive swiveling bar stools; and c) an ooonce-worthy, DJ-booth'd lounge replete with how-now-brown couches.

Eat Because eating is essential to survival, live longer by ordering mac & five-cheese gratin w/ buttered breadcrumbs, beer-battered sweet onion strings, and fried gnocchi in plum tomato sauce, or opt for big boy plates served in copper pans like the triple bacon'd lobster chowda w/ tempura lobster skewers, roasted sea bass w/ pea leaf salad, and the smoked short rib Province burger topped with white cheddar.

Drink Get your apres-work libation on via draft/ bottled suds like Samuel Smith's Nut Brown, or sipping one of their myriad martinis/ crafty 'tails that include the apparently Soviet-styled Hurrikane, the Smokey Quartz (Dewar's White & vermouth), and a Maker's, falernum, and ginger beer number called Smashed on Province Street -- a solid option to disprove everyone's notion that you're kinda buttoned up.