Club Adesso

With great grub, solid cocktails, and casually chic settings, restaurant-lounges can be great places to hang out -- until people with actual dinner plans disappear to their tables, suggesting that there's some magically grown-up frontier beyond Basil Mojitos and chairs where your feet don't touch the ground. For a destination restaurant-lounge, hit Club Adesso

Occupying a separate-entrance, bi-level space directly above Il Portico, Adesso offers said resto's booze and full Tuscan-influenced menu in a balcony-equipped nightclub setting bathed in ambient rays from cast iron fixtures that dot the deep red walls; the space also sports a sizable dancefloor that gives you a window-view of Walnut St/Walnut St a window-view of you, doing Da Butt. On the drinks tip, bottled beers and specialty cocktails are available at the main floor's full bar, while the balcony offers bottle service (Cîroc, Skyy Infused series, Hornitos, Johnnie Walker, Courvoisier XO and Exclusif); Portico's bulging wine list is available throughout, from Italian reds ('71 Barolo, '05 Amarone, '99 Montepulciano) and whites ('06 Sauvignon, Fabio Coser) to Grappas (di Vernaccia, licorice root-infused di Liquirizia) and a bevy of champagnes, plus Moscato dessert wines, because if you're gonna drink your dinner, you're not chewing dessert like some sort of *sshole. Grub runs from antipasti (lobster salad, mushrooms w/ polenta) and carpaccio (swordfish, filet mignon, tuna w/ anise), to black tagliolini and salmon in brandy sauce, veal scaloppini, osso buco, and wild boar -- heavy enough to turn you from wild to bore in about eight bites

For now, Adesso's open Fri-Sat only, with this Friday feting the return of big-swinging pop artist Perry Milou, who'll be performing a live painting demonstration throughout the evening, capped off by raffling the finished piece to a lucky patron -- win, and you'll cross the magically grown-up frontier of people bragging about art.