The allure of a hotel bar is more than the sum of its alluring parts — the plush décor and plusher cocktails; the blur and buzz of a busy lobby filtered through a hazier, dimmer quiet; the whole Key Largo, strangers-exchanging-glances vibe. There’s also the sense that we ourselves hold that much more allure when we’re sipping Manhattans in suede banquettes with the world coming and going all around us. Think of the following, then, as a guide to the gin joints that make you look good.

The Lounge, Ritz-Carlton Boston Common. Settling down comfortably into the setting of the Ritz, of course, makes you look and feel downright rich. The contemporary aura of the lobby — a luxe echo chamber of ecru marble and clean lines — sets the hotel apart from its highly traditional sibling across the park. But the lounge situated at the far end of the room isn’t lacking in old-school charm and grace. Posh furnishings in posh hues of beige and blue-gray — including leather sofas with shantung pillows atop thick carpets — are flanked by a black marble fireplace and an enormous vase doubling as a sculpture in bronze and green glass; blossoms float in pebble-filled glass vases on the tables before you, while from above comes soft, exotic music, the kind with lots of woodblocks and ululation.

Before 5 p.m., the Lounge is set up for tea service, offering single-estate teas and smoother-than-smooth cappuccinos ($3.75); if you’ve got the munchies, you can choose among a variety of platters with sandwiches, pastries, and dim sum (ranging from $18–$34). After five, the bar opens with an ultra-suave selection of " tinis. " Try the Ruby, with citrus vodka, grapefruit juice, and Campari to balance the tartness, or the Bellini, usually a blend of fresh peach nectar and Champagne, but re-imagined here with French vodka ($5 each, or $30 for a multi-tini tasting).

With its full-service restaurant, Jer-Ne, mere steps away, the Lounge limits its nibbles, but those it does offer are sumptuous samplers ($12–$14), offering antipasti, sushi, and bite-size pastries. Also available are serious chocolate concoctions like fondue for two ($16) and a chef’s tasting ($12) — lest you haven’t soaked up enough richness just by sitting there.

City Bar, Lenox Hotel, and Bar 10, Westin Copley. With the dual Ritzes, the Four Seasons, and the Copley Plaza’s historic Oak Room, it’s hard for a hotel in the city proper to get a bar in edgewise. But both the Lenox and the Westin have pulled off that very feat. In the case of the former’s City Bar, prompt success seems due to a real sense of personal style. Den-cozy yet club-sleek, City Bar oozes privacy (if privacy is something you can ooze); lights are kept low enough that the gray-and-taupe color scheme is hard to distinguish, but candles flicker everywhere, and there’s no mistaking the welcome of sunken leather sofas and armchairs. The signature drinks are no mere cocktails but " infusions diabolique " ($10), whereby various spirits are aged with all manner of spices and fruit. Top-shelf tequila, for instance, develops the flavors of pineapple, mango, lime, mint, and white pepper, while bourbon is sweetened with cinnamon, vanilla, and fig. Appetizers are equally elegant. A smoked-trout salad is dotted with crème fraîche and caviar ($13); blue-collar potato skins receive a whopping promotion, trading in their bacon bits and cheddar for pancetta, fontina, and truffle oil ($9). (Entrées off the menu of the hotel restaurant Azure are available for the asking.)

A personal favorite for years, Bar 10 is a touchstone for hotel-bar mystique: all plush-and-leather banquettes and booths, with toast-and-butter shades that cast russet tones come evening, it emits sexy warmth in excess. There’s never any telling whether it’ll be packed or hushed, but you can always rest assured that the cocktails will be lush and the Mediterranean-inspired food at once thoughtful and sensual. Costly but memorable martinis include the Monster ($12) — with Stoli Vanil, apple schnapps, and pineapple juice, it’s like drinking straight sweet-and-sour mix, but in a good way — and the Crème Brûlée ($12), a mix of Stoli Vanil, Cointreau, and hazelnut liqueur that’s plenty true to the spirit of the dessert even before the inspired addition of crème anglaise (the classic French custard that also forms the base for ice cream). Bar 10 also maintains a selection of cocktails for two, such as the Southern Punch ($20) — emphasis on punch, with a one-two of vodka and Southern Comfort, softened by Midori and cranberry juice.

The signature dish here is the Mediterranean plate ($18), which, though ever-changing by degrees, offers a reliable array of robust flavors. Think flavored crackers and breadsticks, vegetable dips and cheeses, charcuterie and confit; think unctuousness, smokiness, and tang. Meanwhile, the rice-dusted calamari with " spicy vinaigrette " (really more like a Spanish romesco, $8) is the rare achievement where — at least according to this Italophile, who believes she knows her calamari — so many American restaurants fail. Flatbread pizzas are no less an Italophile’s dream for being crispy-thin and judiciously topped (the Toscana, $10, is a savory fave with two cheeses and two greens), while salads like the Amarillo chicken salad with jamón, avocado, and blue cheese ($10) are meatier in savor than many a meat entrée.

Noir, Charles Hotel. In name, Noir may evoke the seamy urban dark side portrayed in the eponymous cinematic genre, but in appearance the closest it gets to an underworld aesthetic is the James Gandolfini look-alike who tends the bar. In fact, the place resembles nothing so much as a postmodern airport lounge, boasting black-and-tan décor complete with vinyl sheen and a mirrored bar. Certainly it’s more fun to people-watch here than at your average Logan gate. At any given time you may see giddy conventioneers on one side of you and the makings of a May-December liaison on the other, even as a tête-à-tête between two relatively well-known poets gets under way over in the corner.

As for the menu, it’s a thorough blend of contemporary and classic, featuring, on the one hand, drinks like the Rusty Nail ($9), made with Scotch and honeyed Drambuie (the cheeky description on the menu: " I’m wearing wingtips just like my Dad’s and I like a little Scotch with my Scotch " ), and, on the other, flamboyant cocktails like caramel-apple and strawberry-basil martinis ($9) and the super-sweet-tart Kurant Affair ($9), combining lime, orange, and cranberry juices with currant vodka and orange-tinged Cointreau. A selection of hors d’oeuvres and light meals, meanwhile, claims to be " exactly what a bar menu should be, " and don’t you doubt it. At once elegant and easy-spirited, it includes witty takes on traditional snacks, such as gougère-like cheese puffs ($5) and succulent raw-bar items: peel-your-own shrimp ($1.95 apiece), lobster tails ($9 each), vigorous spinach-bacon-Gruyère dip served with pita slices ($7), and ginger-water-chestnut dip with crudités ($6). That last may not be the most appetizing description for what is in fact a stellar appetizer: creamy with mayo, warmly nutty, and sparkling with a hint of ginger, the dip comes with a rainbow of veggies — endive, radish, carrot, celery, grape tomato, fennel, rapini, and cauliflower — which are splashed with a meaty olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and fresh-ground pepper. Sandwiches spare no indulgent expense, be it duck with Gruyère ($12) or Green Goddess–dressed lobster ($16) — hardly nitty-gritty bar fodder.

Parker Bar, Omni Parker House. The Parker Bar, by comparison, is about as traditionally English-pubby as can be. Unnoticeable from the street and set way back behind the lobby of the oldest operating hotel in the country, the Parker Bar is full of famous ghosts, playing long-time host to history in the making. As Joy the bartender will tell you, John Wilkes Booth hung out here before heading down to DC to shoot Lincoln; Ho Chi Minh cooked and Malcolm X bussed in the restaurant to which the bar’s attached; persons from Charles Dickens to JFK and Jackie made their grand selves at home in these very rooms; and to this day, pols looking for privacy — as they always are, according to bartenders all around the Hill — duck in from time to time.

Come here, then, if you’re looking for the quintessential New England hotel-bar experience. Joy says the place will soon be " metamorphosing into something, we just don’t know what yet, " but until then, you can perch in a wood-trimmed space done in shades of maroon and spruce, surrounded by stained-glass windows graced with crests and other insignia. There’s no cocktail list per se, but if you’re a fan of the froufrou, the staff seems to know its Razberi from its Vanil; by the same token, the kitchen dishes up plenty of quasi-gourmet goodies like a hearty chicken-and-walnut-salad sandwich on seven-grain bread ($12) and a bison burger gone wild with wasabi topping ($13). Still, given the abundance of pre-nouvelle specialties in pre-nouvelle portions here in the home of the Parker House roll, you’d do well to tackle the fish and chips with rémoulade ($13.50), sirloin tips in mushroom sauce ($15), or baked scrod from a 97-year-old recipe. It’s buttery, bread-crumbed, and juicy, served with a whole heap of carrots and — in a single concession to trendiness — lavish skin-on smashed potatoes ($16).

Gateway Lounge, Holiday Inn Brookline. Modest, cozy, quiet to the point of sleepiness, and overall unchallenging, the Gateway is noteworthy for its homey comforts. No neo-tinis here, just your basic well-stocked and well-tended bar. The food treads only slightly trendier waters, but does so charmingly, as with the grilled-asparagus appetizer ($4.95) — the thin, crispy-juicy spears accompanied by a slab of toasted bread and a tomato chutney — and the " exotic " mushroom-and-wild-rice soup ($2.95 cup/$3.95 bowl), which is a bit salty but winningly textured. Sandwiches, meanwhile, dare to go as far as blue-cheese-pepper burgers ($7.95) and bold grilled herbed chicken on olive bread with a wild-mushroom pesto, Boursin, and spinach ($8.95). The space itself, with its vine-twined wrought-iron screens and library-esque hues of olive, deep red, tan, and black, couldn’t be more welcoming — a gateway to ease and relaxation, indeed.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthiet@bu.edu.