E-Mail This Article to a Friend Power bars Where Boston’s movers and shakers do their eating and drinking BY RUTH TOBIAS
	Where to find them • The Bar at the Ritz-Carlton Boston, 15 Arlington Street, Boston, (617) 536-5700. • Blu, Sports Club/LA, 4 Avery Street, Boston, (617) 375-8550. • The Bristol, Four Seasons Hotel, 200 Boylston Street, (617) 351-2053. • Excelsior, 272 Boylston Street, Boston, (617) 426-7878. • The Federalist, XV Beacon Hotel, 15 Beacon Street, Boston, (617) 570-2515. • Grill 23, 161 Berkeley Street, Boston, (617) 542-2255. • The Harvest, 44 Brattle Street, Cambridge, (617) 868-2255. • Henrietta’s Table, Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street, Cambridge, (617) 661-5005. • Locke-Ober, 3 Winter Place, Boston, (617) 542-1340. • No. 9 Park, 9 Park Street, Boston, (617) 742-9991. • Oak Bar, Fairmont Copley Plaza, 138 St. James Avenue, Boston, (617) 267-5300. • Radius, 8 High Street, Boston, (617) 426-1234. • Restaurant L, Louis Boston, 234 Berkeley Street, Boston, (617) 266-4680. • Rialto, Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street, Cambridge, (617) 661-5050. • Seasons, Millennium Bostonian, 24 North Street, Boston, (617) 523-4119. • Spire, Nine Zero Hotel, 90 Tremont Street, Boston, (617) 772-0202. — RT

Like moths to flame, like flies to honey, like writers on deadline throwing out clichéd yet apt similes, Boston’s movers and shakers (and shovers and makers) are forever circling certain spots — drawn to those places where settling into private booths, tucking into pink-hearted porterhouses, and sealing deals with flights of Château Lafite are all part of the daily routine. How to identify — and infiltrate — these bastions of privilege? Just follow the suits from dawn to dusk; their itineraries are sure to look something like the following.

Breakfast

The Bristol is back after renovations that have transformed its former cool-hued elegance into warm-colored elegance, and the Four Seasons lounge is now the place for a pre-office powwow. No doubt that’s because its breakfast menu doubles as a reliable gauge of profitability: how can you dip into eggs with lobster or truffles while sipping a smoothie from a martini glass and not be a total success?

By contrast, Seasons hasn’t changed a bit over the years. But then, everything ’80s is new again, from power suits to Trump himself, and so this restaurant in the Millennium Bostonian Hotel, with its striped awnings and cameo-print banquettes, is due for some retro cachet. Meanwhile, its view of a skyscraper-flanked Faneuil Hall never gets old; it’s a fitting choice, then, for an eye-opener of a business breakfast complete with hearty, traditional selections like poached eggs on black-pastrami hash with home fries and homemade almond-raisin granola.

Across the Financial District at the Sports Club/LA, Blu offers an opposing view of downtown. It also provides a sneak peek at the high-powered hard bodies who frequent it, all perusing the Wall Street Journal over smoothies and other healthy staples. Keep your ear to the ground, and you might glean some useful tips for pumping up your rear delts — not to mention some good gossip.

The Charles Hotel in Harvard Square is always the right place at the right time. From Noir to Regattabar, the cross-courtyard Legal Sea Foods to Rialto (see below), you’re guaranteed a lively spot for cocktails, eats, and even live jazz. But only the tastefully rustic Henrietta’s Table is open for breakfast. This place has been chanting the "local and seasonal" mantra longer than most, so expect seasoned approaches to eggs and veggies. The pastries are also sumptuous jump-starters.

Lunch

For generations, Beacon Hill bluebloods have been flocking to Locke-Ober like homing pigeons. The exquisite Art Nouveau environs — all crimson and gold and lavishly carved mahogany — spell sanctuary; Lydia Shire’s menu adds the capital S by paying thorough but not stagnating homage to the restaurant’s history (try rum-and-tobacco-smoked salmon, the succulent vice of gentlefolk, or follow in JFK’s foodsteps with the lobster stew).

Just up the hill at No. 9 Park, refinement takes a more contemporary, understated turn. One of the handful of chefs who ignited Boston’s fairly recent culinary renaissance, Barbara Lynch continues to whip her bistro into tip-top shape with cuisine that tempers the robustness of country French and Italian with New England restraint; renowned sommelier Cat Silirie follows suit. No wonder the cognoscenti still count No. 9 as number one.

Back in the Back Bay, however, a new culinary epicenter is forming. Ensconced in the chichi department store Louis Boston, Restaurant L is doing Asian-inspired minimalism with almost paradoxical vigor. Chrome-grays shot through with color — russet and ochre — create an apt backdrop for dishes that hook clean, cool flavors up to electrodes of zest (take tuna tartare sizzling with soy zabaglione and wasabi crunch). A sophisticated crowd feels the jolt, and keeps coming back for more.

The Harvest has long been a haunt for Harvard hotshots. Airy, crisp surroundings set the tone for fresh-from-the-farmers’-market cuisine like sunchoke bisque, crab cakes with zucchini rémoulade, and apple-raisin pot pie. The overall effect is bright and congenial, ideal for joining depleted colleagues to restore your energy.

Drinks

With its view of the Public Garden, elegant English-estate-like appointments, and suave service, the Bar at Ritz-Carlton Boston remains the cream of the old-school crop. No hipster scene or substitute boardroom, this is the place to settle in quietly and celebrate success over a classic martini or house Ritz Fizz, to nibble on shrimp cocktail or a slice of Boston cream pie, and reflect on good fortune past, future, and, above all, present.

Similarly clubby, but with a sweeping magnificence all its own, is the Fairmont Copley Plaza’s Oak Bar. High-ceilinged, gold-trimmed, marble-paneled opulence itself, this piano bar is famed for its martinis, served in their own individual carafes and ice buckets. Both wedding engagements and business deals are part of the daily routine.

Even among the most happening happy-hour hangouts, however, Radius radiates energy. Amid the bar’s mod furnishings in forceful hues — red, black, gray — the Financial District’s younger denizens attempt to wind down and, well, hook up (all while swilling gin blossoms and signature green-apple martinis, and munching sassy takes on steak tartare and fried clams). The fact that this spot has stayed hot for six years suggests the rate of success is remarkably high.

By the looks of it, one-year-old Excelsior will easily match such longevity. Like Biba, its predecessor in the space, the handsome bar overlooking the Common swarms throughout the afternoon and into the evening with beautiful people of all ages and stripes. What’s the draw? Cocktails and bar nibbles so inventive that even the ones who usually stick to sparkling water and breadsticks can’t help but indulge. They’re downing drinks made with black-cherry vodka and pear cider; they’re noshing on lobster pizza and asparagus-bacon sandwiches. And despite Botoxed foreheads and pouty lips, they’re even eking out grins.

Dinner

In this city, classic chophouses — those mahogany, leather, and crystal shrines to muscle both bovine and monetary — are a dollar a dozen (hey, nothing’s a dime anymore), be they yuppie-packed or fogy-filled. But only Grill 23 enjoys the avid patronage of every subset within the wining-and-dining wheeler-dealer set — undoubtedly because chef Jay Murray invokes today’s culinary status symbols (tuna sashimi, chicken under a brick) as shrewdly as he does standard-bearers like steak tartare and filet mignon.

You might expect even greater store to be set by the classics in a hotel restaurant with a name like the Federalist, with its almost severely masculine black-and-beige décor. Au contraire. After all, this is a chic boutique hotel, not some stodgy high-rise lodging, and David Daniels’s menu aims to dazzle accordingly — so you can too. Impress your clients by ordering the skillet-roasted Hudson Valley foie gras with rhubarb-peppercorn jam on warm caramelized-onion brioche without blinking an eye!

Nearby Spire is cut from similar cloth. The sleek, minimalist design puts pastel accents in a brisk new light, and Gabriel Frasca’s equally invigorating New American stylings make great conversation pieces — think three-basil-and-Spanish-almond salad with chardonnay vinaigrette, or grapefruit French toast with maple ice cream and syrup (for dessert!) — when shop talk wears thin.

Meanwhile, back in Harvard Square, Jody Adams’s Rialto holds the number-one no-brainer go-to spot as assuredly as ever. Low-key luxury suffuses both the dining room and the Mediterranean menu (signatures include soupe de poissons and bistecca fiorentina), while the lounge hums until closing time with cocktail connoisseurs. Adams has even created a special late-night bar menu expressly for carousing conventioneers.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthtobias@earthlink.net