Best gay bar
Be you gay, straight, or somewhere in between, there's a time and a place for meat markets. Club Café, which clinches this category in our readers' poll every year, is not that place. Sure, there's a saucy vibe to the place, and without a doubt there's flirting to be had, but there's an elegance to Club Café, a sophistication that elevates it above a mere bump-grind-and-score factory. With a restaurant called 209, a video lounge where VJ Tom Yazbek mans the projector, and a comfortable bar space, Club Café is relaxed and energized, upbeat and low-key, and it's long been the center of gay social life not only in the South End, but in all of Boston.

While Club Café is gay every night of the week, ManRay, another repeat winner in this category, designates only one night as such (see "Best Gay Night," below). But in this Cambridge den of all things underground, catering to crowds ready and willing to indulge their fetishes and fantasies, you can bet the rest of the week isn't exactly straight as the zipper up your thigh-high boots. You'll find fetishes of every shade, so get ready to pick your persuasion. ManRay breathes indulgence; it's a lair that encourages shedding the rigid daytime world and letting your more transgressive persona rule the night.

Club Café, 209 Columbus Avenue, Boston, (617) 536-0966; ManRay, 21 Brookline Street, Cambridge, (617) 864-0400, www.manrayclub.com.