The club, decorated with amber-tinted mirrors, candles and several giant photographs of half-naked women, looked like a trendy lounge, only much bigger.

Michael Hillyer, Snooky's day bartender for the past 12 years, was at his usual station Tuesday cutting lemons and filling glasses at Snooky's, a neighborhood hangout near Carroll Street that no one would mistake for a trendy lounge.

And last weekend, it was time to celebrate at Viva, one of the newest of the trendy lounges that have opened in northern Manhattan.

A scrappy island in a sea of high fashion, pricey brunches and trendy lounges, Western Beef is among the last remnants of an utterly transformed meat market.

At Studio 01, five minutes from Soho, is a first for Chisinau: the daunting red velvet ropes that are nearly ubiquitous at trendy lounges in New York.

"The night life in the city has moved from an immature adolescence to now, where it's just catching up a bit to everybody else," said Mr. Lintott, who designed Opium Den, one of the first trendy lounges in Taipei, in 1996.

But don't worry: the recently opened Boceto (Avenida Isla Verde, 7480; 787-268-2627) in the Isla Verde district is thankfully not another trendy lounge with wanna-be South Beach décor and blaring hip-hop.

There's also Sailor Jerry rum - 92 proof, and more likely to be found in a red-state biker bar than in a trendy lounge - and a Sailor Jerry documentary on the way.

Even as trendy hookah lounges proliferate in Manhattan, these traditional parlors face being regulated out of existence as a result of the city's smoking ban.