TUT Restaurant & Lounge (CLOSED)

The East Village is something of a hookah hotspot, with several lounges clustered between Avenue C and 2nd Avenue. It can be hard to know where to go—the northernmost spots are a little too close to NYU and a little too packed with dorm-dwellers seeking a (legal) way to (literally) blow off steam—and a few too many places treat the tobacco itself as an afterthought, peddling cheap shisha and falling behind on coal maintenance. Luckily, TUT doesn’t fall into either of these camps: Stylishly outfitted with exposed brick walls and gentle candlelight, it offers high-quality tobacco in fruity flavors like guava and apple. And unlike many hookah bars, it serves booze: the frou-frou cocktails are best avoided, but a cold beer or dry red wine makes a nice complement to a mellow smoke.