Highlights of Philly's Best Bars

Fleming’s

‘‘That guy looks like he’s wearing a blouse. A lace blouse,” said a friend as she nibbled brie from a cheese plate at Fleming’s, the steakhouse in Radnor, one evening last summer. She was gazing at a kindly-looking 70ish gentleman a few bar stools down from us, who had paired said blouse with some snappy yellow pants. He looked sort of Aronimink-meets-Cuba circa 1950.

“Actually, I think he’s wearing one of those tunics — a Tory Burch tunic,” said my friend, mesmerized by this perky fellow, who seemed to be keeping an eye out for pretty ladies. (We’re guessing that’s what he’d call them.)

Men in blouses notwithstanding, wood-lined, gleaming Fleming’s is a giant, windowless, rectangular temple to comfort, and in our opinion, it works. Only the grouchiest of suburbanites wouldn’t be lulled into a good mood here: The bar is vast, and its glossiness evokes Donald Trump in the ­Ivana years. Here, you can valet-park (hey, don’t knock it till you try it — it’s free, and why walk 30 feet from the parking lot when you can turn your keys over to cute teenage boys?), and are immediately greeted by the delicious smell of meat grilling, mingled with the fantastic aroma of the homemade potato chips heaped in baskets on the bar.

When the bartender handed us the wines-by-the-glass menu in a book the size of a wedding album, I felt my mood rise, too: There are a hundred wines by the glass, ranging from tasty little $10 South African chenin blancs to ­butter-bomb $16-a-glass chardonnays. On a girlier note, there are 22 specialty martinis; for the corporate types who come here, there’s ESPN on the ­flattie and tons of single-malt scotches.

The lighting is as dim as a tabloid ­starlet — perfect place for a 50-and-up crowd to flirt. Everyone looks 25! But on an early fall evening when I came back, there was one thing missing at the bar: women.

I called my friend. “You’re too early!” she said. “The pickup scene starts after 7:30.” A few minutes later, two guys under 50 showed up and ordered $18-a-glass cabernet. Money was clearly no object, and getting into the swing of things, I considered ordering the $57 raw-bar Seafood Tower, as I sipped my buttery chardonnay. — Amy Donohue Korman