Melvyn's Restaurant & Lounge

Tucked behind manicured hedges at the Ingleside Estate on West Ramon Road, Melvyn's is the Palm Springs that movies are set in: chandeliers, tableside service, and a piano that has barely stopped playing since 1975.

That's the year New York entrepreneur Mel Haber bought the aging Ingleside Inn, spent half a million dollars restoring it, and reopened it that September with Melvyn's as its dining room. It was an immediate hit with the town's old guard — Sinatra held the rehearsal dinner for his 1976 wedding to Barbara Marx here, and the guest book over the years reads like a wing of the Academy.

Haber ran the room for four decades until his death in 2016, and the lounge still runs on his formula: dress a little sharper, order the martini, and let the piano player set the tempo. The live music in the lounge is one of the valley's most reliable rituals — no ticket required, just taste.