It’s easy to believe Café du Nord, one of the best San Francisco nightclubs, restaurants and live music venues, was a notorious Prohibition speakeasy nearly a century ago. The interior boasts genuine Victorian accents and flavour, from the exposed brick to decorative panelling to a 40-foot hand-carved mahogany bar. Descend the stairs and you enter a dark, red-walled subterranean world where the bartenders know what they are doing and the tiny stage in back hosts great live acts seven nights a week. Cafe du Nord book plenty of swing and bebop, and all kinds of great bands show up here. Try to catch Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, a homegrown diva with a voice to melt your kneecaps.