Photo: Corey Grayhorse

What's with all the naked ladies of Providence?

At the Magdalenae Room, the dark and velvety lounge at the Dean Hotel, a series of Vargas-style nudes dominates the walls. Behind the bar at The Avery, a mahogany-tinted cocktail spot in a quieter corner of town, a pair of butt-nekkid woodcuts bookend the bottles in between, temporarily distracting you from your order. (You wanted a Moscow Mule.) And back at the Dean, the ghosts of strippers past slink around the first floor's beer hall, coffee shop, and karaoke bar, once the home of a seedy gentlemen's club and now the GQ-iest place (by far) to stay in Providence. It's like the whole town is screaming in hedonistic chorus: "LOOK HOW SEXY WE'RE GETTING."

Providence, consider yourself heard. This intimidatingly smart place (Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, H. P. Lovecraft) wants to party, and it's a cheap date. A king suite at the Dean costs just $150 a night, and the most adventurous meal in town runs $49 a person for four inventive courses.

That would be at Birch, eighteen seats around a U-shaped bar. The menu changes all the time, but if you're lucky, chef Ben Sukle will be serving his Macomber turnip in a brown-butter broth with bits of dried crunchy shellfish. It's a true holy-shit-is-this-good dish. And it's a turnip!

After dinner, you've got far more options than any city of 180,000 could possibly need. Dive-bar enthusiasts should head straight to beloved E&O Tap. Beer nerds can return to the Dean, where Faust serves a Teutonic beer list in a designy take on a classic Hofbräuhaus. And horndogs can hit the aforementioned Magdalenae Room and make out in a high-backed banquette.

In the morning, power up at Nick's on Broadway (phenomenal egg-cheese-and-chicken-sausage sandwich) or The Grange, a vegetarian restaurant where the occasional scent of patchouli is no match for the mouthwatering aromas coming out of the kitchen. Then walk off your hangover at Swan Point Cemetery, one of the most gorgeous boneyards in the history of death. Lovecraft is buried here, and rumors of midnight Wiccan rituals are accepted as fact by locals. Your next stop is the RISD Museum of Art, a light-flooded space that houses a pleasantly random collection (Hockney, Serra, ancient Chinese lion-dogs) and is way more impressive than you'd expect a midsize university museum to be.

Dinner tonight is at North, a Momofuku-inspired joint that—no surprise here—is owned by a veteran of David Chang's kitchen. Order at least five or six dishes for two, including the cauliflower with crispy pork and the tiny ham biscuits. And in the morning, stop off at White Electric Coffee for the best caffeine in town. Providence just kicked your ass (in the best possible way), and you'll need the jolt as you head for home.