Around sunset, faint echoes of chatter and saxophone wails start to leak out of a basement-level steel door on East 53rd Street, between Second and Third Avenues. Customers descend the staircase — as if the ghostly melodies have summoned them there — to press a discrete buzzer. Seconds later, the door creaks open, revealing a speakeasy-style Japanese whisky bar and music club called Tomi Jazz.

Behind a wooden counter, bartenders rhythmically rock cocktail shakers. They garnish snow-white cocktails with smoldering cinnamon sticks for off-the-clock diplomats, while I.T. consultants and investment bankers sip Nikka and Yamazaki whisky. More liquor bottles sit on dusty shelves, alongside weathered photos of vintage music acts, a trumpet and woven lamps. After midnight, uninhibited couples get close at an L-shape table, just a foot away from the live music.