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Despite ominous sounds emanating recently from Wall Street, the mood in the Bay Area is exuberant—almost as if the dot-com crash were but a distant bad dream. Venture capital is once again flowing as freely as top-shelf vodka at a Web 2.0 launch party. Roving bands of youthful millionaires and billionaires, most of whom either work at Google, are retired from Google, or had their company acquired by Google, spill out onto the sidewalks from the city's best restaurants and bars. Sometimes it seems like one can't knock a drink over without splashing a hipster with a start-up or a blog (usually both).

Where to Stay
San Francisco's top hotels are downtown, clustered in the hopping South of Market (SoMa) area, around the tony shops of Union Square, and in the gritty theater district. The It Hotel of the moment is the St. Regis, a Starwood property in SoMa. Even local executives sleep there: Google creators Sergey Brin and Larry Page are rumored to keep weekend apartments in the residential portion, and Al Gore has been spotted there on numerous occasions. Next door to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art and a short walk from the convention center, the St. Regis exudes discreet class, from the bowler-hatted doormen to the clean lines of the oversize chairs in the lobby bar, a happy-hour hot spot.

The effortlessly stylish Hotel Vitale, on the Embarcadero waterfront, ranks close to the St. Regis as a top destination for both visiting and local business elite. The roof deck is a common venue for launch parties, and venture capitalists can be found wheeling and dealing on the patio of Vitale's restaurant, Americano. The older but still sumptuous Mandarin Oriental, a few blocks away, attracts many of the same international lawyers and executives as the Vitale. Self-consciously eclectic, the Clift Hotel, in the Theater District, is a magnet for the high-finance set. Asia de Cuba, the Clift's restaurant, is a favorite spot for breakfast meetings (and a far more subdued scene than you'll find at dinner), and the hotel's lush landmark of a bar, the Redwood Room, is a reliable place for stargazing (recent luminaries: Lauryn Hill, Radiohead, and the king of Sweden). Near enough to the Clift for travelers to enjoy its scene without paying its prices are the Hotel Monaco and the Hotel Adagio, both lower-profile but still upscale. Corporate travelers who want big style but have small expense accounts opt for the colorfully designed Serrano Hotel or the Hotel Triton, both of which belong to the business-friendly Kimpton hotel group (all properties in the chain offer complimentary high-speed Internet access). The luxury Stanford Park hotel in Menlo Park is popular for its convenient location near Stanford University—practically a game preserve for venture capitalists these days—and the high-end Stanford Shopping Center, but its English colonial decor is a tad bland. The 62-room Garden Court in Palo Alto offers more contemporary charm, with the added bonus of deal-making hub Il Fornaio on the premises.