Misterioso is a 1958 live album by American jazz ensemble the Thelonious Monk Quartet. By the time of its recording, pianist and bandleader Thelonious Monk had overcome an extended period of career difficulties, including the loss of his cabaret card. After a six-month residency at the New York City's Five Spot Café in 1957, he returned the following year for a second stint with his quartet, featuring drummer Roy Haynes, bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Along with Thelonious in Action (1958), Misterioso captured portions of the ensemble's August 7 show at the venue.

The title of Misterioso referred to Monk's reputation as an enigmatic, challenging musician. The album's cover art, which appropriated Giorgio de Chirico's 1915 painting The Seer, was part of Riverside's attempt to capitalize on Monk's popularity with listeners such as the intellectual and bohemian audiences at the Five Spot Café. The record features four of his earlier compositions, which Monk reworked live. It was one of the first successful live recordings of his music and was produced by Orrin Keepnews, who said that Monk played more distinctly than on his studio albums in response to the audience's enthusiasm.

Misterioso was released in 1958 by Riverside Records to a mixed critical reaction; reviewers complimented Monk's performance but were critical of Griffin, whose playing they felt was out of place with the quartet. The album was remastered and reissued in 1989 and 2012 by Original Jazz Classics, and has since received retrospective acclaim from critics, some of whom viewed Griffin's playing as the record's highlight.

After twenty years of career struggles and obscurity, Thelonious Monk had become a jazz star with a residency at the Five Spot Café in New York City's East Village. In his first stable job in years, he helped transform the small bar into one of the city's most popular venues, as it attracted bohemians, hipsters, and devout fans of Monk's music. His employment there was a result of an appeal by his manager Harry Colomby to the State Liquor Authority (SLA) to restore Monk's cabaret card. Monk was stripped of the card in 1951 when he was convicted of narcotics possession; he had refused to betray his friend and pianist Bud Powell to the police after they discovered Powell's glassine envelope of heroin laying beside Monk's feet in the car of Powell's female companion.

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