The New York Bar 50
The 50 Most Iconic Cocktail Bars in New York City.
Each February for the past two years on The Mix, I have indulged in a little experiment, drawing on my decades of experience as a Gotham barfly to tally New York’s most emblematic mixed drinks. I called it “The New York 50,” settling upon that figure as a nice round number. Gotham has so many famous tipples, it wasn’t difficult filling out the list, though it did shift from year to year as old bars disappeared and new bars arrived.
This year, I’m trying something a little different. Instead of iconic cocktails, I am rounding up iconic cocktail bars. And again the number is 50. The title of this list is “The New York Bar 50.”
What makes a cocktail bar iconic? It depends on the case. Sometimes the bar is a trailblazing original (e.g. Angel’s Share, Amor y Amargo). Sometimes it’s a perfect exemplar of a certain genre of cocktail bar (PDT). Sometimes its prominence comes from its special brand of hospitality (Katana Kitten). Sometimes it’s the decor (The Campbell) or unique atmosphere (Sunken Harbor Club). Some bars are drenched in history (Bemelmans Bar). It certainly helps if the bar is known for a particular cocktail or has a famous owner or employs a beloved bartender. Sometimes merely putting in the years as a cherished neighborhood bar does the trick. There are many roads to bar-world renown.
Below is The Mix’s 2024 compilation of what we consider the best cocktail bars in New York, listed in alphabetical order by bar name. (Keep in mind these are bars that are known for cocktails. You will find no beer bars on this list, nor wine bars, nor restaurant bars or old taverns. Those belong on a different list.)
Below each entry is a line mentioning any drinks from last year’s New York 50 that can be found at the bar in question.
Readers, your next several New York bar crawls are set!
The longtime standard bearer for craft cocktails in Harlem, this snug bar has been quietly serving up excellent drinks since 2008.
Drinks in the New York 50: New York Sazerac
The city’s OG haven of all things bitter. The bar’s beloved minuscule original digs closed last year, but the sleeker, more expansive space around the corner remains. And the drinks and host—peerless barman Sother Teague—remain tops.
Drink in the New York 50: Sharpie Mustache
The Japanese-style speakeasy to which every cocktail bar in New York owes everything. The 30-year-old icon lost its Stuyvesant Street perch in dramatic fashion (link to my NYT story) a couple years ago, but, thanks to second-generation owner Erina Yoshida, it has risen, phoenix-like, in stronger form in the West Village, with famous mural and soigné atmosphere intact.
The wellspring of the cocktail renaissance in its spectral form of Milk & Honey, which stood at this address for 13 years under the thoughtful eye of founder, the late Sasha Petraske. Since then, Petraske proteges Sam Ross and Michael McIlroy have kept the torch burning under the name of Attaboy. The attitude is looser, but the drinks are just as tight.
Drinks in the New York 50: Gold Rush, Penicillin, Paper Plane
Kenta Goto’s Lower East Side bar was one of the first of the new generation of Japanese-American style cocktail bars in New York and it remains one of the best, simultaneously friendly and formal, with every drink on the menu ringing the bell. Also, it has the best bar food in New York. Niban is just as good, but with a more relaxed Brooklyn vibe.
Drinks in the New York 50: Sakura Martini, Whiskey Highball
A wedge of Italian drinking culture (literally; the space is a narrow triangle) from the Via Carota team tucked into the heart of Greenwich Village. It is minimalist where nearby Dante is maximalist. The menu is distilled down to the essentials, with Negronis, aperitivi, Martinis, coffee, tramezzini and panini. What more do you need?
The little cocktail bar that could. True to its name, this humble neighborhood bar in Williamsburg offers a pared down menu of drinks and food and come-as-you-are hospitality from owner Jay Zimmerman. If they don’t have it, you don’t need it. Also one of the bonafide bartender’s bars in the city.
The premier hotel bar in the city and a time capsule of bygone New York glamour. The cocktails may be among the most expensive in town, but remember you’re also paying for that low-lit atmosphere, complete with Ludwig Bemelmans murals, red-jacketed bartenders and silver dishes of bar snacks.
Drinks in the New York 50: Old Cuban
An undersung Park Slope stalwart that, for many years, has punched well above its weight. Australian transplant Andy Bowtell (former bartender at Sharlene’s) owns the bar and the staff is good on classics, but there are also plenty of originals. You can also get a full meal here. It is, indeed, the blueprint for a successful neighborhood cocktail bar.
The city’s largest selection of mezcal, thanks to owner Greg Boehm’s globetrotting ways and deep pockets. There are several mezcal flights to choose from. Now equipped with the knowledgable Noah Arenstein as general manager. If you don’t like long walks, it’s best to take a car there; way over on Avenue C, it is perhaps the most remote cocktail den in the city.
The best place to go in Grand Central for a Martini before you catch that train home. And the place to linger after you’ve missed that train. It’s now just called The Campbell, but people still refer to it by its old name, The Campbell Apartment. The opulent space was indeed once the 1920s apartment of a railroad exec. Don’t forget to look up at the hand-painted coffered ceiling. The bartender with the remarkable facial hair is Paris DuRante, a Campbell institution.
One of a handful of truly classic cocktail bars in New York, this Brooklyn pioneer is a model of neoclassic cocktail culture, and the crown jewel in the empire of bar world legend Julie Reiner (Leyenda, Milady’s and the much-missed Flatiron Lounge).
Drinks in the New York 50: Gin Blossom
Two perfectly designed, Italian-style, aperitivo cafes for the lucky few who can score a seat. Both locations are always packed. The original address on MacDougal Street gets more of the tourists; the West Village location the well-heeled Village locals. Go early. But don’t feel bad about that; this may be the best day drinking spot in New York.
Drinks in the New York 50: Garibaldi, Negroni, Grasshopper
One of the most famous names in cocktails, this mash-up of a craft cocktail crucible and an elevated Irish pub, all housed inside a narrow 1828 townhouse, has something for everyone. And everyone is exactly who you’re going to find inside. If you land a seat, don’t leave without having an Irish Coffee.
Drinks in the New York 50: Irish Coffee
Dear Irving/Dear Irving on the Hudson
Twin cocoons of swanky style and stylish cocktails. The original in Gramercy Park offers rooms with different temporal backdrops, from Mad Men-era Manhattan to Marie Antoinette France. Hudson is simply the finest drinking aerie in midtown, with breathtaking views. In summer, it’s hard to tell where the bar ends and the sky begins. At both you can get the best Gibson in town.
Drinks in the New York 50: Gibson
A craft cocktail trailblazer and rare survivor from the early days of the movement, still dolling out great drinks, atmosphere and exclusivity in equal amounts. The Naked and Famous, Conference, Kingston Negroni and Oaxaca Old-Fashioned were all invented here.
Drinks in the New York 50: Oaxaca Old-Fashioned.
From an international perspective, this is the hottest cocktail bar in New York. The front-room bar, with its bright light and draft cocktails, is pleasant and breezy enough. But the posh, darkened room in back (officially The Coop)—where every drink is meant to mimic some sort of food and the bartending is theatrical—is where you want to be. Does anyone actually come here for the chicken?
Drinks in the New York 50: Food Cocktails
The first important modern cocktail bar in Queens and still probably the best. Owner Richard Boccato is arguably the staunchest defender of the legacy of Sasha Petraske, with whom he co-founded the place in 2009. The narrow, dark-wood space perfectly channels 19th-century-saloon aesthetic.
Drinks in the New York 50: Old-Fashioned
The bar that put the “party” in the craft cocktail party. It is still a revelers’ bar, a magnet for young singles. The management, meanwhile, remains resolutely old-world, with its hierarchical staffing system and white-jacketed, free-pouring bartending crew.
The synthesis of what every great neighborhood cocktail bar should be, including witty seasonal thematic cocktail menus, a deep wine list, an admirable raw bar, friendly bartenders and even a fireplace.
Drinks in the New York 50: Hard Start
This cutest of all holes-in-the-wall has one foot in the classic dive bar it was for many decades (Auden got drunk here) and one foot in the modern cocktail era it stepped into about a decade ago. And that is a very cool place to stand. The raw metal facade and small, beat-up horseshoe bar are original.
Of all the bars in town that draw on both Japanese style bartending and American style hospitality, this fun-loving, red-lit, endearingly quirky bar gets the mash-up just right, largely thanks to the example set by the always-ready-to-please owner Masahiro Urushido. Swing those lanterns!
Drinks in the New York 50: Hinoki Martini
Along with Bemelmans Bar, one of the two great old-school hotel bars still operating in Manhattan. And, as with Bemelmans, the real attraction here is the room, in the form of the massive Maxfield Parrish mural of the Old King Cole nursery rhyme. (The rest of the space is designed in Modern Hotel Blah.) The pricey cocktails are no great shakes, so stick with a Martini or the bar’s signature creation, the Red Snapper, the parent of the Bloody Mary.
Drinks in the New York 50: Red Snapper
Ivy Mix and Julie Reiner’s Latin-spirits-inspired bar serves one of the best Margaritas and Palomas in town, as well as a host of originals, including the modern classic Mai Tai spin, the Tia Mia. Get a seat near the open windows on Smith Street and watch the world go by, or retreat to the cute-as-a-button backyard in good weather.
Drinks in the New York 50: Tia Mia
Little Branch
The oldest surviving Sasha Petraske bar still operating under its original name and concept. It is also one of the most improbable spaces in the city: a dark, humid, angled warren accessed by a flight of steep steps inside a narrow triangular building. But great cocktails lie at the end of this rabbit hole. The “Bartender’s Choice” gambit started here.
Drinks in the New York 50: Bartender’s Choice
The Hotel Chelsea is old. The Lobby Bar in the hotel is not. But it looks like it’s been around since the 1890s. And it has somehow established itself as one of the best and most beautiful cocktail bars in the city in a short while. The rooms inside are many, yet it is always crowded. The drink choices are numerous, too. Don’t miss New York’s only version of London’s powerful Dukes Martini.
Drinks in the New York 50: Dukes Martini
New York’s all-city neighborhood bar, fashioned out of an old luncheonette with barely a detail altered, including the very fetching green-and-pink neon and wide front windows which let in some of the best afternoon light in the city. The median age of the veteran bartenders is high for a cocktail bar, which means the general quality of your drinks is also high.
Drinks in the New York 50: Boulevardier, Cosmopolitan
Manhattan’s invincible cocktail bar. This is its third location in nine years and with each move it gets bigger. What doesn’t change is the menu focus on specific herbs and spices. If you ever wondered who made cocktails with pandan popular, it’s French owner Nico de Soto, who, at this very moment, is flying to some obscure locale looking for new ingredients.
Drinks in the New York 50: Pandan cocktail
The closest you’re get to New Orleans while remaining in the five boroughs, complete with formal service, an old-timey atmosphere, a wide selection of absinthe, a seasonal Pimm’s Cup and lots and lots of oysters.
Drinks in the New York 50: Carandolet, King Cole Martini, MP Pimm’s Cup
A jewel box of a cocktail bar and nearly as small. But if you manage to secure one of the couple dozen seats inside this former carriage house, you’ll be treated to some of the prettiest cocktails, best bar food and polished service in the business.
Julie Reiner’s reinterpretation of the former SoHo corner bar—also called Milady’s—as a modern, everybody’s-welcome, high-low cocktail bar. Next stop: Funsville.
Drinks in the New York 50: Big Apple Martini, Little Italy
It’s sometimes hard to tell through the ever-present crowd, but there is smart bartending going on inside this noisily popular SoHo hangout. And the wheels in that big slushie machine keep on turnin’!
Drinks in the New York 50: Frozen drink
The best place in Manhattan to drink in not only the cocktails but the view. It has the best vantage point of any cocktail bar in New York, with 360-degree views of the metropolis. And if you’re looking to impress your visiting relatives, search no further.
If you like your tropical drinks big, bold and on fire, this gonzo new high-concept bar, with its tongue-in-cheek occult theme an ample special effects, is for you. Prepare to leave the real world behind.
The apex of the craft cocktail speakeasy aesthetic. The small, low-ceilinged space is still magical, and the phone-booth entrance the most famous cocktail portal in the world. Added plus: fancy hot dogs!
Drinks in the New York 50: Benton’s Old-Fashioned, Shark
The largest great cocktail bar in New York, this sprawling far-West-Side Danny Meyer venture manages to be maximalist while still attending to all the minute details that make up a first-rate cocktail joint. The drink list includes smart spins on well-known cocktails, and the bar food is across-the-board excellent. Their cocktail-oriented Book Club Series has become a must-attend for literary-minded tipplers.
Drinks in the New York 50: Gun Metal Blue
Raines Law Room/Raines Law Room at The William
Ring the buzzer for service. Close the curtains for privacy. Smile at the naughty wallpaper in the bathroom. Cocktaildom’s most romantic hideaway. The uptown location at The William hotel is more public and perfect for a pre-theater drink.
Drink in the New York 50: Wildest Redhead
Like Blueprint, one of those long-standing cocktail creators that has quietly gone about its business for years, holding down its picturesque corner of Greenpoint, surviving while other, flashier barrooms have come and gone.
Long Island Bar’s little sister bar, armed with a completely different set of attractions. Perfectly situated for all Brooklyn pre-show drinking. While there are original cocktails, Martini and Manhattan riffs are a speciality here.
The Theater District should have a dozen cozy, accessible cocktail bars like this for pre-and post-curtain tippling. Well, at least there’s one. Got rum?
The last cocktail bar Sasha Petraske set up before his untimely passing, it is, unjustly, the least known. The Red Hook location has something to do with it. But, in its way, as run by Petraske acolyte Lucinda Sterling, it is the most Petraske of bars in that, unless you know about it, you wouldn’t know it was there. The truest best kept secret in town.
This joint venture between Steve Schneider (Employees Only) and Shingo Gokan (Angel’s Share, Speak Low) has only been open a month, but it arrived fully formed, an instant hot spot. The kids are partying upstairs (Guzzle), while the adults are talking in the basement (Sip).
So small, the bar’s almost on the sidewalk. Nonetheless, this lovingly designed, Tribeca cocktail bar, housed in a former carriage house on North Moore Street, has held its ground for more than a decade. The word you’re searching for is charming.
As much an art project as a cocktail bar, the artistry in this Harlem haven by Ektoras Binikos and Simon Jutras, who are both owners and life partners, begins on the walls and extends to the drinks, which are elaborate and detailed and composed with house-made elixirs.
Drinks in the New York 50: Queen of the Desert
The name tells you everything you need to know about this “Mexican-American cocktail bar” from Ignacio Jimenez: supercharged friendliness and hospitality combined with irresistible food and drink.
Upstairs from the Gage & Tollner is this vest-pocket tropical bar from St. John Frizell, seemingly fitted into the hull of a ship. It’s a complete, airtight environment that effectively shuts out the outside world. The elaborate concoctions of bartender Garret Richard, which bring science to tiki, further aid that escape.
Drinks in the New York 50: El Diablo, Remember the Maine
For when you want to get your tropical drink on without all that Manhattan anxiousness, or those Manhattan prices. Killer frozen drinks.
Drinks in the New York 50: Frozen Painkiller
Or should we say Temple Bar 2.0? A few years ago, the team from Attaboy resurrected this iconic lower Manhattan watering hole, which fed the Manhattan masses birdbath Martinis through the 1990s and aughts. It’s more a club now than a bar, but there are still Martinis (with the option to add a caviar bump for $20) and the interior is pretty much the same.
A minimalist critics’ darling tucked on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, run by OG cocktail bartender Del Pedro (Grange Hall, Pegu Club), who is an old saloonkeeper at heart. Home of the Polar Bear Martini Club, which is all the more mysterious and cool for the fact that it never actually meets.
The early adopter of the craft cocktail movement that everyone forgets about. But it’s still there, doing what it always did inside its sui generis subway-tile interior. Founded by the elusive Kathryn Weatherup, who was trained by Sasha Petraske, and whom you should not expect to ever see. Go to the Prospect Heights location, which has the history, not the Tribeca spot.
50!! 5-0. Nice job, Simonson.
If anyone wants the list in Google Maps form: https://maps.app.goo.gl/tyRk4ETuBsZHcYb4A