The Vodka Soda That Made the World's 50 Best Bars in 2025
Nacho Jimenez's East Village cocktail bar took No. 2 in North America and No. 12 in the world for a reason. The Green Mango Martini, the Mole Negroni, the huitlacoche in a glass — this is the room where Mexican-American cocktail thinking is being figured out in real time.
The wall of tiny luchador masks is the first thing that lands, then the red globe lights burning over the bar, then the noise — because by 6pm on a Thursday every seat is taken. Superbueno opened on 1st Avenue in 2023 and by 2024 it was No. 2 on North America's 50 Best Bars. It held that ranking in 2025 and cleared No. 12 on the world list the same year. The queue outside is a direct consequence.
This is Nacho Jimenez's room — the bartender who built Ghost Donkey in Noho into a Mexican-cocktail benchmark before opening this one with Greg Boehm of Cocktail Kingdom. The concept is Mexican-American cocktails that use ingredients most bars won't touch: huitlacoche, mushroom, salted plum, mole, green mango, toasted corn. The food is bar-first — birria grilled cheese, fish tostada, ceviche served in a Doritos bag. Nothing here is a gesture. The program means it.
A bar ranked No. 12 in the world that still has walk-in seats at 4:30 on a Wednesday.
Editorial Deep
The Vodka y Soda is the one to order first. It sounds like a joke on the menu and it is the drink the bar is most known for — Jimenez has turned the most basic order in the American bar canon into the thing people talk about when they get home. The Green Mango Martini is the second call: pleasantly sour, finished with a whisper of chili oil that lingers without burning. The Mole Negroni does the mole-into-classic-cocktail move properly, with the bitterness carrying the chocolate instead of drowning in it. The Salted Plum Milk Punch comes out orange-pink and photographs against the luchador wall, but it drinks better than it looks. The Smoked Corn Sour — corn whiskey, tequila reposado, toasted corn, guajillo, lemon, egg white — is the one for anyone who wants the kitchen thinking on display in a single glass.
The luchador-mask wall is the anchor — dozens of tiny masks arranged floor-to-ceiling — and the red globe lights suspended over the bar do most of the atmospheric work. Fluorescent design elements pick up the color and the room reads as party-bright rather than mood-lit. There are bar seats, booths, and tables; the bar itself is where the energy sits and where the walk-in crowd lands.
This is an East Village industry-and-enthusiast crowd early — bartenders from other bars, cocktail-obsessed regulars, people who follow the bar rankings — and it broadens into an East Village party crowd after 10pm when the music shifts. Weeknights fill by 6pm. Friday and Saturday run 'nightly conga lines' at the door. If the volume and the density are the reason you came, arrive at 10; if they are the reason you'd leave, arrive at 4:30. The room does not have a quiet mode.
La Buena Hora — Monday through Thursday 4-7pm, Friday 2-7pm — takes a few dollars off select cocktails. Coming for happy hour at a bar ranked No. 12 in the world is not a downgrade; it is the move.
This is the best version of what a Mexican-American cocktail bar in New York is currently trying to be, and it is the anchor for the specific evening where you want inventive drinks, a loud room, and a crowd that came for the same thing. Come back on a Wednesday at 4:30, take a bar seat during La Buena Hora, order the Vodka y Soda and the Green Mango Martini, add the birria grilled cheese, and leave before the 10pm shift. Do not come back if you want a room where you can hear your date after 9, or if a stuffed bar and a two-person bathroom is going to sour the night — this room is packed as a matter of policy and that is not going to change.
Order this
Drink this.
Vodka y Soda, Green Mango Martini, Mole Negroni, Salted Plum Milk Punch, birria grilled cheese, fish tostada
“Come at 4:30pm on a weekday for a bar seat and the Green Mango Martini. Skip the classic Margarita — order the inventive ones the bar was built for.”
Superbueno earns its ranking. The cocktail thinking — huitlacoche, mole, green mango, salted plum, toasted corn — is the most interesting Mexican-American bar program in the city and one of the most interesting in the world. The room is loud, the bathrooms are punishing, and after 10pm it turns into an East Village party rather than a drinking room. The play is Resy for a table if you want a proper sit-down, or a bar walk-in at 4:30pm on a Monday-through-Thursday for La Buena Hora. If it's packed when you arrive, Commodore II is the nearby holding pattern. Order the Vodka y Soda first — it is the drink the whole bar hangs on — then the Green Mango Martini or the Mole Negroni.
The Verdict
