New York
Sixty-one New York bars, grouped by what you want tonight — the drink, the room, the history, or somewhere still open.
Two of these rooms are ranked in their own right: The 23 Best Cocktail Bars in New York takes the drink first, and The 22 Bar Institutions in New York takes the twenty-year floor.
Cocktail-first
Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2026 Spirited Awards, and priced like a neighborhood joint. Go early or on a weeknight — the door is walk-in only and the wait has grown.
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.
The city's best bitter-and-stirred bar, entered through a shop most people walk past.
Two bars behind one door, and the most inventive cocktail programme to open in NYC last year.
The Brooklyn cocktail bar every other Brooklyn cocktail bar measures against.
Best classics bar in the West Village. Walk-in, cash safer than a card, worth the format.
Go on a weeknight at 5pm sharp for one of the best cocktail programs in New York dressed as a pirate ship.
The best martini in Brooklyn, poured in a preserved 1951 diner. Walk in midweek by 6pm.
Book the garden in season, take the bar in winter, order the Absinthe Colada either way.
The original New York Japanese speakeasy, thirty years on, still running the rules.
A skyline cocktail room where the entry protocol is part of the price of the view.
Humm's upstairs bar is the most considered cocktail room New York has opened since the Aman.
Book the Coop for the signature menu. Skip the Front Room queue unless you're passing through before nine.
The best NA cocktail program in Brooklyn, doubling as a serious full-proof bar.
A disciplined Japanese cocktail bar with thirty seats and one of the prettiest drinks in the city.
A small Brudnizki room and a serious cocktail programme, priced for the neighborhood and best before dinner.
Go for the martini and the meatball. Book Resy 30 days out or take a bar seat early.
Technical cocktails, flat pricing, no theatre. Come on a weeknight and sit at the bar.
Ivy Mix's Crown Heights wine bar runs the cheapest way to drink well in Brooklyn and a backyard that rewards the walk.
Go for the Hinoki Martini before 7pm. Skip late-weekend when the room turns into a standing party.
Ryan Chetiyawardana's NoMad debut is doing the most technical cocktail work in the neighbourhood, in a room that knows what it is.
The herb-and-spice cocktail bar that justifies its Greenwich Village address, if you time it right.
Go for oysters at happy hour and one round off the themed list.
Julie Reiner's cocktail program hiding behind a dive-bar sign. Come for the martini before the room gets loud.
Institutions
One of the oldest dive bars in New York, still pouring cheap beer and handing over a free hot dog with each one. Bring cash.
A 135-year-old Red Hook saloon that trades a craft cocktail program for a live band and a room that cannot be built. Bring cash.
The bar that wrote the modern cocktail rulebook, still fluent in it.
Book two months out or take the Dowling's shortcut — the room earns it, the bill does not.
The best negroni programme in New York, in a room that has been on Macdougal since 1915.
The Manhattan holds, the kitchen runs to 3am, and the walk-in line is the price of admission.
The tavern with New York's oldest claim, with a thousand whiskeys and three walk-in bars worth choosing over the dining rooms.
Go on a weeknight before 7pm for the pickle martini and happy hour. Skip weekend nights unless standing in a crowded room is the point.
Sit at the bar, order a Manhattan, remember why the room has lasted 140 years.
A landmarked gay bar with a real burger and a martini worth the stool.
Book the back room on Resy, order the 1864 Ale, skip the front bar entirely.
The last outdoor beer garden in NYC, run by the Czech society that built it in 1910. Go Sunday afternoon.
Go for the room, the burger, and 197 years of pouring by the tavern's own count. Not for cocktail bartending as a discipline.
Go on a weekday afternoon. Skip on a Friday night.
Go before 8 PM for the pint, the ceiling, and the seat under the canopy. Skip after 8.
Go once for the history and a Friday drag show upstairs. Skip if you came for the cocktails.
Beer
The seat of serious beer culture in Brooklyn — go on a weekday, sit at the marble, and let the bartender pour.
The best beer bar in New York with no kitchen of its own — because the kitchen is the whole market around it.
Hotel & palace
Go for the Potocki. Skip the headline Pappy Old Fashioned unless someone else is paying.
The best atrium in New York, with a marble bar and a Colicchio kitchen underneath it. Sit at the bar, order a Martini and the burger, and look up.
A first drink before dinner
Go for one strong round before dinner or a show — the subway entrance is the gimmick, the classics are the reason.
Tiki
The horror-tiki room that earns its theatre because the drinks would hold up without it.
Late & loud
Go for the Greek Salad Tini and stay for Shenanigans downstairs.
Cocktail-bar drinks at cocktail-bar prices in a dive-bar costume. Book a booth, arrive before 8, and the math works.
Wine
The LES's original natural wine bar, still worth the walk-in — before 7pm.
A tabac that justifies its wine list and its Steak Frites, if you arrive early enough to sit down.
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