The Best Places to Drink and Do in the United States

A cocktail bar with its own craft distiller's license, which means the team controls everything in the glass from the spirit up. Set in a wildly decorated corner spot in Nob Hill, Happy Accidents runs a sustainability-forward program with a menu spanning tightened-up highballs and martinis to stranger, more playful builds. Food leans New Mexican and Southern. A Spirited Awards Top 4 Finalist and a James Beard semifinalist for cocktail service in 2025.

A cocktail bar tucked above a Local Foods in Rice Village, Lee's has a retro speakeasy feel and a menu serious enough to back up the vibe. The drinks lean bitter, briny, and bracingly complex, and a separate mini-cocktail list exists for when you just want a taste. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar and on Bon Appétit's best new bars list, it draws the kind of crowd that actually reads the menu before ordering.

The wine list has a dedicated section for aged Madeira, which tells you something about the seriousness of the operation. This moody Poncey-Highland wine bar holds a Michelin selection and landed on Bon Appétit's best new bars list, but the kitchen pulls its own weight with snacks, shareable plates, and evening mains that feel seasonal without being precious. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that actually reads the back label.

A cannon hangs above the bar, which should tell you everything about how Smuggler's Cove calibrates its energy. This tiki bar on Gough is a three-floor rum fever dream of dangling puffer fish, skull-lined crates, rigging, and a salvaged Trader Vic's Boathouse sign hiding in the basement. The menu runs deep into obscure Caribbean and Pacific spirits, and the bartenders know the material cold. A James Beard Outstanding Bar nominee.

Cleaver is a steakhouse just off the Strip where the portraits are Napoleonic-era military figures, except the generals are Queen Latifah and Jack Black. The bar's cocktail menu is sorted by era, starting in the mid-1800s, and the bar team took a Spirited Award in 2024 for Best U.S. Restaurant Bar. Expect big groups, big appetites, and a mac and cheese with pork belly in it.

Princess Diana in Eagles gear hangs on the wall, a neon sign says "Never Grow Up," and somehow the kitchen is turning out steak au poivre and egg sandwiches that New York Times critics put on their Philadelphia shortlist. This all-day café runs from thick malted pancakes in the morning through hoagies built with fine-dining precision at lunch, into a full dinner menu at night. Whimsy is the decor; the cooking means it.

The Patterson House is a cocktail bar that moved up to the top of a Gulch building and traded its old library-and-cigars gloom for a sweeping room hung with deep purple curtains. After dark they pull the drapes back to show the city lights, which suits a Manhattan fine. The food menu is big enough now that the pork chop might be your whole date night, not a warm-up for dinner.

Housed in a renovated rail depot, Kimball House is a seafood restaurant and serious cocktail bar with tufted leather booths, a carved mahogany bar, and a raw bar menu running past twenty oyster varieties, complete with tasting notes so you don't have to guess. Esquire named the Kimball House martini among America's finest, which should tell you something. The kitchen runs seasonal, and dessert regularly steals the table's attention. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

The building's previous life as a massage parlor is part of the lore here, and Midnight Cowboy leans into it: press the Harry Craddock buzzer at the unmarked Sixth Street door, then slip into a dark booth for cocktails built around a mystery and spirituality theme. It's a reservation-first speakeasy, intimate by design, with a menu deep enough to require genuine deliberation. Food & Wine named it one of the top bars in the US.

A cocktail bar on Portland's tourist-heavy Wharf Street that opened with a stated mission to make the block worth visiting. The drinks lean on reworked classics, with hot dogs and bar snacks to keep things honest. The $28 Flaming Scorpion Bowl arrives in a blaze of mild chaos, which tells you the room doesn't take itself too seriously. Punch named it one of the best new bars in the country, and Esquire flagged its espresso martini among the best in America.

NightBloom is a late-night cocktail bar on St. Claude, run by the Bacchanal team, and the lighting is a coral glow flattering enough that you may forget you came to drink. The menu runs from an olive salad martini to a smoky pineapple margarita, and the bartenders will talk playlists with you. Some nights there are dance parties or custom nail art, and a dog may adopt your table. Eater named it Best New Bar.

Chandelier Bar is the glamorous hotel lobby bar at the foot of Canal Street, all marble, crystal, and gold fittings, with a chandelier big enough to have lent its name and its crystal to the martini glass. Cognac shows up in the cocktails, including a fortified sazerac, and the bartenders are nicer than the surroundings strictly require. The potato chips arrive free, so dinner can technically be skipped.

Absinthe fountains line the curved bar at this jewel-box cocktail bar steps from St. Louis Cathedral in the Lower Pontalba Building. Oysters and caviar share menu space with a martini that landed on Esquire's national list, and a vintage chandelier keeps the whole room at a glow. It opens at eleven in the morning and closes at ten, the upstairs neighbors having apparently drawn a firm line.

Pink and purple neon sets the mood at this intimate cocktail bar, which leans hard into '80s New York nostalgia. Your drink arrives in whatever ceramic vessel the bartender feels like, a bunny, a donut with a handle, something stranger. The menu spans highballs, zero-proof options, and signatures like a blue cheese martini, but the real move is handing the bartender your preferences and letting them pull from a catalog of a thousand recipes.

The custom-designed everything, down to the furniture, signals that True Laurel takes itself seriously, which would be more insufferable if the drinks weren't so good. This cocktail bar and restaurant from the Lazy Bear team lands at number 14 on North America's 50 Best Bars list. Small plates rotate with the seasons, and the bar program is tight, inventive, and the clear reason most people show up.

Dark green walls, framed art, and a room that somehow feels like midnight at noon, ViceVersa is a Neapolitan pizza and cocktail bar tucked just off the lobby of the Elser Hotel. The thin-crust pies are the anchor, but the bar program is the real argument for staying. The affogato martini landed on Esquire's radar, and the place sits on North America's 50 Best Bars list. A James Beard nominee for Best New Bar in 2025, too.

The big neon sign out front survived the gap years when nothing else did, and it still draws you in off Atlantic Avenue. This Art Deco bar in Cobble Hill has been around forever, and Toby Cecchini, the bartender who invented the Cosmopolitan, brought it back to life with the booths and floral wallpaper more or less intact. The kitchen does a Reuben and a double-patty burger, but the cocktails are what fill the room on a Tuesday.

Stone crab claws and bone marrow vinaigrette on a classic steakhouse menu is a pretty good summary of what Little River is doing right now. Sunny's leans into the old-meets-new Florida aesthetic hard, and the room hums with a crowd that dressed for it. The steaks come in shareable or individual cuts, the sides include russet potatoes fried in chicken schmaltz, and the martini program landed on Esquire's national list. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List for 2025.

A tiny tiki bar tucked into Wailuku well off the resort circuit, Esters Fair Prospect pours tropical cocktails from a patio that feels like it was built for lingering. The drink list leans into local ingredients, including okolehao, a plantation-era spirit made from tī root. Food & Wine named it one of the top bars in the US in 2025. Bar snacks, ceramic mermaid cups, and happy hour daiquiris round out the picture.

Fried chicken wings stuffed with andouille dirty rice tell you everything about this Southern-leaning cocktail bar and dining room in the Jay Hotel. The chef's Alabama roots show up in pimento cheese dressed with trout roe and banana cream pie reimagined as a chocolate-pretzel tartlet, dishes that straddle Sunday supper and something more deliberate. The room is dusky and quietly glamorous, the kind of place that makes a Tuesday feel like a reason to dress up.

Sierra Nevada's East Coast brewery comes with a sprawling taproom where the beer list runs from flagship lagers to whatever they're playing with this season. The on-site garden supplies the kitchen, which does wood-fired pizza and duck-fat fries alongside the pints, but drinking is the point. Outside there's a patio with a fire pit, a bocce court, cornhole, and an amphitheater, which sounds like overkill until you're on your third flight.

Vaughan's is a Bywater dive where the Mardi Gras tinsel never comes down and Thursday nights mean a brass band that doesn't start until 10:30. The red beans and rice are free, which makes it easier to stay on the dance floor with whichever neighborhood regular grabs your hand first. The owners live nearby and have run the place for decades, so the community events and Pride tea dances feel more like hosting than programming.

Polished marble, low lighting, and plush fabrics signal exactly the kind of cocktail bar that doesn't care about honky-tonk clichés. Four Walls sits inside The Joseph Nashville, but it operates on its own logic, one that skews global and sleek while the rest of the city leans into its cowboy boots. Esquire put it on their Best Bars in America list, and Food & Wine ranked it among the top hotel bars in the country.

Velvet booths, globe lights, and wallpaper that belongs in a Left Bank salon set the mood at this Fulton Market cocktail bar, one of the few standalone drinking spots on a street that is otherwise all restaurants. The Paris-in-the-sixties premise runs through everything: French wines, classic martinis, caviar with chips. Named to North America's 50 Best Bars and a James Beard semifinalist, Bisous earns its kisses.

The salad arrives spinning in a metal bowl over ice chips, which tells you everything about how this prime rib shop operates. Servers wheel cuts of roast beef tableside and carve thick slabs to order, with mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and gravy all part of the deal. Ask for the English cut if you want thinner, juicier slices. The martinis have their own reputation. An old-school institution that treats a Tuesday like a special occasion.

The newspaper-themed menu doubles as a history lesson on the Sunset Strip, which fits, given the leather booths and vintage vinyl setup of this dimly lit neighborhood cocktail bar. Signature drinks are named for local landmarks, the Viper Room, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the like, and priced like someone actually wants you to have a second one. Named to Wildsam's 50 Most Essential Bars in America, it trades the Strip's usual gloss for something considerably more worn-in.

A former auto garage with a butcher-paper cocktail menu still hanging above the makeshift kitchen, Liquid Diet is a creative cocktail bar where the bartenders juice and blend everyday ingredients into drinks that read like a dare. Bell pepper martinis, key lime sippers, banana bread cocktails with cookie shards frozen into chiseled ice cubes. Esquire named it one of the best bars in America, and curious tourists and pub crawlers seem to be putting that to the test nightly.

A cocktail bar in the Financial District built around the legend of John Morrissey, a bare-knuckle Irish immigrant who ran one of the city's rougher gangs in the 1800s. The menu reads like a graphic novel, each volume dropping the Rabbit into a new era of New York's murkier chapters. The drinks are theatrical without being silly, and the Irish pub downstairs keeps things grounded for anyone who just wants a pint.

You enter through the back of a neighboring cafe, down a hallway, through a wooden door, and suddenly you're somewhere else entirely. This moody Oak Cliff speakeasy-style cantina stocks only bottles sourced from Mexico, and the cocktail menu is organized by historical era, walking you through the evolution of Mexican drinking culture. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist, it also does pre-Hispanic Oaxacan small plates for when the mezcal needs company.

Dark wood, sink-in seating in bold colors, and cocktail names that tip you off early: this is a cocktail bar that wants you to stay longer than you planned. The menu leans playful and genuinely inventive, and the room has enough tucked corners for a long conversation. A James Beard Best New Bar semifinalist and an Esquire Best Bars pick, it earns both without trying too hard about either.

A converted cottage on McDowell Road that smells faintly of old rugs and good intentions, Sauvage is a natural wine bar and bottle shop where the list leans toward obscure regions and the staff will talk you through all of it. Charcuterie and tinned fish are always on hand, and local chefs occasionally pop up to cook. Esquire named it one of the best bars in America, which the room, unhurried and candlelit, seems entirely unbothered by.

Standby is a cocktail bar you reach by ducking down the Belt Alley and heaving open a pair of ponderous doors, which makes ordering a martini feel like a minor heist. The menu sorts drinks by mood, from "Purist" to "Certified Bangers," so nobody has to explain themselves to a bartender. Matty Matheson of The Bear built the food menu. It's dim, polished, and worth a Resy booking.

A hundred classics and eight seasonal originals on the cocktail menu, which is either a philosophy or a dare. This is the Houston cocktail bar that regulars will tell you changed the city's drinking culture, and they are not wrong to say it. The brass-accented room runs loud and energetic, the staff can talk you through any corner of that list, and the salty snacks exist to keep you at the bar longer.

The name comes from Milton, and the bar takes the premise seriously: this is a tropical hellscape, not a luau. Paradise Lost is a tiki bar in the East Village that keeps the piña coladas and mai tais but drops the cheerful kitsch for something a little more Beelzebub. The décor leans sinister in ways that reward a second look. Esquire named it one of the best bars in America in 2024, and the Spirited Awards shortlisted it for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar.

The Txuletón, a Basque-style ribeye from mature dairy cows, grilled over open charcoal with salt, heat, and not much else, is the organizing principle of this Basque-inspired chophouse in River North. The kitchen takes its cues from the asador tradition, applying that discipline to seriously sourced beef, carefully aged. Spanish reds anchor the wine list. Esquire named it among the best new restaurants in America, and it lands at number 15 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

A corner wine bar in a rambling old house in the Bywater, with a backyard that somehow becomes the whole point. The wine list roams globally and you buy bottles at the shop counter, then take them outside where live music is usually happening and the vibe is somewhere between dinner party and block party. Cheese plates, light bites, no dress code implied. Named among the 50 most essential bars in America by Wildsam.

There's no sign on Eldridge Street, just a faux tailor's shop window with a glowing "A" and a buzzer you'll wait at long enough to second-guess yourself. This is the cocktail bar that opened in the old Milk & Honey space after Sasha Petraske moved on, and it runs on the same no-menu, tell-us-what-you-like philosophy. North America's 50 Best Bars lists it, and the wait outside on any given night suggests people have read that list.

The hook here is a tabletop grill: you cook your own steak, then order a freezer martini cold enough to make your teeth ache. The Butterscotch Den calls itself a "fine dive bar," and the label does the work, precision cocktails and live jazz alongside hot dogs and fondue. Esquire named its freezer martini among the top in America, and the crowd seems to know it, treating the whole room like a very good secret they've stopped keeping.

A four-tap absinthe drip at the center of the bar is a replica of the one at the Absinthe House in New Orleans, and that tells you most of what you need to know. Maison Premiere is a cocktail and oyster bar in Williamsburg that commits fully to the bit: dim golden light, mock antique everything, marble bar top, the faint sense that you've wandered into another city and century. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars list, which tracks.

Two buildings knocked into one give Scofflaw two distinct personalities: an industrial front room with the bar counter, and a Victorian-ish back room with wingback armchairs that somehow doesn't feel ironic. It's a gin-focused cocktail bar in Logan Square that also leans dive, with craft beer and pub grub to prove it. Expect a line on weekends; they don't take reservations, and forty minutes is a reasonable opening bid.

The Columns is a hotel bar on Saint Charles with chandeliers the size of small cars and antique furniture that makes a glass of house wine feel like an occasion. Esquire has put its martini on a list of the country's best. The porch is the move on a slow afternoon, with a drink in hand and the streetcar rolling past every few minutes like a very slow parade. Dress nicely, but nobody will check.

Wood-paneled walls, low ceilings, and stacks of empty beer cans that the owners drank themselves make this Gateway District beer bar feel like a 1970s Midwest den that somehow got transplanted to Las Vegas. The rotating draft list is the point, and bartenders will steer you through it without making you feel like a student. The Underberg shot at the end is apparently non-negotiable. Wildsam named it one of the 50 most essential bars in America.

Tiger Bar is a gin-leaning cocktail bar on Gallatin Pike dressed as a 1930s carnival sideshow, and it commits without tipping into costume party. There's a mystery cocktail wheel you can spin to let fate pick your drink, which saves you from the menu and also from yourself. The Flamin' Hot Mozz Sticks have a Nashville Scene award, and Esquire put the place on its list of America's bars.

Low ceilings with thick wood beams, amber light, and banquettes that make every table feel like a booth in the back of someone's private club. Bartolo is a Spanish restaurant in the West Village, the kind where you order oxtail braised in red wine and suckling pig and let the table fill up. The martini list has its own following, and the servers are sharp enough to keep a long night moving without making it feel rushed.

The dirty martini here landed on Esquire's list of the finest in the country, which tracks: the bar occupies the old Picasso space at the Bellagio, with the fountains putting on their show just outside. It's the cocktail outpost of the Carbone empire, so the room skews dressed-up and the pours skew generous. Order the martini, watch the water, and feel no obligation to explain yourself.