The Best Places to Drink and Do in the United States

A French-Japanese bistro in an Arts District warehouse, where the croque-madame arrives on house-made shokupan with ham katsu standing in for the ham. The team behind sake-focused Japanese spots has gone full Paris here, or almost full Paris, because the ponzu jelly scattered over the burrata keeps reminding you exactly where you are. Come for an aperitif and stay until the kitchen stops feeding you.

Coral Club is a cocktail bar on the East Side, a short walk from Five Points, that goes for beachfront in a spot where Gallatin Pike is the only shoreline. It manages with mellow lighting, low-key decor, and a rooftop patio. The list runs from a gin-lemon Seasonal Fix to a straightforward Old Fashioned, plus a zero-proof option. It took Best New Cocktail Bar from the Nashville Scene.

The cocktail menu lists a drink called the Big Booty Trudy, which tells you exactly what kind of bar this is: East Dallas neighborhood spot, dressed up but never stiff. The drinks lean classic and a little cheeky, the bar food skews surprisingly serious, with a rotating kitchen pop-up from a James Beard-nominated chef. Furikake fries alongside a Mai Tai is a more natural pairing than it sounds.

The menu at this Bucktown coffee and cocktail bar is split in two: morning drinks for one crowd, evening drinks for another, with cold brew threading through both halves. The food runs from pizza bagels to caviar, which tells you something about the room's sense of humor. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar in 2025, Truce has figured out that the best argument for staying all day is not having to change venues.

The bar and tables at this Capitol Hill cocktail bar were stained with Angostura bitters, which tells you where the priorities lie. Behind the bar, shelves climb to the pressed tin ceiling holding one of the deepest spirit collections in the country, including pre-Prohibition bottles most bars only dream about. Edison bulbs, speakeasy nostalgia, and a room that takes itself seriously without quite winking about it.

The mahogany bar dates to 1906, which means it survived the earthquake and a few other things San Francisco would rather not discuss. Comstock is an old-school cocktail bar in North Beach, all wicker ceiling fans shaped like steamboat paddles, vintage drink signs, and a piano someone actually winched up to the balcony so the music drifts down. Pickled eggs and rye toast handle the eating. The martinis have a following.

Donna's is a cocktail bar on White Oak where the evening's main activity is relaying other people's drinks over your head while inching toward the rail. Seats are guarded by strangers who hover with the patience of vultures, and a Fridge Cig, an Old Fashioned built on dark rum and cherry cola, is what you'll be holding when you finally win one. It was a Spirited Awards Top 10 nominee for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar.

The bar actually rotates, one full revolution every fifteen minutes, carried on 2,000 steel rollers by a quarter-horsepower motor. It's a cocktail bar inside the old Monteleone Hotel on Royal Street, and the canopy above the 25-seat circular bar was carved by a carousel craftsman, which explains a lot. New Orleans being New Orleans, nobody finds this strange. It's a strong argument for arriving early enough to feel the room slowly turn.

A Harlem cocktail bar run by artists, which explains why the drinks feel less like menu items and more like installation pieces. The house forager supplies wild edible plants that become bitters, liqueurs, and amari made in-house, so what ends up in your glass has a provenance most bars can't claim. The room is cozy and unhurried, and the crowd tends to treat the cocktail list the way other people treat gallery notes.

Red lights, pool tables, a game room, and flatbreads until 2 a.m.: The Little Woody refuses to be just one kind of place, and Arcadia has loved it for years because of that. It's a dive bar with cocktail lounge bones, where dart nights blur into dancing and the Gun Shy Sour keeps the bourbon crowd happy. Weekend nights draw a younger crowd who treat the arcade games as warmly as the drinks.

At five o'clock on the dot, a perfume shop inside a Victorian mansion in Midtown folds itself into an 18-seat cocktail bar. Castalia is built around the idea that smell and taste are basically the same argument, pairing its seasonal experimental cocktails with scents from its sister perfume house. The room holds fewer people than a dinner party, which tends to focus everyone's attention on what's in the glass.

Nocturno is a low-lit Arts District cocktail bar with a menu of over 100 drinks, which is a lot of homework before your first sip. Sit at the bar instead and the bartender will quiz you on your favorite spirit, then turn it into something like mezcal with honey and chili. The kitchen sends out gnocchi and a fried potato tower, and the smash burger shows up only on Sundays. It was a James Beard Best New Bar semifinalist.

The deep whiskey list is the tell: Nickel City is a cocktail bar that takes its drinks seriously without taking itself seriously. An Austin transplant now rooted in the East End, it pulls off the trick of being a genuine neighborhood hangout and a credible bar program at the same time. Hot dogs and mozzarella sticks handle the rest. A Top 10 U.S. Nominee at the Spirited Awards keeps the credentials honest.

A faded pink building off Seventh Avenue, formerly a tax office, which tracks: there's something a little bureaucratic about a jukebox this good. Inside, the bar is cheap, loose, and happy to stay that way, with Scrabble at the booths and beers that don't require a budget meeting. The patio shifts into DJ territory after dark, and the rotating calendar of themed nights keeps regulars checking Instagram like it's homework.

Art deco bones and a sparkling wine list longer than most bars have wines: Marietta Proper is a wine bar on the historic square that also does cocktails, whiskeys, coffee, and a short food menu of sandwiches and pastries. The team behind it includes a sommelier, which shows. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar in 2025, it draws the kind of crowd that knows the difference between pét-nat and Champagne and orders both.

Rum on tap and ropa vieja on the menu: Otto's High Dive is a neighborhood rum bar in a whitewashed brick room that feels like Old Florida never really left. The kitchen runs a short Cuban-Floridian menu with tropical leanings, and the daiquiris come by the pitcher if you've committed to the evening. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this unfussy and this easy to love.

Blowfish sculptures and boats hanging from the ceiling set the tone before you've ordered a thing. Adrift is a full-commitment tiki bar on South Broadway, with bamboo walls, fishing-net lights, and totem carvings doing their best to convince you Denver isn't landlocked. Cocktails arrive in coconuts, flaming punchbowls, or funky mugs, running from Zombies and Singapore Slings to seasonal originals leaning on cachaca, sherry, and cacao. Spam musubi keeps things honest.

A wine bar in RiNo that keeps fried chicken and tinned fish on the menu alongside Khikhvi, Nerello Mascalese, and a Mencía from Oregon that has no business being that good. The list leans hard into natural, biodynamic, and small-production bottles, and the staff can talk you through all of it without making you feel like a student. Grape nerds and people who just want a glass with snacks coexist peacefully here.

The bookstore on the corner of Tejon is not a bookstore. Push the right shelf and you're inside one of Denver's favorite cocktail bars, a speakeasy that takes both halves of the conceit seriously: a library of over 500 spirits backs a menu of originals alongside some 60 classics. No standing room means the wait is part of the deal, so arrive with patience and someone to talk to while you queue.

A portrait of an imperial bulldog greets you at the door, which is a fair warning. Pony Up is a cocktail bar in LoDo that earns its personality through drinks like a tequila-shochu-sherry situation spiked with Korean chili paste, and shots of George Dickel chased with roast-beef jus. That jus comes from the kitchen, which runs French dips as its signature, an odd pairing that somehow makes complete sense by the second round.

You reach it by taking the middle elevator in the Ten-0-One Building down to the basement, which sets the tone before the doors even open. Rough Rider is a cocktail bar with a full food menu, done up in dark wood and high ceilings, somewhere between a Victorian gentlemen's club and a downtown Phoenix speakeasy. The drinks lean into the era with names like Happy Birthday Mr. President, and the kitchen sends out a raw bar and a bone-in pork chop that suggest nobody phoned it in.

Desert-toned walls and a condensed, always-shifting wine list set the mood at this neo-bistro and wine bar on Seventh Street. The team pulls from old and new world bottles for both pours and a rotating spritz selection, while small plates from the kitchen give you a reason to stay for another glass. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that actually talks to the table next to them.

Southern cooking and a cocktail program that pours buttermilk and benne seed into the glass share equal billing at this casual Five Points restaurant and bar. The chef runs with heirloom grits and collard greens but also hot-and-sour catfish and sorghum-tamarind pork shoulder, so the kitchen respects the tradition without being hostage to it. The team behind the preeminent cocktail bar Yacht Club runs the drinks side, which explains the ambition in a room that looks relaxed about the whole thing.

You ring an unmarked bell on an unmarked door below street level, and that's the whole game announced before you've ordered a drink. Inside, this cocktail bar in Chelsea is all deep armchairs, shaded lamps, a fireplace, and curtained alcoves fitted with a buzzer to summon your server when you're ready. It's a speakeasy setup done without irony, and the room is quiet enough that people actually talk to each other.

The wine list leans natural, the cocktails are craft, and the menu changes often enough that regulars rarely order the same thing twice. Copper Common is a wine bar and restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City, from the team behind the Copper Onion next door, and the kitchen ranges widely, pairing sharply drawn flavors without making a fuss about it. Salt Lake Magazine named it one of the city's top restaurants.

Curried goat over sweet potato gnocchi is the dish that quietly explains Nina Compton's whole project here. This Caribbean-inflected restaurant sits inside a converted coffee warehouse in the Warehouse Arts District, all exposed brick and mosaic tile, and the menu pulls together her St. Lucia roots, New Orleans flavors, and stints in Florida kitchens. The bar holds its own, and the service runs warm enough that a James Beard Outstanding Hospitality semifinalist nod makes a certain sense.

Two million crystals drape from floor to ceiling across three floors, which is either maximalist or just correct for Las Vegas. The Chandelier is a cocktail lounge inside the Cosmopolitan, and each level is technically its own bar, from the casino-facing ground floor up to the quieter top lounge. Ask for the Verbena, an off-menu drink with a buzz button flower that momentarily numbs your mouth before the cocktail lands.

The Beef & Liberty Bar is the second-floor cocktail room of a London steakhouse that took over a restored River North building, all barrel-vaulted ceilings and jewel-toned booths. It's known for sub-zero martinis served cold enough to count as a personality trait, plus a happy hour with Reuben nuggets. Expect dressed-up regulars and a bar program that landed a Top 10 Nominee spot for U.S. Bartender of the Year.

Exposed brick, custom tile floors, and floor-to-ceiling wine storage fill what was once a 19th-century print shop, now a Michelin-starred fine dining room in the West Loop. Chef Andrew Zimmerman folds Southeast Asian, Korean, and Mediterranean instincts into American cooking without making it a thesis. Wine Enthusiast put the cellar in its Restaurant Hall of Fame, and the room's warm enough that you'd never know you were being impressed.

Sichuan Garden fed Brookline Village for two decades before the family's son, a bartender with a James Beard-nominated bar pedigree, took over the front of house and made it a cocktail bar. The drinks lean tropical, lots of rum and agave, threaded through with Sichuan flavors that have no business working this well together. The Spirited Awards named the bar team a Regional Top 10 Honoree, which tracks.

Leopard print, bamboo pagodas, faux foliage, and video poker embedded in the bar top: this Chinatown tiki bar on Spring Mountain Road commits to the bit completely. The strip-mall address keeps the tourist bustle down, so the stools fill with off-shift locals who treat it like their living room. The drinks are tropical and potent, the kitsch is sincere rather than ironic, and the whole place feels like Vegas decided to throw a luau and never stopped.

Gold hands serve as beer taps, jewel-toned decanters fill a Queen Anne cabinet, and the wallpaper is not quite what it seems. Velveteen Rabbit is a cocktail bar in the Arts District that takes the storybook theme seriously without going precious about it: seasonal menus, vintage glassware, and drinks rooted in Golden Age mixology. The patio and light-projected walls are draws on their own. Weekends fill up, so book ahead.

Johnny's Gold Brick is a tiny rectangular cocktail bar in the Heights, and it makes the most of the floor plan. A dozen classics run under $10, and the seasonal drinks top out around $15, some of them set on fire while you watch. There's a mushroom-infused rum drink for the savory crowd, and the music stays low enough that nobody has to shout, which is a bigger selling point than it sounds.

A donkey illustration on an easy-to-miss door inside the Cosmopolitan's Block 16 Food Hall is all the signage this dimly lit agave bar bothers with. Red string lights, floral murals, and a serious list of tequilas and mezcals fill the rest of the room. The nachos come loaded with toppings that make you look twice at the menu. Time Out named it one of the best bars in Las Vegas, which feels about right for somewhere this committed to being hard to find.

Old Glory is a candlelit cocktail bar in a former industrial steam plant, where the old boiler still sits in the corner and a coal hopper hangs overhead like a very heavy chandelier. Weeknights are quiet and date-friendly, while weekends turn the floor into a dance party. The drinks are spirit-forward, and the monthly lineup of drag, circus acts, and jazz nights suggests the boiler has seen weirder things than you.

Attaboy is a speakeasy cocktail bar in East Nashville, tucked into a concrete-block building that looks like it services HVAC units. There's no menu. The bartenders ask what you like to drink and what kind of day you've had, then handle the rest, like a therapist who works in rye. It's the Nashville sibling of the New York original, and its bar team earned a regional honor from the Spirited Awards.

The blenders run constantly at this French Quarter-edge daiquiri bar, which lifts its whole aesthetic from Havana's legendary Floridita. The decor, the food, and the drinks list all commit to the bit: Cuban classics like El Presidentes and daiquiris in several frozen variations, served in a room small enough that you're on nodding terms with the bartender by round two. A Spirited Awards Regional Honoree for Best U.S. Cocktail Bar.

To get into this speakeasy cocktail bar inside the Horseshoe, you pick up a phone, answer a riddle, and crawl through an entrance. The bar itself looks like a haunted Victorian study, shelves packed with odd artifacts and enough atmosphere to make you forget you're technically in a casino basement. Cocktails run strong and strange, and there's a dedicated mixology classroom if you want to learn why your drink tastes like that.

A rum library with over 150 bottles and a dedicated room that walks you through the sugarcane-to-bottle story before you order. This cocktail bar inside the Collins Avenue strip leans Prohibition-era in its feel, with leather couches, cozy booths, and a patio sized for golden hour. The rum flights lean into Florida producers. You don't need to arrive knowing your agricole from your molasses; the bar is built for learning on the job.

The Fox is an East Nashville cocktail bar on Gallatin Pike where the snacks are taken more seriously than the name suggests. A build-your-own charcuterie board and a plate of miso deviled eggs, which people tend to order twice, make up the dinner for plenty of regulars, and a vegan menu means nobody gets stuck with the garnish. It's the Nashville Scene's pick for Best Girl Dinner, and a Spirited Awards regional honoree for its bar team.

Tucked below the Dairy Block, this cocktail bar serves its menu on a deck of playing cards, which tells you everything about the room before you've ordered. Plush banquettes, leather chairs, patterned wallpaper, and cabinets of rare vintage bottles conspire to make it feel like a speakeasy that never quite left. The martini section alone could occupy an evening, and the reserve cocktails lean into vintage spirits for those feeling loose with their wallet.

Every cocktail at this Korean cocktail bar in Greenwood comes with a small surprise, none more literal than the Glimpse of Divinity, garnished with a Polaroid of you drinking it. The menu is built around Korean flavors and spirits, and the kitchen's Korean-inspired plates were made to sit alongside them. A Spirited Awards Regional Honoree for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar in 2024, it punches well above its neighborhood bar footprint.

You find it in a basement beneath an alleyway off 6th Street, which is all part of the point. Here Nor There is a speakeasy cocktail bar where the menu rotates around a high concept, past themes like color theory and global exploration, with drinks that take real kitchen-level prep to pull off. Exposed brick, dim lighting, and enough tucked-away corners to make the chaos of Dirty Sixth feel very far away.

Arizona-focused taproom on Indian School Road where the tap list reads like a field guide to the state's small producers: Superstition Meadery, Stoic Cider, Wren House, Arizona Wilderness, all alongside limited releases from further afield. The vibe is beer-geek friendly without being beer-geek insufferable, and the staff can actually explain what's on without making you feel like a tourist in your own city.

Kiesling is a cozy neighborhood cocktail bar in a building that has been a general store, a saloon, and a cop bar, and it kept the woodwork, the brick, and a hand-painted mural found during renovation. The list is classic drinks with a twist, but a $6 beer and shot special keeps it unfussy. A small patio opens in warmer months, and it has been a Spirited Awards regional honoree.

The back bar holds what might be the most bewildering collection of vintage Italian Fernet you'll encounter outside of Milan. Billy Sunday is a polished amaro and cocktail bar in Logan Square, narrow and dark-wooded, with green walls and vintage lamps that suggest a gentlemen's club that loosened up considerably. The bar stools fill early with people who know their bitter spirits, and the classically built cocktails give them good reason to stay.

Backbar is a cocktail bar tucked down a concrete hallway behind a steel door in Union Square, which is how you know the drinks are serious. Weekends bring a line of people waiting to find out what the menu is themed around this month, sometimes an animation studio, with drinks named for scenes. Tell the bartender your mood and let them handle the translation, because the ingredient lists read like a botany final.

Low-lit and unhurried on Magazine Street at the edge of the Lower Garden District, Barrel Proof is a neighborhood whiskey and cocktail bar that lets its bottles do the talking. The bourbon list runs deep, the cocktail menu stays short and confident, and food comes from rotating pop-ups rather than a kitchen. A James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurateur, which is an unusual nod for a place this deliberately unshowy.

Barrel Proof is a small Germantown bar where the name tells you what's on the shelf and the wall of brown liquor does the rest. Seasonal cocktails and a covered patio make it easy to lose an afternoon, and the crowd runs from post-workout regulars to birthday tables to tourists trying to figure out bourbon. The kimchi-loaded fries with sambal mayo are the move, especially at happy hour.

Little Five Points' go-to soccer bar, Brewhouse draws Atlanta United faithful and international match crowds to a room that takes cricket and rugby as seriously as the Premier League. The beer list runs deep across local, domestic, and imported options, and the Painkiller cocktail comes in three levels of commitment. Wings, nachos, and fish and chips keep things grounded. Wear whatever you'd wear to the match.