The Best Places in New York

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. Eater The Best Upper West Side Restaurants

1. Eater Essential Ice Cream Shops in New York City

1. Eater Essential Ice Cream Shops in New York City

A small "Cocktails" neon sign is the only clue visible through the net-curtained windows of this Williamsburg cocktail bar, which occupies a former auto-parts store near McCarren Park. Inside, ornamental plates crowd the walls, tasseled fittings hang overhead, and ceramic tiles fool the eye into reading as rugs. It feels like a great-aunt's drawing room, if your great-aunt had excellent taste and kept unusual hours.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Roadbook The Best Restaurants and Bars in Williamsburg

1. The New York Times 2020 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Roadbook The Best Restaurants and Bars in Williamsburg

1. Eater Essential Ice Cream Shops in New York City

1. Eater The Best Upper West Side Restaurants

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Soho

1. Eater The Best Upper West Side Restaurants

1. Roadbook The best restaurants in Greenpoint, New York

Peaches HotHouse is a casual Bed-Stuy counter-service spot for Nashville hot chicken, back when that was a rare find in the city and long before the chains with celebrity backing showed up. You pick your heat (regular, hot, extra hot) and your bird, shrimp, or catfish, then add grits and collards. Dress for a paper-lined basket and a mild sweat. Eater lists it among the best places to eat in the neighborhood.

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Bed-Stuy Right Now

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Midtown

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chelsea

1. Roadbook The Best Restaurants and Bars in Williamsburg

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. Eater The Best Upper West Side Restaurants

The pourover menu specifies black only, no exceptions, which tells you everything about this coffee shop before you've ordered. A queer-owned community hub straddling Park Slope and Gowanus, Principles runs on small rotating roasters, plant-based milks across the board, and a gratuity-included model. Cyclists and coffee obsessives fill the place, drawn as much by the ethos as the espresso. The garage door opens when weather permits, and there's a bike repair area out back.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide to Coffee In South Brooklyn

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chelsea

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Soho

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

1. Eater The Best Upper West Side Restaurants

1. Eater The Best Sushi Restaurants in Manhattan

1. Eater The Best Restaurants Around Times Square

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chelsea

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Bed-Stuy Right Now

1. Eater Essential Ice Cream Shops in New York City

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

A tea room and cafe on the second floor of a Bowery building, reached by buzzing an unmarked door and climbing an industrial staircase. Neon gramophones, Togo couches, a vinyl listening room, and a DJ who drops in twice daily to play something like Boards of Canada on a sound system that did not come cheap. The MacBook presence is significant, but the Japanese teas and pastries give everyone a reasonable excuse to stay.

1. The Infatuation The ‘It’ Coffee Shops Across America Right Now

1. Eater The Best Sushi Restaurants in Manhattan

Window-service only since 2020, this minimalist coffee shop in South Slope turned its interior into a commissary, which turns out to be a fine trade. Counter Culture beans anchor the drinks, but the daily-rotating pastries, cheddar jalapeño corn muffins, and hugely bready sandwiches are what bring out the line of families and dogs. Greenwood Cemetery is an easy walk, if you need somewhere to eat.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide to Coffee In South Brooklyn

1. Roadbook The Best Restaurants and Bars in Williamsburg

Metal band posters on the walls and distorted guitars blasting while someone brews the most delicate pour-overs in Williamsburg is the whole vibe at this small coffee shop. The owner sources from Brooklyn's Sey roastery and makes his own blends, and the result is coffee that tastes less like coffee than like the memory of a fruit. The drip is worth the trip on its own if you're not in a splurging mood.

1. The Infatuation The ‘It’ Coffee Shops Across America Right Now

1. Eater The Best Sushi Restaurants in Manhattan

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants On The Upper West Side

1. Eater The Best Sushi Restaurants in Manhattan

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

A mirrored, handsome room on a corner that used to be a franchise Mexican spot, now serving wagyu French dip and whole lobster repositioned in the shell for easier eating. It's a polished, scene-y restaurant from Catch Hospitality, which means it looks great and reservations can be a project. Taylor Swift has been spotted here, which tells you roughly what kind of evening to dress for.

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Soho

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Chelsea

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

1. Roadbook The Best Restaurants and Bars in Williamsburg

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Bed-Stuy Right Now

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Greenpoint

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

1. Eater Essential Ice Cream Shops in New York City

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide to Coffee In South Brooklyn

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Chinatown

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. East

1. Eater The Best Upper West Side Restaurants

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bakery

1. The New York Times 2023 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2023 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2023 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2023 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northeast · Alganesh Michael

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

Sotol on the menu is a flex few New York bars can match. This Hell's Kitchen tequila and mezcal bar leans deep into Mexican spirits, with a list that runs well past the usual suspects. Sotol, distilled from the Desert Spoon plant and sometimes called tequila's northern cousin, is a rarity here, and finding it alongside a serious mezcal selection gives the drinks menu a reason to linger over it.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Apotheke sits on Doyers Street, the crooked Chinatown alley once nicknamed Bloody Angle for the tong wars fought there, behind a red awning that still reads "Gold Flower Restaurant." Inside, the former opium den has gone full Victorian apothecary, all candlelight and curios, with a five-ton marble bar where the bartenders play doctor. The cocktails lean medicinal and elaborate, which suits the room perfectly.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

An unmarked door across from the Tribeca Grand opens onto a staircase that leads down to a dimly lit basement cocktail bar, all booth seating and bar stools, with smooth jazz doing most of the decorating. The cocktail list is named after jazz standards, which sounds gimmicky until you're two drinks in. Classics are handled with care, and the room has the kind of quiet self-confidence that doesn't need a sign out front.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Leather-bound journals line the shelves of this hushed, clubby cocktail bar near the UN, where wooden monkey sculptures hold the lamps and cigar smoke hangs in the air like a gentleman's agreement. The crescent booths and soft lighting give it the feel of a classic hotel sitting room that decided to serve drinks instead. Jazz plays just loud enough to cover the conversation of the business crowd unwinding after whatever it is they do.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar tucked into what used to be a private office inside Grand Central, designed to look like a 13th-century Florentine palace because its original occupant simply wanted the biggest room in New York. The vaulted ceiling and dark wood do most of the heavy lifting, so the drinks don't need to be extraordinary to make the visit feel like one. Come dressed for it; the room sets a standard and most people read the memo.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Ivy trellises climb the walls of the rooftop bar on the 15th floor, which is the one worth engineering your evening around. Ian Schrager, who gave the world Studio 54 and the Delano, put his stamp on this Gramercy landmark, and the result is three bars across the hotel, each with a crowd dressed like they had somewhere better to be and came here anyway.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Pressed tin walls funnel you into a room that keeps opening up, Tardis-style, past antique mirrors and grandma lampshades, through a long bar, out to a yard. This Williamsburg neighborhood bar shape-shifts through the week: beer and shots early on, wine mid-week, cocktails by the weekend, and DJs after 10pm Thursday through Sunday when the volume climbs and the whole thing quietly becomes a nightclub without ever making a formal announcement.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: New York State · Anthony Gonçalves

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: New York State · Paolo Garcia Mendoza

A steel gallery runs high around the room, stacked with antique bric-a-brac as if the trading company never quite unpacked. This atmospheric Tribeca bar leans heavily on the Portuguese Macau fantasy, all dark wood and red lantern atmosphere, and skews more restaurant than dive. Come for a cocktail and a reason to explain to your date that Macau predates Hong Kong by several centuries as a European foothold in East Asia.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Named after the Aztec goddess of the maguey plant, Mayahuel is a two-floor mezcal and tequila bar on the East Village's reliably lively 6th Street. Rustic booths, bare brick, hand-painted tiles, dark wood, iron, and candlelight do the decorating, leaving the agave spirits to do the talking. The cocktail list is the whole point here, built around a serious collection of both spirits for a crowd that knows the difference between the two.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

A whiskey bar on 10th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen, small and sleek and stocked with over 200 bottles, ranging from everyday pours to Pappy Van Winkle at the kind of price that makes you sit up straight. There's no cocktail menu, but the staff know their classics, and the regulars mostly want a single-malt Scotch or an Old-Fashioned anyway. The beer list is longer than you'd expect for a place so clearly devoted to whiskey.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Tucked into the basement of Chelsea Market, a former Nabisco factory, The Tippler is a cocktail bar with exposed brick, a long marble bar, and Oriental rugs thrown over the floor like someone's eccentric living room. The drink menu runs long and complicated, courtesy of the Tippling Bros. team. Come on a weeknight if you want to actually think; weekends belong to the Meatpacking overflow crowd and their very different priorities.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Willow branches in wall niches and Edison bulbs overhead give this cavernous Bowery gastropub a warmer feel than its scale suggests. The long front bar is the move, with a cocktail program that holds its own alongside a solid beer and spirits list. The bays and high ceilings let beautiful people on dates and shaggy types debating film grain coexist without crowding each other. A good call for the neighborhood.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The New York Times 2018 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Bon Appétit #6 · America's Best New Restaurants

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant

1. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

1. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

1. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

1. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

1. The New York Times 2022 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2022 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

1. The New York Times 2022 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

1. The New York Times 2022 · 2 stars · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2022 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York