• Smith & Mills

  71 N. Moore St., nr. Greenwich St.; no phone

  The most important quality in a date bar: really great lighting. Smith & Mills’s old Edison bulbs are masterful romance enablers, turning the former carriage house in Tribeca into a classy canoodling den (though landing one of the seven tables can be difficult if you arrive at peak times, usually between 8 and 11 p.m.). The house brews its own ginger beer for the Dark and Stormy, which contains just enough dark rum to get conversation flowing. In case a drink date morphs into an extended dinner, the small-plates menu ranges from a hearty beef stew to ever-aphrodisiacal oysters.

From the 2009 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine