Best Downtown Bar for Uptowners

Stanton Social

99 Stanton St., 212-995-0099

In the meatpacking district, this design-heavy restaurant and lounge would be a perfect fit. On the Lower East Side, it means the times they are a changin’. Scene-seeking Upper East Siders and well-heeled Euros order $25 cognacs and watch the counterrevolution from the retro forties second-floor lounge. Below, soon-to-be-displaced bohemians wonder where all those cabs are coming from and complain about the changing neighborhood. Foam trucker caps be damned—that’s hipster irony!

From the 2006 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine

Competition breeds the best. If only one pizzeria existed in New York, of course, there’d be no real winning slice. Thankfully, we’ll never know what that sorry situation tastes like, since pizza—like dance parties, dog runs, and fried chicken—has to evolve upward here.