Best Bad-Weather Bar
The Library Bar
In this winter of our discontent, there is no better place to hide from the elements than the Library Bar in the Hudson Hotel. More…
• Midtown
Best Bar to Hear Dance Music (Without-Ostensibly-Dancing)
Plant Bar
For exhausted club junkies seeking an electronica fix without the cover charge and unsolicited, ecstasy-fueled ass-grinding of an actual club. More…
• East Village
Best New Tribute to the Go-go Nineties
Dorsia
Neon-light boxes flash all over this bar, which feels more Miami than Manhattan More….
• Flatiron District
Best New Overcrowded Hipster Bar
Pianos
In October, a Parisian-style bi-level bar opened in an old piano shop without bothering to change the sign… More…
• Lower East Side
Best Bar If You Still Have an Expense Account
Town
Hedge-fund managers mix with La Goulue refugees, and everyone indulges in some of the chic-est spirits the city has to offer. More…
• Midtown
Best Bar If You’re Unemployed
Holiday Cocktail Lounge
W. H. Auden once lived next door, and Trotsky across the street… More…
• East Village
Best Bar Where Everyone’s Makeup Looks Fantastic
Marion’s Continental
Drag queens and other downtown celebrities favor this cozy Bowery bar… More…
• East Village
Best After-Work Bar for Forgetting About Work
The Living Room
After 6 p.m., the midtown crowds swarm the seventh-floor bar to loosen their ties and splay out on cushy white couches. More…
• Midtown
Best Bar for a Covert Job Interview
The Villard Bar and Lounge
A Great Place for secret business meetings, romantic liaisons, and any other one-on-one gatherings that require extreme discretion… More…
• Midtown
Best Gay Bar for Meeting a Guy With $80,000 in M.F.A. Debt
Metropolitan
Owned by the people behind the popular but mercifully unstylish Phoenix in the East Village… More…
• Brooklyn
Best Overdecorated Lesbian Bar
Cubbyhole
The sleek Wallpaper* aesthetic (now on the wane in New York bars?) clearly never had a chance at Cubby Hole. More…
• West Village
Best Bar to Get Taken Hostage In
Bar Veloce
If you’re going to have kerosene sprayed on you by a raving lunatic waving a gun… More…
• East Village
Best Dive Bar for Conde Nasters
Jimmy’s Corner
If Cameron Crowe really wanted to capture the life of a Conde Nast editor in Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise would have been drinking at the long wooden bar at Jimmy’s Corner… More…
• Midtown
Best Bar for Meeting a Fashion Photographer
Serena
A proper, plush lounge, with low black velvet couches, deep-pink pillows, and just enough Moroccan grillwork to keep it looking (luxe) hippie. More…
• Chelsea
Best Post-College Bar in Park Slope
Great Lakes
A spacious bar filled with thrift-store furniture where Park Slopers go to discuss postpunk music, poetry, Iraq, poetry in Iraq, etc… More…
• Brooklyn
Best Sloppy-Drunk Brunch Spot
Essex
Indulge your inner lush at this lofty Lower East Side restaurant whose all-weekend $12 brunch special includes unlimited mimosas, screwdrivers, or horseradish-heavy Bloody Marys. More…
• Lower East Side
Best Dive Bar for Meeting a Celebrity
Siberia
A lease battle may have forced Siberia to move from its subterranean home under the 50th Street IRT subway stop to an unmarked door on 40th Street near Ninth Avenue… More…
• Midtown
Best Bar to Meet a Celebrity’s Assistant
Thom’s Bar
No SoHo boutique hotel worth its location is complete without a sleek, subdued, dimly lit lounge where it’s hard to tell who’s more glamorous… More…
• SoHo
Best Bar for Dancing (Legally)
Filter 14
The bare-bones vibe of this mini-club in the meatpacking district is no deterrent to the clubby (but unpretentious) crowd that flocks here to dance… More…
• West Village
Best Bar for Drinking Obscenely Priced Cocktails
The World Bar
Everything from the back-lit marble bar to the petrified-wood tables reeks of luxury (not to mention of Trump). More…
Midtown East
Best Pre- or Post-Theater Bar
Blue Fin
An attractive after-work, pre-curtain set swarms the all-glass corner bar with its view of Times Square. More…
• Midtown
Best Bar for Seeing Wynton (or Clinton)
Sugar Hill Bistro
Twentysomethings clad in Sean John and fedoras-and their model-leggy companions-flock to this refurbished Victorian townhouse. More…
• West Harlem
Best Bar for Shooting Pool (Uninterrupted)
Antarctica
Any true pool aficionado knows that finding a good spot to play in the city is nearly impossible…. More…
• SoHo
Best Eastern European Table-Dancing Mob Scene
Mehanata 416 B.C.
At Mehanata, every night is New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July and Bulgarian Independence Day (if such a holiday even exists). More…
• Lower Manhattan
Best Gay Bar That Feels Like a Club
XL
Open the door to XL, the most recent nightlife offering from John Blair-the man behind gay-clubdom’s big night at the Roxy-and you expect to find hordes of shirtless men dancing to thumping music. More…
• Chelsea
Best Queens Bar for Would-be Brooklynites
Tupelo
This smokey (well, at least for now) Astoria hideaway is where Queens-based hipsters come to pretend they actually live near Smith Street. More…
• Queens
Wildest (Classiest) Upper East Side Drinking Scene
Baraonda
At most bars, dancing on tables is generally reserved for New Year’s Eve-or a Hilton sister’s birthday-but at this Italian restaurant, it’s a regular occurrence… More…
Upper East Side
Best Sports Bar You Can Bring Your Girlfriend To
Proof
Leave the arcades and beer bellies to the ESPN Zone. More…
• Gramercy Park
Best Gay Bar You Can Bring Your Straight Friends To
Starlight Bar & Lounge
If the Gaiety strip club proves a little too much for that first outing, turn to Starlight, a funky mix of Chelsea boys and East Village artistes… More…
• East Village
Best Bar for Being (or Meeting) an Artist
Passerby
Who says getting your buzz on at a gallery has to involve a plastic cup of tepid Pinot Grigio? More…
• Chelsea
Best Bar Food
What to eat and drink at seven favorites.
Best New Wine Bar
Punch & Judy
With most New York wine bars aping the customs of the old country, it’s nice to see a place that’s neither bar à vins nor enoteca. More…
• Lower East Side
Best Burger Bars
Old Town
A true New York classic: Ancient mariners sit side by side with sports nuts, frat boys, and hip preppies who struggle valiantly not to use their cell phones. More…
• Union Square
Corner Bistro
If you call yourself a New Yorker, then it’s practically your civic duty to have a beer and burger here at least once, if not once a week. More…
• West Village
Best High Design on the Lower East Side
SX137
Though the all-white back room is, alas, no more, SX137, conceived by Harry Allen, who designed Soho shelter boutique Moss… More…
•Lower East Side
Best Up-From-the-Ashes Bar
The Bar on Gramercy Park
The bow-tied bartenders, bowls of Goldfish, and piano players may be gone, but the newly reincarnated Gramercy will not feel entirely unfamiliar to regulars. More…
• Gramercy Park
Best Place to Ditch (er, Upgrade) Your Date
Bungalow 8
Well, if you and your date can get in, that is… More…
• Chelsea
Best Bar at the End of the Earth
Sunny’s
Ask a car service to take you to “the bar” in Red Hook, and you’ll wind up at an unassuming little place by the river, near some railroad tracks that go nowhere. More…
• Brooklyn
Best Bars That Are Hardest to Find
Angel’s Share
It’s tough to find this elegant drink parlor tucked away inside a Japanese restaurant… More…
• East Village
Submercer
First, walk into the trendy hotel, favored by rock stars who love soaking in its deep tubs… More…
• SoHo
Best Jazz Bar
Smoke Jazz Club and Lounge
Smoke, which rose three years ago from the ashes of the late, lamented Augie’s and was named for the Paul Auster novel written within, feels more like a living room than like a club. More…
• Upper West Side
Best Bar on Smith Street
Bar Below
If every month brings yet another (sometimes sparsely attended) new bar to Smith Street, Bar Below, beneath an Asian-fusion restaurant, seems like a keeper. More…
• Brooklyn
Best “The More Things Change … ” Bar
Frank’s Cocktail Lounge
Veterans of Frank’s Cocktail Lounge in Fort Greene were rattled this year when its vintage block-text front sign gave way to an all-too-tasteful burgundy awning…. More…
• Brooklyn
Best Hot Spot in a Non-Hot Neighborhood
Eden
The Upper West Side is no longer a culinary desert, but its nightlife still leaves something to be desired. More…
• Upper West Side
Best Cigar Bar for All Smokers
Club Macanudo
Given the location, it’s no surprise that the clientele at this wood-paneled shrine to tobacco tends toward the pinstripe-and-cuff-link variety. More…
• Midtown
Best Speakeasy in Midtown
Single Room Occupancy
There’s no sign outside this basement hideaway, just a glowing green sconce and the faintest throb of deep-house music. More…
• Midtown
Best Bar to Take Over With Twenty Friends
The Magician
Perhaps it’s the popular conviction that magicians (read: David Blaine) are aesthetically unappealing that keeps this pleasant tavern so empty… More…
• Lower East Side
Best Bar in a Converted Space
Happy Ending
Like Double Happiness, its older, cheaper, ex-speakeasy sister bar to the west, this trendy one-year-old bar plays up its previous existence-in this case, as a massage parlor. More…
• Chinatown
Best Wag Bar
Langan’s
Ever since irascible-lovable Steve Dunleavy stumbled upon this Irish pub, it’s been home away from home for New York Post journos… More…
• Midtown
Best Bar for Playing Games
Pete’s Candy Store
Pete’s was once a local luncheonette for the neighborhood’s Italian old-timers-as well as a candy store… More…
• Brooklyn
Best Strip Bar for Dancing
Pussycat Lounge
No, we don’t mean onstage– the real action happens upstairs from the T&A at the hippest financial-district scene around. More…
• Tribeca
Best Bars To Be An Amateur D.J.
Good news for bedroom D.J.’s: As a gesture of good will and cultural openness, more and more bars are letting their customers provide the tunes. (Or maybe they just want to spend less money on pro turntablists?) At any rate, here are the best spots to spin your way to stardom. No Simon Cowell to worry about-just your drunk friends cheering you on.
“The Record Party” at Halcyon takes place on the first Monday of every month. All you have to do is arrive at 8:30 p.m., sign up for a time slot, and they’ll hand over the tables. All styles of music are welcome (though the sound leans toward the electronic), and the chill crowd and comfy setting make even beginners feel at ease. Bring your own needles.
Magnetic Fields in Brooklyn Heights also hosts an open-turntable night, starting every Monday around 9 p.m. Bring your own records, sign up with the bartender for a half-hour slot, and spin to your heart’s content.
Less spontaneous (read: more prepared) types can check out “Homegrown” every Tuesday at the cozy, unpretentious Sin Sin, where four 60-minute slots are reserved each week for fledgling D.J.’s. Drop off your demo tape for a chance to spin at future parties.
If the last time you held a vinyl LP was when you bought Thriller in ‘85, there’s always the “iParty” at APT. Starting at 9:30 on Tuesday (and going on until about 3 a.m.), trendy partygoers, armed with two iPods and a mixer, sign up for seven-minute time slots in which they choose from over 3,000 preprogrammed songs while rowdy onlookers shout their approval-or their dismay. (Hint: On one evening, Neil Diamond was not particularly well received.)
And if your Mac is your musical medium of choice, head to Openair at 5 p.m. on Sundays for “Share,” where an eclectic mix of hippie-ish East Villagers, black-clad techies, and Williamsburg new-media types bring in their impossibly skinny laptops, plug in to the server, and make group music and visuals that are piped and projected throughout the party. Martinis abound, and even Luddites are welcome.
Edited by Jared Hohlt and written by Joy Armstrong, Sarah Bernard, Ada Calhoun, Sara Cardace, Lauren DeCarlo, Jeremy Gerard, Matt Gross, Michelle Handelman, Tony Hendra, Boris Kachka, Ben Kaplan, Beth Landman Keil, Sean Kennedy, Monica Khemsurov, Amy Larocca, Marc Malkin, E. J. Samson, Deborah Schoeneman, Michael Steele, Carl Swanson, Catherine Townsend, Jenifer Van Vleck, and Jada Yuan.