A cocktail could be a good incentive at the conclusion of the long-day, but at these five standout new NY cafes, you’ve got the ingredients of the correct luxury: it’s the type of me-time you may be wanting between the rear-to-back exhibits and late night after parties of NY Fashion-Week. Discover your personal small retreat in another of the city’s latest beverage bars, in which a beverage along with a treat completed amazingly right enables you to refresh in-style.
Bar Goto
This sweet little nook carved out of the Lower East Side is the namesake bar of quiet, unassuming bartending superstar Kenta Goto. The exterior looks like a portal to his native Tokyo and the storefront logo is in Goto’s own hand (he’s also a master calligrapher). Inside, the room is minimalist, but still warm with a backlit bar and black linen banquettes. A long swath of century-old fabric from his grandmother’s kimono hangs framed on the wall. The menu features Okonomi-Yaki, savory Japanese pancakes you can hardly find elsewhere in the city. These are also rather personal: His mother’s restaurant back in Tokyo served them. Other snacks include architecturally staged octopus sashimi and umami-rich hot wings. But the main attraction is the Japanese-accented cocktails. Goto makes use of cherry blossoms (martini variation), green tea (matcha milk punch), and miso (modified Bloody Mary).
Porchlight
If anyone knows how to turn cocktail hour into a moment of extravagance, it’s Michelin-starred restaurateur Danny Meyer. He’s the visionary behind such dining destinations as Gramercy Tavern and The Modern and literally wrote the book on hospitality. Meyer’s latest venture is Porchlight, a southern-influenced cocktail bar in the iconic Waterfront New York Building in Chelsea. Reclaimed wood beams and poured concrete floors recall the space’s former incarnation as a warehouse, but the “porch,” complete with piano and rocking chairs, is all southern charm. It’s acceptable to giggle as you order Tom’s Balls: crispy fritters filled with rich chicken-liver rice and pork. Pair them with a reinvented Whiskey & Cola: corn whiskey, Fernet-Vallet, and house-made cola syrup served in a bottle on a tray. It’s high-low at its best.
The Bar at the Baccarat Hotel
The glitz hits you like a burst of sunlight as you step through the elevator doors out onto the second floor of the Baccarat Hotel in midtown. In the Grand Salon, with its pleated Jouffre silk-covered walls and 64-arm chandelier hanging overheard, tastefully attired patrons sprawled on plush upholstered seating clink champagne flutes and crystal-cut tumblers like modern-day Marie Antoinette courtiers. There are more chandeliers in the barroom—this is a Baccarat property, after all. The black and white checkerboard floor is offset by merlot-colored walls and a 60-foot marble bar. In this unapologetically opulent setting, sip a French 75 with your duck pastrami sliders. Because opting for the caviar might feel a little too over the top.
Santina
The glass box of a restaurant, designed by Renzo Piano, sits in the shadow of the High Line just steps from the new Whitney Museum. From the inside, it could be within ocean breeze’s reach of South Beach. Palm fronds and a staff decked out in all white, from their polo shirts down to their Adidas Rod Laver sneaks, make you feel like you’re on vacation. Two bars-a gleaming white Carrera marble block in the main dining room and a temporary patio bar outdoors-turn out excellent drinks by the venerable mixologist Thomas Waugh. Per the menu (and a custom Julian Schnabel of Li Galli), the theme at Santina is coastal Italy. The Fiori, a bright Negroni variation made with chamomile-infused gin and a splash of grapefruit, places you there. The branzino crudo, swimming in a briny oil with sea beans, lets you taste the sea.
Slowly Shirley
The next trend in exclusive cocktailing may very well be bars inside of other bars. The Happiest Hour in Greenwich Village turns out hearty food and whimsical, tiki-inspired drinks in a funky, Floridian atmosphere. But downstairs lies a secret space that feels quite different. Done up like a forties-era Hollywood lounge with wine-colored banquettes and light fixtures that recall Oscar statuettes gone rogue, Slowly Shirley is more serious about its cocktails than the bar upstairs. An abbreviated menu includes a version of the much-lauded Happiest Burger, but the drinks are the star of this clandestine den. Make like a Mad Man and do a martini with your burger.
via Vogue