In order to help you figure out which new restaurants you should go to in NYC, we created The Hit List. It’s a guide to the very best of all the new openings we check out across the city. As always, we visit each and every single place highlighted, and write about what to order, when to go, and why we love it.
Now we’re doing the same thing for bars. Yes, we’ve taken on the (very challenging) task of drinking at New York’s newest spots. From bars where you can dance to wine bars and breweries, here are all the recently-opened places where you should grab a drink.
THE SPOTS
Pizza, disco balls, furniture that looks like it was lifted from a Palm Beach retirement home circa 1985. Motel No Tell has all of those things, and it’s where you should be drinking a piña colada right now. The motel-themed bar is currently the newest, shiniest place to meet new people in the East Village, with plenty of room for groups, and little retro touches like leafy wallpaper and a projector that plays black-and-white movies. Bring some friends, claim a booth, and take some shots out of paper coffee cups.
If trying new natural wine bars is as normal an activity for you as eating or breathing, you’ve probably already heard about Anaïs. But this new hub for chilled reds and anchovies isn’t like the other chilled red and anchovy hubs—it sells early edition feminist erotica, too. Grab a bar seat and buy a book to read while you snack on sourdough, or swing by with fellow wine bar enthusiasts for a bottle of something French at the corner table in the window. Not the chilled red though, because that’s on tap.
In Sheep’s Clothing is only slightly larger than a dressing room at Zara. But if you’re into ambient music, Japanese jazz, and records made by teenagers in a home studio in 1979, you’ll like it here. From an LA-based music collective of the same name, this listening bar hidden in the back of Port Sa’id in Hudson Square plays obscure vinyl through an impressive sound system and serves cocktails that feature a lot of Japanese ingredients. It’s walk-in-only, and it’s a nice place to lounge with a friend and take in some sounds.
Come for the zebra print carpet, stay for the parrot chandeliers. Danger Danger is an eccentric place, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. The Bushwick bar looks like a semi-dilapidated Las Vegas cocktail lounge, and it should easily become one of the top nightlife destinations in the neighborhood. The smoke machine is a little much for a casual 5pm drink, but if you swing by around 10pm, you can enjoy a frozen cocktail and mingle with some folks on the dance floor in the back.
If you’ve refused to leave your apartment since the original Angel’s Share closed in early 2022, you can come out now. The influential pioneer of the neo-speakeasy movement has found a new home in the West Village, on Grove Street. Their signature cherubic mural is still behind the bar, and the place is as calm and civilized as ever. Don’t come here to party with your friends (no standing allowed), but do come to enjoy a few pristine drinks with someone you’ve been dating for more than three weeks.
Frog Wine Bar has one of the best backyards in Brooklyn. A huge tree provides shade for the large outdoor space with one long communal table and bunch of small bistro tables, where people drink solo glasses of natural wine or share bottles with friends. With those bottles priced a bit lower than your typical Brooklyn wine bar, a pool table inside, and no pretentious plates of crudo, Frog feels like a summer house party without the college exes.
If you're looking for rooftop bars to check out, ElNico—at the top of the Penny Williamsburg hotel—should be high up on your list. Here, a palatial sunroom filled with plants and cacti opens out onto two huge terraces with views of North Brooklyn and Manhattan. We love the unexpected touches in their cocktails and Mexican dishes. Try an Old Fashioned with Sichuan peppers, raw scallops with Pepto-pink galangal sauce, and a veggie-loaded tlayuda with tzatziki that’s almost too pretty to eat.
This Mexican-American bar on 1st and 1st makes cocktails so tasty and unique, you’ll surrender to being overserved. That’s OK, the party version of yourself will fit right in with the rest of the crowd—and Superbueno’s staff, who all seem to be celebrating something. Yes, there’s a margarita, but it’s creamy and made with huitlacoche. And yes, there’s a martini, but it’s pleasantly sour from green mango. Squeeze in a birria grilled cheese to soak up the alcohol, and end your night with an orange-pink salted plum milk punch, which happens to match the fluorescent sunset lighting.
