Death & Co on East 6th opened New Year's Eve 2006 and has run the modern New York cocktail template since: dark room, single seat at the bar, no standing.
Tip: Limited Tock reservations, otherwise first-come for groups up to eight. Wait list opens at the door from 18:00.
Address: 433 East 6th Street, New York, NY 10009, New York City
Dante on MacDougal has poured Negronis since 1915, now under owners Linden Pride and Naren Young, who took the room from neighborhood cafe to World's Best Bar in 2019.
Tip: Walk in for the bar, Resy for a table. The Garibaldi, made with hand-fluffed orange juice, is the order.
Employees Only has run a tarot reader at the entrance of its Hudson Street room since 2004. Bartenders in white coats build pre-Prohibition cocktails at the bar.
Tip: The kitchen serves until 03:30, the latest in the West Village. Free bowl of chicken soup arrives at the end of your tab.
Apothéke hides behind an unmarked door on Doyers Street, the curved Chinatown alley once known as Bloody Angle. Bartenders in lab coats build apothecary-style cocktails.
Tip: First-come, first-served only, no reservations. Sundays through Thursdays brings live jazz, burlesque or brass starting around 21:00.
The Back Room on Norfolk Street is one of only two NYC speakeasies that actually ran during Prohibition. Drinks still arrive in teacups; the entrance goes through an alley toy-store front.
Tip: Walk through the iron gate alley off Norfolk between Delancey and Rivington. Reservations help on weekends; cash bar.
Mace, by Nico de Soto and Cocktail Kingdom's Greg Boehm, builds cocktails around a single hand-picked global spice. The room has stayed on the World's 50 Best for six years.
Tip: No reservations, walk in early. The spice-led menu rotates by ingredient, so ask the bartender for their pick of the season.
The Garret hides above the Bleecker Street Five Guys. Walk to the back of the burger counter, take the discreet stairs up to a 1920s parlor of cocktails and vintage couches.
Tip: Walk-in, no cover. Weeknights before 22:00 are the easiest entry; weekends you wait downstairs in burger order territory.