Pen Top, formerly Salon de Ning, sits 23 floors above Fifth Avenue on the Peninsula Hotel roof, with two terraces over Billionaire's Row and heated chalet domes in winter.
Tip: Closed Sundays and Mondays. Reserve via Tock for the East Terrace; the winter dome bookings open in October each year.
Address: 700 Fifth Avenue, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10019, New York City
PDT hides behind a phone booth inside Crif Dogs on St Marks Place. Pick up the receiver, press the buzzer and wait to be checked in for a 30-seat cocktail room.
Tip: Phone reservations open at 15:00 daily on 212-614-0386 and fill within minutes. Walk-ups have a small chance at 18:00.
Attaboy at 134 Eldridge has no sign, just a metal door you knock at. Inside, bartenders work without a menu and build drinks around what you like to taste.
Tip: Knock once, the door slides open at capacity. Parties of six or fewer only, no standing room, cocktail around $20.
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.
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.