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Keeping track of the best new bars in New York City no easy task. New openings pop up all the time—so how to sort through the buzz?
For the past few years, we've been rounding up the best new restaurants in New York City as they open, with the sentiment being that anyone visiting the Big Apple can get a glimpse of our vast and diverse culinary scene by dining at a younger spot or two alongside the old-school institutions. (For our picks of the latter, take a look at our complete best restaurants in New York list.) We also believe that the same can be said of the city's drinking houses, of which there are many and seemingly more every day, so we're starting small, with a selection of five new bars that visitors would be wise to stop into while in town. They run the gamut from cozy wine bars and soon-to-be neighborhood hangouts to more experimental mixology endeavors. Happy drinking.
How we choose the best new bars in New York City
Every business on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveler journalist who knows the destination and has personally tried the bar in question. When choosing new bars, our editors consider both high-end and affordable eateries that offer an authentic and insider experience of the city. We’re always looking for standout drinks, a great location, and warm service—as well as serious sustainability credentials. In terms of how we define ‘new,’ we've chosen to focus on restaurants that have opened within a year of the publish date. When you work your way through the list, check back in: We'll update this guide regularly as new bars open in New York City.
Read our complete New York City travel guide here, which includes:
- The Best Hotels in NYC
- The Best Day Trips from NYC
- The Best Bars in NYC
- The Best Steakhouses in NYC
- The Best Jewish Food in NYC
Stars
Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Go for: well-priced glasses and a shrimp sandwich
If such a name as Stars conjures images of a vast galaxy, think of this wine bar as a small and twinkling constellation within in which only the coolest and most peaceful of the interplanetary travelers stop to whet their whistles. With only twelve seats and a smattering of standing room around a U-shaped bar of zinc, it's certainly a place that encourages transience—grab a glass or two (by-the-glass wines start at $11 and stop at $19), the space tells you, and bask in the golden warmth of our wood-clad interior, then make way for the next thirsty person. There are tons of bottles priced in the double digits, and a small menu of snacks to accompany if you're so inclined—the highlight is the shrimp sandwich, a teeny toasty on soft milk bread with melting American cheese and iceberg. That the food is good is no surprise: this is the latest opening from the team behind Claud and Penny, a pair of New York's hottest tables from recent years. —Charlie Hobbs
Dante Aperitivo
Neighborhood: West Village, Manhattan
Go for: an aperitif or two accompanied by ample aperitivo snacks
The fate of the third child tends to be dubious. After the heir and the spare comes… what? Dante Aperitivo, junior sibling to Dante (famously “est. 1915”) and Dante West Village (the pandemic child, born June 2020), came along in October 2025. (Well, technically it’s the fourth: Dante Beverly Hills opened in 2023 atop The Maybourne hotel, but Los Angeles, in my book, does not count.) Where its seniors put a spotlight on the drinking experience (the eldest and middle children are known for their negroni and martini menus, respectively), baby Aperitivo does what it says on the tin—and does it very well. Negronis, being an aperitif, are also heavily present here—I drink their negroni bianco 2.0, made special by a healthy dose of savoia orancio, and then the pear negroni which really reinvents the wheel by mixing reposado with Grey Goose. The aperitivi-focused bites here continue to lean on seafood: lime ginger granita on the crudo of tuna, scallops, and striped jack; shrimp with a perfectly tangy horseradish cocktail sauce; caviar tarts topped with oyster cream and Champagne pearls; bucatini with lobster from Maine. Vegetarians need not fret—the salads and the agnolotti with fall squash and brown butter are decadent. Meat lovers should get the steak tartare, the bolognese pasta, and the fried chicken. The space is much slimmer than its forebears, but there’s a lovely comfort to a dining room in New York that you can see all at once—like looking at a three-dimensional painting. —Matt Ortile
Golden Ratio
Neighborhood: Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
Go for: an NA equivalent for every single cocktail
The team behind spots like Brooklyn’s beloved wine bar Places des Fêtes and all-day Café Mado has opened a bar, and it’s not like all the other bars. The minimalist space known as Golden Ratio sits on a residential corner in the center of Clinton Hill, just a few doors away from PDF (hello, drinks-then-dinner plan), and its concept is very 2026 in the right way: Every single cocktail, all of which are named after the natural ingredients they draw on—Nasturtium, Pine, Mandarin—can be made boozy or alcohol-free. And the NA versions don’t just hit delete on the spirits, but are rebalanced cocktails that stand entirely on its own; one version of the Purple Shiso comes in a coupe, with a Sweet Annie distillate and notes of citrus, while the other is bubbly, boasting hints of bread and lemon verbena, in a short glass with rocks. The menu doesn’t ask you to sift through any of this. Just let your finger land on an ingredient, then choose alc or none. The mixology movement of the 2010s has come and gone, but this feels like something far more useful—and rewarding. A drink that hits, whether you’re drinking or not. —Megan Spurrell
Folk
Neighborhood: South Slope, Brooklyn
Go for: inventive, Indian-inflected cocktails and biryani arancini
For anyone who dines at Lore, an Indian-infused restaurant in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, three things quickly become clear: it’s a neighborhood darling; the menu hums with invention; and its owner, Jayesh Kumar, is a dynamo. In December, Kumar carried his signature blend of culinary acrobatics and warm magnetism further south, to the stretch of South Slope that tips into Greenwood.
Folk is best described as a cocktail-forward bar to which you should arrive hungry. Here, arancini are made of biryani and served atop a generous smear of korma; the crab risotto is thickened with curry leaf pesto; and the pot pie conceals piping-hot chicken tikka. In less adept hands this might be chaos; in his, it’s perfectly calibrated for comfort and surprise. If the menu sounds like it takes precedence over the drink, that’s far from true. Cocktails (priced from $14 to $18) like the Mangalorean, with rum, pineapple, and amchur-curried coconut cream, and the Hanami Bloom, a delicious riff on the classic lychee martini, were designed, as Kumar told me on a recent night, to be ideal companions to his brand of cuisine, but they stand alone if you opt not to dine.
That same evening, the sultry room—anchored by a green bar and a wall lined with decorative pink glass bottles, all designed by Kumar’s wife, Daria—was packed with regulars, many of them Lore loyalists. “This is a bar made for and by the community that lives here. Many of the staff live here, too,” he says—all local folks (Folk, get it?) who make the bar feel like home. —Arati Menon
Don’t Call Me Shirley
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Go for: a cash-only casual hang with a big ole backyard for warmer months
The A-plus name of this bar (a reference to the movie Airplane, as my colleague Charlie unfortunately had to spell out for me) should tell you something about the atmosphere inside: it’s laidback, has a sense of humor, and is visually set somewhere in the late '70s. You’ll find this Bed-Stuy spot just across the street from Mexican cafe and molino For All Things Good, and a quick stumble from Bar Birba (another of our local favorites)—it’s a perfect addition to a part of the neighborhood that has plenty of options, but will always welcome more. Whereas surrounding bars skew divey, and we love them for it, Don’t Call Me Shirley feels like a bartender’s bar. The bar itself, gorgeous sanded wood with a rail that someone clearly labored over, is the kind of place I could sit at for hours, chatting with a friend, or even reading on a weeknight; a few wooden booths have space for friends to gather, though there’s also a back-area with armchairs and a fake fireplace—and a disco ball that starts to spin on weeknights—and a backyard with picnic tables that will surely hit come spring. As for the menu, there is none, just order your classic cocktail and they’ll have you covered; they also have beers on tap, and generous pours of good yet affordable rotating wines. It hasn’t been here long, and I already find myself bumping into friends—and plotting out my path to regularity. Bring cash! —Megan Spurrell
