The 9 Best Speakeasies in New York

Sip & Guzzle

Steve Schneider and Shingo Gokan, two bartenders who spent a decade rewriting the rules in Asia, reunited on Cornelia Street to build a two-story concept that won Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2025 Spirited Awards. Upstairs, Schneider runs Guzzle, an 1860s saloon revival. Downstairs, Gokan operates Sip, a subterranean speakeasy honoring the seventy-seven samurai of the Kanrin Maru. Chef Mike Bagale, an Alinea veteran, handles the izakaya-inspired food program. At No. 5 on North America's 50 Best Bars, this is the most ambitious new opening the city has produced in years. The bar holds No. 1 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Attaboy

No menu, no signage, and a front-door instruction that reads "Please Wait To Be Greeted." Sam Ross and Michael McIlroy opened this Eldridge Street bar in 2012 as a spiritual successor to Milk & Honey, and it climbed twelve places to No. 72 on the World's 50 Best Bars in 2025. Bartenders build every drink in conversation with the guest, ask for something citrus-forward and spirit-driven, and you might receive the Penicillin that Ross invented here. Attaboy operates seven nights a week until 3 a.m. The consistency across a decade-plus run borders on unreasonable. It currently stands at No. 37 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Employees Only

Twenty years after Dushan Zaric and his four co-founders opened this Hudson Street speakeasy as an after-hours spot for hospitality workers, Employees Only still closes at 4 a.m. and still draws a crowd that skews industry. White-jacketed bartenders, many with eleven-year tenures, pour classics alongside restaurant-quality food in a room that refuses to update its aesthetic because the aesthetic never needed updating. Ranked No. 95 on the World's 50 Best Bars, EO endures not through reinvention but through stubborn, uncompromising consistency. New York's cocktail trajectory bends toward ambition without apology, bigger concepts, bolder imports, bartenders who treat their careers as creative practices. The competition across its five boroughs has never been fiercer, and the beneficiary, as always, is anyone holding a glass. Book the trip. It sits at No. 45 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Apothéke Chinatown

The original Apothéke opened in 2008 inside a former opium den on Doyers Street, the crooked lane at the heart of Chinatown, and turned the apothecary counter into a cocktail format New York has been borrowing ever since. Bartenders in lab coats mix botanical prescriptions organized by therapeutic category, from stress relievers to euphorics, built on fresh herbs and house tinctures. Named among the best speakeasies in the US by Architectural Digest. Open seven days from 6:30 PM, first come, first served.

Apothéke NoMad

Apothéke's NoMad outpost stacks the group's botanical mixology across a speakeasy-style lounge and a rooftop with Manhattan views, a few steps from Madison Square Park. The cocktail apothecary formula carries over from the Chinatown original: herbal prescriptions, house-made tinctures and theatrical presentation. The venue was named Best Designed Bar in America 2023 by SBID. Open seven days a week; walk-ins welcome as capacity allows.

Little Branch

A basement speakeasy in the West Village from the Milk & Honey family of the late Sasha Petraske, serving classic cocktails made to exacting standards since the mid-2000s. Candlelit booth seating and live jazz trios define the room; the bar maintains no official website.

PDT

Jim Meehan's East Village speakeasy, entered through the phone booth inside hot-dog joint Crif Dogs, pick up the payphone and a secret door opens onto a taxidermy-strewn den. PDT topped the World's 50 Best Bars in 2011 and still treats the mystery of entry as part of the appeal, with innovative yet unpretentious drinks. Reservations via Resy; phone lines open at 3pm.

Room 207

Rajesh Bhardwaj's hidden bar on Second Avenue puts a modern twist on its Prohibition-era forebears: revivals of forgotten cocktails and reimagined classics, built with advanced technique and seasonal ingredients by chief mixologist Hemant Pathak and head bartender Sahil Essani. Guest stars drop in for The Bartender Series; workshops and private events run alongside.

Order this: Brooklyn (Michter's rye, vermouth blend, maraschino, Bigallet China-China)

Thyme Bar

An underground speakeasy-style cocktail lounge set in a historic pre-war cellar beneath 23rd Street in the Flatiron District. The program emphasizes sustainable, cyclical, low-waste cocktails.