Can you keep a secret? New York’s stylish speakeasies have stealth appeal and artful drinks. Here’s a look at five new hotspots, from an exclusive East Village gin joint to a clandestine cocktail house in Williamsburg.
Prior to the pandemic, the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental was already home to two of the city’s most prestigious, picturesque and critically praised libation locations: the avant-garde Aviary and the businesslike Office.
COVID cleared them out, until last fall when a new, salubrious speakeasy-style sip-tuation set up shop, confidently called The Bar. Moody, in moments masculine, the 45-seat lounge is now mixing up transporting tinctures drawn from stops along the Silk Road.
You’ll drink a Ginza Line in Tokyo (Hibiki Japanese Harmony whisky with walnut-infused maple) and a Night Market Bloom in Taipei (nigori sake, Roku gin, yuzu, lime and oolong tea presented in a teapot), with tastes of Singapore, Bangkok, Muscat and Istanbul along your way back to Europe.
Asian heritage mixed with the best of the West? That’s just the MO of the MO.
Nearly 20 years ago, PDT (Please Don’t Tell) shook up New York’s cocktail scene when it opened a bar behind a telephone booth within an East Village hot dog shop.
Now, PDT owner Jeff Bell has launched a concept for the 2020s, a new speakeasy-style cocktail destination discreetly domiciled beyond the service entrance of an office building.
Bell’s new shake, stir and strain station evokes “the golden age of luxury train travel” (it’s next door to Grand Central after all).
The menu serves up complex combinations of liquor and soda (like the Fresa Fizz: rum, strawberry, lime, mint and soda), as well as concoctions that chug along like luxe locomotives. Settle into your seat with the soothing knowledge that you’ve already arrived.
Most modern speakeasies nod at secrecy but bank on popularity. Officially opened in July, The Collectors Bar is a Hong Kong-rooted speakeasy and cocktail house that goes boldly in the opposite direction, blending exoticism, intimacy and mystery into a potent grog.
Per its website: “The collectors, they do not introduce themselves. They do not answer questions. They ask them.” Managing partner David Chen says the name is inspired by the idea that “every story has a flavor.”
Those tastes are a la Hong Kong as is the design, which draws from “the layered visual and social history” of the city. Stop by for evocative sips like the Lan Kwai Fong — Brut prosecco, yuzu sake, oolong tea syrup, club soda and lemon juice.
A journey in a glass.
Kees | 1 Cornelia St.
PDT’s Jeff Bell is serving them up quick this year. At the start of 2026, he opened yet another scene-y speakeasy, this time in the newly youthful West Village.
Hidden beneath taco and cocktail spot Mixteca behind flush fitted doors that blend into the wall, it’s a bar you’re meant to discover — after all, Kees is “seek” spelled backward. Inside, Bell channels the midcentury elegance of legendary nightclubs like El Morocco.
The menu divides drinks by structure, not ingredient or “theme.” There are martinis (including a high-rolling Vesper with Tanqueray No. Ten, Grey Goose and Château d’Yquem) and a lineup of Collinses.
The list goes on with Negronis, spritzes, highballs, sours, old-fashioneds and Manhattans — all tailored with the neatness of a Brooks Brothers suit.
Room 207 | 207 Second Ave.
It’s easy to walk right by Room 207, a small, unmarked door on the side of a building on a mostly quiet block of East 13th Street.
But its understated entrance is the perfect contrast for the jewel-box jazz joint just inside: white-jacket waiters, the tickling of glass and spoon, lilting live music and a cocktail lineup that would make Nick and Nora swoon.
It’s the vision of chief mixologist Hemant Pathak, the man behind Indian fine-dining Junoon (which racked up eight consecutive Michelin stars). Here, he’s reviving forgotten Prohibition-era cocktails like the El Diablo (mezcal, crème de cassis, lime juice and ginger beer).
If you thought another 1920s bar couldn’t feel fresh, come here to be intoxicated all over again.
