The 8 Best NYC Bars to Ring in the Holidays
Living in New York City has its ups (the diversity! the museums! the pizza!) and its downs (the rents! the crowds! the Knicks!). But even the grumpiest New Yorker has a hard time denying the merriment that envelops the city come December. For the staff of BA, our favorite way to celebrate the season is to grab a friend or partner and get a few drinks. But not just anywhere. There are those bars and restaurants that just seem to embody the holiday season—it could be because of the fireplace in the middle of the room, the epic views of Central Park from your chair, or the absurd amount of decorations above your head. So the next time you’re in New York for the holidays, go see that big Christmas tree but save time for some of our preferred pit stops.
Photo by Alex Lau1/8Le Coucou, Soho
Every December my best friends and I go for a long, fancy lunch. This year we’re splurging at the oh-so-French Le Coucou. What better way to celebrate than a flaming omelette Norvégienne (like baked Alaska) and a glass of rich Sémillon dessert wine? —Emily Eisen, associate visuals editor
Photo by Alex Lau2/8Rolf's, Gramercy Park
To call Rolf’s festive would be like saying Imelda Marcos kinda had a thing for shoes. The German classic takes standard-issue holiday spirit to an over-the-top extreme, decking out its Gramercy space in a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall assault of 95,000 ornaments and 150,000 lights, not to mention more Santas than you can count. Order a dunkelweizen beer and some schnapps and just try not to start humming “Jingle Bells.” —Meryl Rothstein, senior editor
Photo by Alex Lau3/8The Aviary NYC, Hell's Kitchen
This winter you’ll find me cozied up in a window seat at the Aviary NYC at Mandarin Oriental, where the only downside is having to decide whether to gawk at the 35th-floor Central Park views or the over-the-top drinks. Every drink at the NYC offshoot of the legendary Chicago cocktail bar comes with an elaborate tableside demo. But nothing beats the New Year’s Eve-inspired In the Rocks: An old-fashioned is trapped inside an orb of ice, which you’ll crack open with a custom-made slingshot, sending your drink tumbling over a bed of cassis-flavored snow. (And if that’s not enough, it comes with a side of Champagne.) It’s a night out worthy of its own countdown. —Julia Black, associate web editor
Photo by Alex Lau4/8Bar Goto, Lower East Side
I do a large amount of my Christmas shopping in the eccentric East Village, where a vintage cookbook store is next door to a boutique filled with designer coasters. Hauling my treasures like the Grinch post-Whoville cleanout, I know there’s one place in this city that isn’t blasting carols and stocking-stuffed with tourists. Behind an unmarked door on a sleek slatted storefront is Bar Goto. Everything on the cocktail menu is on Santa’s good list. My pro order is the floral sakura martini (sake, gin) with a sunken cherry blossom garnish, plus a side of miso wings and the classic okonomi-yaki pancake. Once, overheated from holiday shopping, I was treated like an undercover royal, which was no accident. Everyone here is. Jimi Hendrix was playing, the dim lighting complemented my best angles, and I’m not sure why I ever left. —Alex Beggs, senior web editor
Photo by Alex Lau5/8The Grill, Midtown East
Let others wait in line to go ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. Right now there’s nothing that feels more New York than being at The Grill. The energy at the new restaurant in the former Four Seasons space could light up a hundred trees. Think all dressed up and sitting at the bar with a Boulevardier poured from a cut-crystal mixing glass, chain curtains shimmering, bronze-rod chandelier shining, and Tom Ford–tuxedoed servers practically glowing in the wood-paneled room. Even the potato chips with your $18 drink feel like a gift. It all might be the most memorable present you give this year. —Christine Muhlke, editor at large
Photo by Alex Lau6/8Achilles Heel, Greenpoint
If you’re visiting Brooklyn in December, I’m taking you to Achilles Heel in Greenpoint—and not only because there’s reliably a fire crackling. We’re going because this revamped dockworkers’ bar represents everything that’s great about a borough that inspires more eye-rolling than rhapsodies these days. It’s the kind of place where the bartenders are just as quick to expound the merits of a biodynamic rosé as they are to crack a can of cheap beer and pour a shot of whiskey; where quiet late-afternoon cocktails segue seamlessly into DJ-fueled late nights. It’s old. It’s new. It’s Brooklyn in a nutshell, and it’s the part I’m proud to show off. —Amiel Stanek, editor, Basically
Photo by Alex Lau7/8Balthazar, Soho
There are a lot of touristy things to do in the city that I stubbornly refuse to do because I’m “from here.” But I make an exception for Balthazar in mid-December. First: the rules. I only sit at the bar because it’s way cooler. I only go with my husband because we had just started dating when it opened. I order Champagne, and we get a towering raw seafood platter and then frisée aux lardons and escargots. And fries, of course, because they’re so good with Champagne. To the untrained eye, I could be a tourist. Not so! I can come back whenever I want, even if it’s not 'til a year from now, because I’m from here. —Carla Lalli Music, food director
Photo by Alex Lau8/8Vini e Fritti, Nomad
After the trauma that is taking the kids to see Santa at ABC Carpet & Home on Union Square, my wife and I need a drink. Vini e Fritti, the newly opened Roman-style aperitivo bar, delivers. The girls snack on fried artichokes while Mom and Dad drink amaro highballs. Don’t judge—it’s worked for the Italians for centuries. —Andrew Knowlton, deputy editor
