Birds were on every page. Pretty ones. Ugly ones. Downright strange-looking ones. I was perusing the avian-themed cocktail menu at Meadowlark, an old library-like spot in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Each drink was meant to resemble a specific feathered friend. You looked at the glass in front of you, sipped, looked at the bird picture again—and all of a sudden, it clicked. This joyfully odd drink menu was the brainchild of Abe Vucekovich, Meadowlark’s beverage director, who used to work in one of the country’s most serious temples to the cocktail, just a few L stops away, the Violet Hour.
What, I asked Vucekovich, had sparked the idea to try something so delightfully trippy? And why were we seeing such a right turn away from cocktail classicism here and in so many other bars we’ve been visiting lately? “People were ready for something more fun after the pandemic,” he explained simply. “We felt that people deserved novelty.” He knows his customers: Every seat at the bar was full by 6:30.
That same spirit of custom creativity is what drinkers sought out in an even bigger way at Mothership in San Diego. From the drinks to the bathroom to the music, Mothership commits hard to the idea that you’re in a spaceship that made an emergency landing on a tropical planet. I think it was the first time I’ve ever seen a line to get into a bar at noon.
Over the past year, we criss-crossed the country to report on America’s finest drinking establishments. This is our eighteenth edition of the list, and in all my years of bar crawls, I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much spirited originality—as many bars that make you say, “So strange, yet so awesome.” The pages that follow reflect that, with a slew of new bars to know. There are familiar spaces, too, some of which have been reinvented. So use this as a guide. Then get out there, find your niche, and embrace the weird and wonderful. —Kevin Sintumuang
Baltimore
Church
If you think of a bar as a place of community, then one called Church makes total sense. The dream project of Chelsea Gregoire, our Beverage Director of the Year in 2019, and co-owner Marisa Dobson, Church leans into the idea of meeting other people and cultivating friendships through its genial staff and intimate spaces. It has subtle church cues—the greeter stands behind a pulpit, the bar is lined with pipes like an organ, the back room has pews. The drinks skew culinary and delightfully weird: The espresso martini has Szechuan amaro, and the Pilgrimage is a charming combination of Scotch, rum, and chai tea. If real church served the cocktails at Church, we think attendance would be way up. What you’re having: The Host, an artfully briny martini—with a secret blend of gins and vodkas—that is one of America’s best. —K. S.
Editor's Note: As of June 1st, Church is temporarily closed.
Baltimore
Ash Bar and Bloom’s at Ulysses
B’more, I hope you know what you’ve got here: two of the most charming bars to ever flank a hotel lobby. They are intimate and casually glamorous, with just the right amount of weird. This is the city of John Waters, after all. To the left, you have Ash Bar, a breakfast-to-nightcap situation, ensconced amid deep-red burl-wood paneling and rattan furniture. To the right, Bloom’s is like a disco ball of a bar: mirrored ceiling, mirrored bar, channel-tufted red banquettes. The room’s curved shape means you can see everyone else. Observe how cool Baltimore has become. What you’re having: If there’s ever been a room to get a Midori sour, it’s Bloom’s. —K. S.
Brighton, MA
Koji Club
It was dark, late, and raining when I got to Koji Club, located in the Charles River Speedway, a little collection of bars and restaurants and shops that’s about a 20 minute car ride away from Downtown Boston. Perhaps it was the time and the weather when I arrived, but it felt like a world away here more Tokyo than Beantown. It specializes in sake, a first of its kind in these parts. And it’s tiny: no more than 16 seats in the place, and the bar itself has about seven stools. There was only one other person there that evening, but within minutes we all started to feel like friends deep into a sake journey that brought us through junmai made using the yeast from flowers style to even a bottle made in Massachusetts. When I left, the rain had stopped, and for a moment, I did feel like I had just stepped out of a bar in Tokyo. What you’re having: If they’ve got it, an aged Yuho sake that might change your mind about having sake with bigger bolder foods. —K. S.
Brooklyn
OStudio at Night
Fernando Aciar, the puckish Argentinian ceramicist, knows how to make a good container. Evidence of that is all around at OStudio, his combined workshop and wine bar in the Bed Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn. The organic vessels he fires in the back—sconces, pots, vases—line the wall of the bar, tilting wildly, capacious nonetheless. But it’s at the bar where his powers of convocation shine. OStudio is a natural wine bar, sure, but more like a waystation for forward-thinking often restaurant-less sommeliers—all welcomed by magnificently mustaschio’ed James Sligh—who pop in for short mind-blowing stints. Recent somms include natural wine guru Alice Feiring, Darwin Acosta of Co-Fermented, an organization that supports LGBTIA community in winemaking, and Roxy Eve Narvaez, a Bushwick native, now living in New Orleans, who traced the history of immigration Brooklyn through seven glasses. What you're having: On Tuesdays make it a full on dinner with the guest chef. —Joshua David Stein
Chicago
After
Like Ever, chef Curtis Duffy and Michael Muser’s epic tasting-menu experience, After feels like an inner sanctum of gustatory delight, albeit a bit more chill—you can get a beer and a cheeseburger, after all. It is a sublime combo here, but do allow the moody, elegant surroundings to lift you toward a higher plain. The bar bites are in another orbit (get the duck wings), and beverage director Luis Rodriguez’s glorious creations are some of the best kitchen-meets-bar libations around. What you’re having: The A5 Vesper—Monkey 47 gin washed in Wagyu and served with caviar on a puffed tendon. —K. S.
Chicago
Easy Does It
This is a wine bar, but as the name implies, this is not a place to take wine too seriously. You can, in fact, get a Miller High Life if you wanted, or a negroni made from mostly local ingredients. That said, the wines are seriously good and off kilter in a good way–let the simple descriptions guide you ("light and oceanic," "str8 blueberry pie") towards whatever mood you’re in. What you’re having: if the weather is nice the pro move is to grab a bottle and head out to the vast back patio and be comforted by the rumbles of the elevated Blue Line train. —K.S.
Chicago
Meadowlark
The sign outside is marked with a single bird. Inside, the dark exposed brick, chesterfield couches, and golden light create a tried-and-true library vibe. What feels delightfully uncommon, and why the thirty or so seats are filled by 6:30, are the inspired drinks from beverage director Abe Vucekovich based on . . . birds of the Midwest? There are sixteen cocktails—many with strange, high-flying ingredient pairings, like chartreuse and sotol or brandy and mezcal—that are all mesmerizing and listed in a field-guide menu complete with Audubon drawings. Future menus will be inspired by eclectic themes such as the World’s Fair and CBGB. What you’re having: Finish the night with a Turkey Buzzard. Like the bird, it’s ugly on the surface— blackstrap rum, agricole rhum, amaro, mole bitters—but entrancing once you get to know it. —K. S.
Denver
The Yacht Club
Marion Barry was the mayor of Washington, D. C., and Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre, and with that a table of two became the big winner on trivia night at the Yacht Club. Not that anyone loses. The bar, in north Denver’s historic Cole neighborhood, channels Margaritaville chill and has a divey lack of pretension, even with owners Mary Allison Wright and McLain Hedges’s serious cocktail programming and tight and right natty-wine list. The menu is large—divided into Soft Bangers, Club Bangers, and Club Standards—and wrought in Technicolor ombré. Nothing is sacred, nothing is precious, except perhaps the frozen banana daiquiri (a blend of Wray & Nephew and Smith & Cross rums, a homemade coconut cordial, and a mushy banana) or the Fourth Colour (a fizzy gin punch made with Hendrick’s gin, Empirical Plum, carrot, and bergamot). Both can be sipped or slammed; no one is going to judge. What you’re having: Pair your drink with Hollywood Frank’s hot dog, as snappy as a retort and as welcome as a promotion. —J. D. S.
Houston
EZ’s Liquor Lounge
You’d think a great dive bar couldn’t be built; it could only be arrived at through decades of benign neglect. You’d think that, at least, until you visited EZ’s Liquor Lounge, recently opened in an old bike shop in Houston Heights, across the parking lot from the famed Italian restaurant Coltivare. After a long night at the restaurant, its partners loved to wind down with a cold one at Alice’s, a long-standing dive. When Alice closed her doors, they lost their local. So they built their own. Covid delayed the opening of EZ’s but provided ample time for late-night eBay purchases of the vintage neon bar signs that bathe the green-felt pool table and the cigarette machine in just the right red hue. And if the owners need proof that they nailed it: EZ’s is where Alice drinks now. What you’re having: The Hillbilly Highball. Salted peanut-butter bourbon, Mexican Coke, bag of Planters peanuts on the side for pouring in. —Beth Ann Fennelly
Los Angeles
The Let’s Go Disco and Cocktail Club
Even if you don’t dance, you’ll want to get on the floor here. It’s the music and the DJ, sure, but when you add mirrors on the ceiling, a disco ball, judicious use of neon, and waiters who look like extras in a seventies Italian movie, you’ll want to grab a few spritzes (there are three on the menu) and get up from the velvet couch. The place is located in the Arts District next to De La Nonna—grab its pizza through a window on Friday and Saturday nights—and if you go on the early side, you can get in easily to enjoy the amaro-heavy drinks and a martini made with a sesame-leaf-infused gin. But watch out for the lines later in the evening, as there’s no list and no cover. That’s all to keep things chill, fun, and, well, disco on the inside. What you’re having: The Negron-Dog, a kinder, gentler take on the negroni. —K.S.
Los Angeles
Capri Club
In the extremely hip Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock sits a bar worth driving across town for: cozy red pleather booths, wood-paneled walls out of a seventies finished basement, a massive window that provides stunning sunset views, and top-notch aperitivi and amari. Order some arancini and fried fava beans to lay a base for a second frozen negroni flavored with local fruit when in season. As cool as the place is—which is very—it is unassumingly friendly. You’ll want to show up by five on a weeknight to score a table, but . . . you’ll want to show up by five. What you’re having: Shots! The 50/50 blend of amari is worth sipping even if you don’t shoot them. —Dave Holmes
Miami
NIU Wine
When Karina Iglesias started championing natural wine in Miami nearly a decade ago, it wasn’t because diners at her Catalan restaurant Niu Kitchen were asking for it. In some cases, they recoiled. But now the seeds that Iglesias planted—along with a small, passionate cohort of sommeliers, chefs, and distributors, including 2022 honoree Paradis Books & Bread—are in full bloom across the Magic City. Iglesia’s and her partners' latest, Niu Wine, is a place I find myself wanting to visit more than any other in Miami at the moment. Warm, tiny, confident, its walls are lined with bottles that reflect an understanding of good winemaking and the pleasures it can bring—allow bar manager Shannon Gable to guide you—and not blind a leap onto the bandwagon. What you’re having: You’ve got to eat too. The tight food menu often includes thin slices of Ibérico ham that melt ever so slightly on the warm platter on which they are served. —Gabe Ulla
Nashville
Rice Vice
Nashville is one of the great American bar towns, but sometimes you might need a break from the Broadway honky tonks or fancy cocktail joints and find something a little more left field. For that, there is Rice Vice, the bar from Proper Sake Co, the city’s only sake distillery. Out in East Nashville, Rice Vice gives off a 70’s den vibe. The interior is handbuilt from raw wood and peg boards. There's a turntable behind the bar with a rack of a few vinyl records. A neon sign that reads “beer.” They’ve got a selection of their own koji brews, but definitely don’t skip out on the main act: the sake. This is that rare sake bar that doesn’t try to mimic a spot you’d find in Tokyo. It feels like it couldn’t be anywhere but East Nashville. What you’re having: Anything made in limited numbers, from their sake Yamahai style sake-lager to their sake brewed with matsutake mushrooms. —K.S.
New Orleans
Anna's
NOLA has no shortage of great bars, yet Anna’s, the revived iteration of Mimi’s in the Marigny, named after bar director Anna Giordano, fills a necessary niche: a place where industry folks can get a cheap beer-and-shot combo and even a fancified frozen drink, like a bourbon milk punch with oat milk, while playing pool with the other tattooed folks and munching on fried artichokes under the neon glow of a Miller High Life sign. What you’re having: Afterward, head upstairs to where things get a touch more fancy with proper Gibsons and gimlets. —K. S.
New Orleans
Chandelier Bar at the Four Seasons New Orleans
When you see a giant chandelier hanging above an elegant, oval marble bar manned by bartenders serving up Sazeracs and pickled crab claws, you may instinctively say, “I’ll have what she’s having.” And you’d have a very good evening. Take a look at the menu before you call out that order, though. It’s filled with some New Orleans classic-cocktail deep cuts, like the refreshing Roffignac and the rye-and-pomegranate-based Plaza de Armas. And should you want to branch out from there, you’ll discover there are NOLA-inspired modern cocktails that are classics in the making. What you’re having: The Cocktail Orléans, a drink that tastes like it belongs in Scotland, Italy, and Louisiana all at once. —K. S.
New Orleans
Tell Me Bar
“Are you sure you want to be dropped off here?” my Uber driver asks. On a dead end street with the Pontchartrain Expressway looming above you might not think you’re in the right place until you see a hand-painted sign with an arrow that says “Wine.” And you might not think you’ve made it until you step through the doors and see a room with curvaceous couches, mirrored coffee tables, white and orange checkered floor that looks like a 70s disco filled in with a few antique pieces. Much like Bacchanal on the other side of the city, one of the country’s great bohemian wine bars, the Tell Me Bar feels like you’ve stumbled upon a groovy house party fueled by natural wine. What you’re having: Explore Italy and France, of course, but look for the esoteric gems like an Argentinian pet nat, or an Orange wine from Bosnia. —K.S.
New York City
Swan Room at Nine Orchard
Photographs and cell phones are both strongly discouraged at Swan Room, which means there’s nothing left to do but let your eyes wander. And what a wonder they behold. Everything chef Ignacio Mattos (Estela, Lodi, Corner Bar) touches turns to gold, and the bar, in the soaring-ceilinged former tellers’ room of an old bank, is the goldenest. Downtown dryads, Dimes Square Adonises, androgynous hotties who look like—are?—Timothée Chalamet sip from slender stemmed glasses. Bottles of well-chosen Old World wines and Stacey Swenson’s boozy balanced cocktails are simply the liquid on which these swans glide. What you’re having: A bright evergreen martini (quinquina! pickled kumquat!) and the oysters. —J. D. S.
New York City
Milady’s
The original Milady’s, which opened sometime in the 1940s, closed in 2014. It re-opened in 2022, helmed by cocktail star Julie Reiner, as homage. Not quite three days but messianic nevertheless. Old Milady’s was a proper dive. All memories from my nights there are hazy, not merely from time but, well, whiskey. I know I lost playing pool. New Milady’s is a classier act altogether. Like background singers, Reiner’s cocktails all come in threes and all come correct. There include a trio of classics (including a strident but well-balanced Big Apple Martini, made with apple brandy), a trio of tiki-ish drinks (including a fruity bright, pineapple-y, gentian-touched mezcal drink called Tropic Thunder), plus highballs. All are major glow-ups, which makes Milady’s less dive than swoon. It hardly matters. The music is suitably loud, the crowd suitably rowdy, and, as Stephen Stills sings, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” What you’re having: Jell-O shots. They’re way fancier than the ones you had in college. —J. D. S
New York City
Lobby Bar at the Hotel Chelsea
Don’t go looking for the ghosts of Hendrix, Joplin, and Vicious here. With bartenders in white jackets and caviar on domed silver trays, the commodious Lobby Bar may look like it has been around forever. In fact, it’s brand-spanking-new, with no connection to the Hotel Chelsea’s decades of “shabby elegance,” as Patti Smith once put it. (For that rock ’n’ roll history, as well as some tapas, head over to El Quijote, on the street side of the hotel.) No, the elegance of the Lobby Bar comes as undiluted as one of its icy martinis. Should you feel inclined to snicker that this is no place for poets and punks, your resistance might quickly wither once you’ve melted into a cozy chair. “I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,” Leonard Cohen famously sang in 1974, but if the Lobby Bar had existed back then, he might’ve forgotten. What you’re having: With that martini? A club sandwich. —Jeff Gordinier
New York City
Shinji’s
It’s sakura season, and an explosion of freshly cut cherry blossoms fills a corner of Shinji’s, a small bar with big ambitions in the Flatiron District. There are only three tables, each elaborately mosaicked; eight seats at the bar, very velveted; and a large cast-iron octopus clinging to the wall. The menu is unbridled cocktail geekery, but fun. Deeply fun. One of the best drinks, a play on a screwdriver called a Tropicana, arrives in a frozen orange, tastes like an Orange Julius, and took eighteen months of R&D. Others, many prepared tableside with cataracts of liquid nitrogen, tilt toward the extravagant. What you’re having: After all of that? Most likely a shot of Japanese whisky, taken with the barmen. —J. D. S.
New York City
Superbueno
Understated, Superbueno is not. Not in its name. Not in its mission (a space-time hoodwinking that brings the energy of the Distrito Federal to the East Village). Not in its ambition (cocktails so entwined with the Mexican kitchen, one doesn’t know where one stops and the other starts). Everything is de trop, chingón. The ceramic lucha libre heads, mounted on the wall, leering like pop-culture taxidermy. LED lights so colorful they make Lisa Frank seem muted and the terrazzo bar like mortadella on acid. So it is even more impressive that Nacho Jimenez’s drinks, from a roasted corn sour (made with corn whiskey, reposado tequila, roasted corn, and guajillo) to the Nogada Fizz (gin, Luxardo, roasted poblano!), not only hold their own but stand out as pretty as a dama at a quinceañera. What you’re having: You plus three friends are downing a handle of house-made tepache—tequila, fermented cucumber, shochu—and, depending on how your night is going, a lamb-birria grilled cheese. —J. D. S.
Orlando, Florida
Jellyrolls at Disney World
Here’s a dubious proclamation: The single best night I’ve spent in a bar since the start of the pandemic was at a spot called Jellyrolls, located squarely inside Disney World. It’s a proper, real-boy (read: no children allowed) joint to get a drink in after Michael Theodore Mouse squeaks his final goodbyes to the Magic Kingdom, and it’s a dueling-piano bar—a concept that somehow feels offensive to the piano. Jellyrolls should not work. At all. Then you hear a man who could be Billy Joel’s doppelgänger sing “The Bare Necessities.” Then you hear that man just go ahead and sing “Piano Man” as if he wrote it. His partner sings—what’s going on here, Walt?— “Let It Be.” They start taking requests. You realize, after much more of this, that no one has left since you walked in. You put $20 in the winner’s tip jar. What you're having: You're at Disney World. There's 14 beers. Be happy. Don't be picky. —Brady Langmann
Philadelphia
Andra Hem
Andra Hem is Swedish for “second home,” and in some ways you feel as if like you’ve stepped into someone’s maximalist two story townhouse where the walls are painted peacock blue and mustard, the art is real and esoteric, and the lichen-like wallpaper behind the bar is wild and just the right amount of psychedelic. (Stare at it too deeply and you’ll think you may be hallucinating.) But any altered states of consciousness are probably due to any one of the deftly made drinks like the Nothing Beets a Dala Horse, a bracingly awesome beet-infused mezcal-and-horseradish number that will also clear your sinuses. To fully complete the vibe of a Stockholm drinking den, try snacking on elegant potato pancakes and a smorgas of jumbo prawns while asking the bartender what Ssöoderblandning is. What you’re having: Definitely end your visit with a Lambhattan, a Manhattan made with a lamb-fat washed bourbon. —K. S.
Philadelphia
Superfolie
Why is Superfolie always packed? There’s a rare, easy sophistication in this jewel box of a space in Rittenhouse Square. The energy, like the name of the bar itself, is Frenchy, but not seriously so. You can stop in for a glass of bubbles and a fava bean tartine, but that night might evolve into a bottle of Cab Franc and some merguez sausage or you may find yourself diving ordering freezer martinis or sips of mezcal too. It’s a place to begin an adventure and never really know where you may end up. What you’re having: the cellar pick, a gem of a bottle poured at cost. —K.S.
Portland, Oregon
Mendelssohns
As any karaoke-head knows, bel canto is the single most annoying vocal style for a small room. Fuck your five-key modulations. So it would seem that Mendelssohns, a classical music cocktail bar with chamber music performances and operaoke nights, should be a hot mess of music nerds. The joy that it isn’t—that members of the Opera Theater Oregon and the Newport Symphony Orchestra frequently come here, that the great seething mass of talent so often gathered in this narrow room is casually expressed—is doubled by the sense of relief that what could have been a Portlandia joke is instead a rousing oratorio for a slender niche filled to the rafters with song. What you’re having: A Red Mendelssohn, a blood-orange manhattan named after the composer’s long-lost Stradivarius. —J.D.S.
Portland, Oregon
Sousòl
Chef Gregory Gourdet’s restaurant Kann glows in the night, golden and bright. But Sousòl, the new bar he opened underneath it, keeps mum. Down a flight of unmarked stairs, it holds its secrets between the walls. It is the Jungian shadow to Kann, but the room feels like a less sinister Upside Down, so thick with atmosphere the air almost sparkles. Color pops, from pink velour sofas and from a cocktail list touching upon the same pan-Caribbean diasporic palate as his food. No less attention is paid to the sizable zero-proof offerings, like the Bwè Lèt Bannann, a combination of banana, five-spice, and coconut milk. The effect is incandescent. What you’re having: The savory, earthy Djon Djon Djin, made from Haitian black mushroom, arrack, rye, and apple brandy. —J. D. S.
San Diego
Mothership
For many, the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars was their first bar fantasy, and Mothership is the best realization of the dream to drink on another planet, which is why, on many days, you’ll see a line out the door as if it were a Disney ride. Inside, it looks like astronauts on acid crash-landed on a tropical planet and decided the first order of business was to set up a bar. Ponder a menu that reads like a technical manual as you take in the custom-composed soundtrack: nine hours of space-age ambient music that makes you wish you had something stronger than rum to enhance the experience. You can get trippy at home, too: Vinyl albums of part of the soundtrack are for sale at the bar. What you’re having: If there are two or more of you, the Time Capsule, a delicious, wild, potent punch with a spectrum of ingredients, from gin to rum to amaro to pistachio orgeat. —K. S.
San Francisco
Moongate Lounge
You just finished a killer meal at James Beard Award–winning chef Brandon Jew’s modern Chinese masterpiece Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown. You’re about to exit but notice the faint sound of music emanating from a staircase on the left. You can’t help but follow the beat up, the music thumping louder the higher you get. You reach the top, round the corner, and see a soft neon glow from the skylight of the buzzing room. If it feels like you’ve wandered into the music video for “Hotline Bling,” you wouldn’t be far off. Like Drake, Jew and his partner Anna Lee took inspiration from James Turrell when designing this futuristic, lunaresque listening lounge. What you’re having: A Clear and Bright, with duck-fat-washed Rittenhouse, peated single malt, apricot liqueur, sweet vermouth, and lapsang tea.—Omar Mamoon
San Francisco
Liliana
Stepping into the handsome cocktail bar adjacent to Seth Stowaway’s Michelin-starred, live-fire tasting-menu restaurant Osito feels like entering a luxurious Airbnb cabin. The lighting is amber and sultry. The art is bright and modern. Old redwood panels line the bar, which is where you’ll want to sit to sip through bar director Uzziel Orea’s cocktails. They lean bright, utilizing preservation: Think fermented kiwi or dehydrated avocado leaf from his mother’s backyard in southern California. What you’re having: Get the cocktail-paired fare coming from the kitchen next door. —O. M.
San Francisco
The Hideout
The Hideout is the ultimate San Francisco secret, even if locals already know about it. This tiny, dark and dim-lit dive is a bar within the cocktail bar Dalva on 16th Street. To get there, make a beeline to the back just past the bathrooms, and open the door that looks like it should absolutely not be opened. When you finally enter it feels like you’ve snuck backstage at your favorite concert venue. Pull up a stool at the bar—there are only five—scan the menu and scope the chalkboard specials on the wall. You'll do well their, but your favorite classics are where to go first. Martinis and daiquiris. Gin Rickeys and Dark and Stormies. They’re the focus, made well and made right. The choice is yours, but a Manhattan for me, please. What you’re having: A martini if it’s the beginning of your night, a Manhattan if it’s at the end. —O.M.
San Francisco
Bar Sprezzatura
Rare is the bar that feels like a secret yet is so airy. And rare is the place that leans into Italian cocktails yet feels revelatory, that goes beyond the Negroni variations. That’s why you’ll find folks making their way to San Francisco’s financial district for Bar Sprezzatura. To get here, you take an elevator or stairs to an elevated plaza at the base of One Maritime Plaza. Hidden from street level, the bar was once part of the plaza and encased in floor to ceiling windows creating a space that feels like an outdoor cafe in Venice where it’s always magic hour. The cocktails by Carlo Splendorini are a journey through more unusual Italian libations via seasonal California ingredients. There’s a spritz with fresh strawberry purée and jam or a take on the Last Word with Italy’s answer to Chartreuse or a NY sour-style drink topped with a lambrusco. What you’re having: As the Italians know best, it’s always good to have a bit lo spuntino with your drink—Chef Joseph Offner’s oysters and prosecco mignonette are a must. —K.S.
San Francisco
Buddy
The first sign that Buddy is no ordinary bar might be the shrine dedicated to Sade in the bathroom. Opened by four industry vets (and, yes, buddies) Nora Furst, Alvaro Rojas, Claire Sprouse, and Nicolas Torres, Buddy doesn’t have a full-on liquor license meaning the crew can get crafty with the cocktails. You’ll find seasonal changing fruity shrubs mixed with housemade bitters and fortified wines and sodas that result in creative concoctions that won’t make you miss the high proof stuff one bit. There’s also a wall of natural and low-intervention wines if you feel like lingering over a glass or a bottle, which all complement chef Sean Thomas’s comfort-meets-finesse fare. The messy, melty mortadella sandwich with American cheese (made from scratch) is a mainstay for a reason—it’s uniquely satisfying and pairs perfectly with just about anything on the menu. What you’re having: The House Campari soda, which features sweet Italian vermouth, Cappelletti, an amaro, and a bit of orange bitters. —O.M.
Washington D.C.
Amazonia
What if pisco ruled the world? Find out at Amazonia. For many of you, your only dalliance with that spirit was in the pisco sour; those you’ll drink here have a deeper complexity, thanks to house-made acholados, blends of different piscos and South American ingredients like muña, a medicinal herb from the Andes. Grab one of the outside bar seats, order some grilled anticuchos (beef hearts! salmon belly!), and you’ll be in for one of the most surprising evenings D. C. has to offer. What you’re having: Start with a chilcano, a classic pisco drink, mixed with house-made ginger soda. —K. S.
