Best-of list · City Guide
The best gin bars in New York, from East Village classics with 200-bottle selections to modern Distillery Row taprooms making the city's own gin.
The short answer
10 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
The best gin bars in New York are the ones that have moved past the London dry default. New York's cocktail scene has always been good at gin — the Martini and the Negroni are among the city's great spiritual inheritances — but the rooms worth going to now are the ones building programs that cover contemporary craft gins from across the US, aged gins, unusual botanical expressions, and the new wave of American producers who are making the category interesting in ways that had nothing to do with juniper dominance. These are the rooms we recommend.
Manhattan's gin bars are concentrated in Lower Manhattan and the Village, where the cocktail culture has always been most serious. These are the rooms that set the standard for the best gin bars in New York.
How we picked
The best gin bars in New York reflect the city's cocktail culture at its most ambitious. Existing Conditions is the most technically innovative. Dante is the most globally acclaimed. The Dead Rabbit is the most comprehensive. For a Martini specifically, Long Island Bar in Brooklyn makes a case for the outer boroughs that is hard to argue with. Our pick for a first-time visit: PDT in the East Village, where the combination of excellent drinks, specific atmosphere, and a ritual of discovery makes the evening feel like it was designed precisely for this.
James has been writing about New York bars since 2011 and has developed strong opinions about Martini ratios, gin botanical hierarchies, and which East Village rooms have improved over the past decade.
Last reviewed 2026-04-22 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.