The Best Date Night Bars in New York

Employees Only has been the best date bar in the West Village since 2004 and it has not wavered. The front looks like a psychic parlour; the back opens into a long, candlelit room where the bartenders wear white jackets and make drinks with the kind of focus that communicates that this is a serious operation. The Provençal is the drink — lavender gin, St. Germain, cucumber, lemon — and it has been converting people to proper cocktails for two decades. Go after 10pm when it finds its rhythm.

Order: The Provençal — lavender gin, St. Germain, cucumber, lemon, egg white

The World's Best Bar two years running, and the recognition hasn't made it complacent. Dante occupies a 100-year-old Italian café and it shows — the marble tops, the dark wood, the tiled floor all predate the cocktail programme, which is one of the best in the city. The Negroni selection alone runs to eight variations. On warm evenings the tables spill onto MacDougal Street in the kind of scene that makes New York feel like it knows exactly what it's doing. Earlier in the evening is easier; later is more electric.

Order: The Garibaldi — Campari, fresh orange juice, nothing else. Deceptively powerful.

From the team behind Dante, Bar Pisellino is smaller, more neighbourhood-feeling, and arguably better for a first date. The narrow room creates accidental proximity, the Italian spritz list is properly researched, and the cicchetti are good enough to replace dinner if you're not paying attention. The noise level stays conversational even when the room is full — a rare quality in New York. Tables are tiny and demand a degree of closeness that works strongly in a date night context.

Order: Veneziano Spritz — Select Aperitivo, Prosecco, soda, green olive

Death and Company opened in 2006 and essentially defined what a serious New York cocktail bar should look like. The room is dark, the seats are close, the drinks are impeccable, and the menu changes frequently enough that regulars always have something new to talk about. The bartenders are among the best in the city — knowledgeable without being arch, helpful without being solicitous. A two-cocktail date at Death and Company sets a standard that most restaurants can't match.

Order: Ask the bartender for something stirred and spirit-forward — they will not disappoint

Attaboy operates without a menu. You tell the bartender what you like — spirit preference, flavour direction, sweet or dry, heavy or light — and they make you something. It's an implicit act of trust that transforms a bar visit into a conversation, which makes it one of the most effective date bars in the city. The room is small and perpetually full; the door policy is first-come-first-served, and the wait is usually worth it. Arrive at 6pm on a weekday to skip the queue.

Order: Tell the bartender: "I want something I haven't had before" — and mean it

Hidden behind an unmarked door inside a Japanese restaurant on the second floor of a building off Stuyvesant Street, Angel's Share has been the city's most reliable secret for thirty years. The rules — no standing, no large groups — enforce a quiet intimacy that most bars try and fail to manufacture. The cocktails are Japanese-inflected, technically precise, and served with a formality that makes the whole experience feel ceremonial. Best for a date where you want to feel like you're sharing something others don't know about.

Order: The house Yuzu Sour — Japanese whisky, yuzu citrus, honey, egg white

Inside the Carlyle Hotel, Bemelmans is the kind of bar that makes you sit up straighter when you walk in. The walls are covered in Ludwig Bemelmans's murals of Central Park in every season. The bartenders have been making Martinis there for decades. There is live piano most evenings. The drinks are priced for the postcode and the experience is worth every dollar of it — this is New York at its most self-consciously civilised, and a date at Bemelmans tells the other person something specific about what you think an evening should feel like.

Order: A bone-dry Martini — the house version is among the best in the city

The St. Regis hotel bar claims to be the birthplace of the Bloody Mary — a claim worth investigating over a long first date. The Maxfield Parrish mural behind the bar is one of the great pieces of American bar art, and the room has the proportions of somewhere that expects important conversations. The cocktail programme is classical and well-executed. It lacks the intimacy of the Village options above, but for a certain kind of date — ambitious, aspirational, Manhattan in the fullest sense — nothing in the city competes.

Order: The Red Snapper — the house version of the Bloody Mary, served with ceremony

The smallest bar on this list — maybe fifteen seats — Amor y Amargo is dedicated entirely to bitters, amari, and aperitifs. Every drink on the menu is built from the bitter, herbal, and complex end of the flavour spectrum, and the bartenders approach each order as a small lesson in where flavour comes from. It's a place that rewards curiosity, which makes it excellent for a date with someone whose palate you want to know better. The price point is honest for the East Village.

Order: The Mezcal Negroni variation — smoky, bitter, and impossible to stop thinking about