The new york vs los angeles bars debate is less settled than people think, and I have skin in it. I live in LA. I go to New York four times a year specifically for bars. The honest truth is that these cities have different strengths and the right answer depends entirely on what you are looking for. New York wins on craft and density. Los Angeles wins on outdoor drinking, natural wine, and the ease with which a good bar integrates into a good evening. Here is the category breakdown with the bars that make each city's argument.
Cocktails: New York Still Sets the Standard
Los Angeles has significantly closed the gap on New York cocktail culture in the past five years. The Silver Lake and Downtown clusters now produce programs that would have been unimaginable in LA a decade ago. But New York still has more bars at the top end of technical excellence, and the culture around those bars is more serious. For cocktails specifically, New York still wins.
01
Dante
Greenwich Village, NYC
$$$
Aperitivo / Classic
The best aperitivo bar in the Western hemisphere and a room that gets everything right from ten in the morning until midnight. The negroni selection here, specifically the Rosita and the White Negroni, has been the city's best for years. The West Village sidewalk table at 6pm on a warm evening is one of the finest ways to be alive in New York.
Order: Rosita Negroni or any of the seasonal aperitivo specials
02
The Varnish
Downtown, Los Angeles
$$$
Speakeasy / Classic
The bar that established Downtown LA as a serious cocktail destination and the one that Los Angeles points to when it wants to compete with New York directly. Behind a hot pastrami restaurant, the Varnish runs classics with a precision and seriousness that would be respected on any Manhattan block. The space is small and the bartenders know exactly what they are doing.
Order: 20th Century or any pre-Prohibition classic variation
The full Los Angeles bar guide
Silver Lake cocktail bars, Koreatown late night spots, rooftop bars with skyline views, and the best hidden bars in DTLA.
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Outdoor Drinking and Rooftops: Los Angeles Wins Decisively
This is not a close comparison. LA has 312 days of sunshine per year and a culture built around outdoor living. The rooftop bar scene, the patio culture, and the ability to drink outside comfortably nine months of the year gives LA a category that New York simply cannot compete in at the same level. The views from LA's best rooftop bars are also genuinely impressive in a way that differs from New York's skyline but does not lose to it.
03
EP Restaurant & LP Rooftop Bar
West Hollywood, LA
$$$
Rooftop / Sunset Views
The best rooftop bar in Los Angeles for the combination of cocktail quality, view, and crowd. The Sunset Strip view from here at dusk is the signature LA bar experience. The cocktail program is considerably more serious than a rooftop bar at this profile level needs to be. Arrive before sunset. The transition into the lit city is worth it every time.
Order: The LP Spritz or any tropical rum variation on the current menu
04
Clifton's Republic
Downtown Los Angeles
$$
Multi-Floor / Late Night
Five floors of drinking inside a restored 1930s building in DTLA, each floor with a different character. The tiki bar on the fourth floor is the best reason to visit alone. The rooftop is small and good. The basement bar is the right level of dark for a Tuesday. Clifton's manages to be several different kinds of bar simultaneously, which downtown LA needed badly.
Order: Whatever the tiki bar is pouring from the current punch bowl
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Natural Wine and the New LA Drinking Culture
Los Angeles now has the best natural wine bar scene outside of Paris and London. The Silver Lake and Los Feliz clusters have produced a concentration of bars focused on low-intervention wine, fermented beverages, and creative non-alcoholic options that no other American city is matching. New York has good natural wine bars. LA has more of them and they are, on average, more interesting.
05
Bar Bandini
Silver Lake, LA
$$
Natural Wine / Neighbourhood
The Silver Lake bar that makes the most persuasive argument for LA's wine culture. Bandini pours about 30 natural wines by the glass at prices that assume you are a regular rather than a tourist, and the patio on a Thursday evening has the best crowd energy in the neighbourhood. The owners clearly love wine more than they love marketing, which is the right priority.
Order: Whatever the sommelier describes as the week's favourite arrival
06
Cerevo
Koreatown, LA
$$
Soju / Korean-Inspired
The bar that showed LA's Koreatown drinking culture deserved more serious attention. Cerevo builds cocktails around soju, makgeolli, and Korean spirits in a way that treats them as serious cocktail components rather than novelty ingredients. The 11pm crowd here after the restaurants close is the best argument for Koreatown as its own distinct bar destination within LA.
Order: The Makgeolli Sour or the soju-based house Old Fashioned
Late Night: New York Reclaims the Lead
Los Angeles runs on a different schedule from New York and the bar scene reflects this. Most serious cocktail bars in LA close at midnight. The after-midnight crowd in LA heads to clubs rather than bars. New York does not have this problem. If late-night bar drinking is the goal, New York wins and it is not close.
07
Mother's Ruin
Nolita, NYC
$$
Neighbourhood / Late Night
The best low-key bar on a block of excellent low-key bars in Nolita. Mother's Ruin runs a short cocktail menu that punches well above its price point, stays open until 4am without dropping in quality, and attracts a crowd that is worth being around on a Friday night. The space is small enough to feel like a discovery and busy enough to feel like a party.
Order: The Gimlet or any gin-forward house variation
08
The Roger Room
West Hollywood, LA
$$$
Craft / Late Night for LA
The best late-night cocktail bar in Los Angeles, which means it closes at 2am rather than 4am and represents the outer boundary of what the city is willing to offer serious drinkers after midnight. The cocktail program is excellent, the space is handsome, and for LA this is genuinely late. In any other major city it would be early.
Order: The current agave-focused seasonal signature or any mezcal Negroni variation
The full New York bar guide
Late night bars, cocktail programs, rooftops, and hidden gems. Our New York guide covers every borough and every occasion.
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Our Verdict: New York vs Los Angeles
New York wins on cocktail excellence, late night, density, and the kind of bar culture where you can walk from one great bar to the next without a car. Los Angeles wins on outdoor drinking, natural wine, rooftops, sunshine, and the overall quality of life that surrounds the drinking. Both cities have bars that belong on any serious drinker's lifetime list.
My honest recommendation: go to New York in the autumn and spend three days in the East Village and Lower East Side. Go to LA in March and spend two evenings in Silver Lake and one on a rooftop in West Hollywood. Neither trip will disappoint you if you know where to go, and this article exists so that you do.
New York vs Chicago bars: the Midwest comparison
We compared the two greatest East Coast and Midwest bar cities head to head. Chicago has a stronger case than you might expect.
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