For much of the past two decades, the term “neighborhood bar” was thrown around like a pejorative. It signaled a step down in quality from your local cocktail bar. It meant the type of place that wouldn’t know whether to shake or stir a Negroni, kept their vermouth unrefrigerated, or still claimed that gin could be “bruised.” But, as cocktail culture took a decisive turn toward the high-concept, high-tech, foam-topped science projects that dominate best-of lists across the globe, “neighborhood bar” has taken on new meaning.
Now, the term is emphatically embraced by a wave of newcomers tapping into the studied nonchalance of the good ol’ “regular bar,” hoping to lure an audience weary of indecipherable menus and clarified everything. To put an exclamation mark on the point, Death & Co., the lauded upscale craft cocktail “chain,” has even launched a subsidiary called Close Company, which announced on Instagram: “We’re not afraid to say we’re here to be your neighborhood bar.” The term, it seems, is being reclaimed.
For me, the neighborhood bar is exactly where I want to be. It’s the type of space where the menu rarely changes, if there’s a menu at all. A place where cocktails are the backdrop to conversation, not the subject of it. Where simplicity—not to be mistaken for a lack of ambition—is the reigning philosophy. Ironically, when I think about the bars that best fit this description today, I think of places like New York’s Attaboy, Little Branch, Seaborne—pioneering cocktail bars, molded by the late Sasha Petraske, that once occupied the avant-garde and are now, once again, the model to emulate, though this time it’s not because they are the only ones with an ice program. It’s a reminder that the classics—the drinks that drew most of us into this world in the first place—are classics for a reason.
In New York, my favorite neighborhood bar is The Long Island Bar in Brooklyn, which happens to be the platonic ideal of the category—an unpretentious place with nothing but hits on the (unchanging) menu. Stoa, on the opposite coast in San Francisco, Sportsman’s in Chicago and Ticonderoga Club in Atlanta have also all devoted their programs to simple drinks done well in a laid-back atmosphere.
This is not to say that I don’t enjoy the ultra modern, high-touch experience at some of the most celebrated bars today. I’ve had truly transcendental drinks and first-rate hospitality at bars like Tayēr + Elementary (London), Bar Nouveau (Paris) and Overstory (Manhattan), to name a few. But in a sea of high-concept sameness, the neighborhood bar is a life raft. So if you’re looking for me, you know where to find me.
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