With Others Brooklyn

Bedford Avenue and the Bars That Took Williamsburg Seriously

New York's bar culture has long moved in waves across borough lines. Manhattan built the grammar — the speakeasy revival at Attaboy NYC, the bitters-forward precision of Amor y Amargo, the measured ceremony of Angel's Share — and Brooklyn has spent the last decade deciding what to do with that inheritance. On Bedford Avenue, the answer that has emerged is quieter and more wine-literate than the cocktail bars that came before it. With Others Brooklyn, recognised by Star Wine List in 2026, sits in that more recent current: bars where the back bar and the bottle list are given roughly equal curatorial attention, and where the point of entry shifts depending on what the guest wants from the evening.

The Star Wine List recognition is a meaningful credential in this context. The award is not handed to venues with decorative bottle displays; it signals a list assembled with enough depth and editorial intent to satisfy wine-focused evaluators. For a bar on Bedford Avenue to hold that recognition in 2026 places it in a specific tier of Brooklyn drinking destinations, one where the wine programme functions as a primary draw rather than a supplement to cocktails.

The Cocktail Programme in Context

Understanding where With Others Brooklyn sits within New York's cocktail conversation requires some orientation. The city's serious bar tier has fragmented over the past decade. On one side are the high-technique, high-production venues , clarified drinks, elaborate garnish, tableside service , that treat the bar as performance space. On the other are smaller, quieter rooms where the programme is built around depth of flavour and the guest's ability to drink across categories in a single sitting. With Others Brooklyn reads as the latter: a bar where the cocktail list and the wine list are designed to coexist rather than compete.

That dual-programme approach is not unusual across the broader American craft bar circuit. Kumiko in Chicago built its reputation on exactly this kind of integration, with a Japanese-influenced cocktail format that sits alongside a considered sake and wine list. ABV in San Francisco has operated on a similar logic for years, treating the full beverage programme as a single editorial statement rather than separate departments. What makes the Bedford Avenue context distinct is the neighbourhood's particular drinking culture: Williamsburg has moved past the phase where a bar's identity depended on its cocktail theatrics, and into a period where longevity and programme depth are the markers that separate destinations from transient openings.

The EA-BR-01 frame is useful here: at bars where the cocktail programme is the editorial spine, what matters is not the number of drinks on the list but the logic that connects them. Whether With Others Brooklyn organises its cocktails by base spirit, flavour profile, or some other taxonomy, the Star Wine List recognition suggests that the same organisational intelligence applied to the bottle list is at work across the programme. Bars that earn that award tend to be run by people who think about beverage as a whole system.

Williamsburg's Drinking Room Tradition

Bedford Avenue has housed serious drinking rooms for long enough that a pattern is now visible. The bars that have lasted on this stretch are not the ones that imported a Manhattan concept wholesale; they are the ones that found a register that suited the neighbourhood's particular mix of long-term residents, creative industry workers, and visitors who arrive already knowing what they want to drink. With Others Brooklyn addresses that audience directly: the name itself signals a social intention, a bar built around the act of drinking with people rather than performing for them.

That social orientation places it in a peer set that includes neighbourhood bars with serious programmes rather than destination bars that require a subway journey with a specific purpose. The distinction matters for how you plan the evening. Superbueno operates at the more exuberant end of Brooklyn's cocktail spectrum, with a Latin-influenced programme that leans into energy and colour. With Others Brooklyn appears to occupy a different register: lower volume, higher programme density, the kind of room where a second and third drink make sense because the list rewards exploration.

Star Wine List Recognition and What It Implies

The Star Wine List award has become one of the more reliable third-party signals for bars that take their bottle programme seriously. Unlike restaurant-focused awards, it evaluates venues specifically on how the wine list is structured, priced, and presented. A bar holding this recognition in 2026 has been assessed against a global cohort that includes wine bars and restaurant programmes, not just cocktail venues that happen to keep some bottles behind the counter. For context, other Star Wine List-recognised bars in the broader American market include operations at Jewel of the South in New Orleans and Allegory in Washington, D.C., venues where beverage craft is the primary editorial commitment. Internationally, the same award has gone to bars like Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu and The Parlour in Frankfurt on the Main, which reinforces that the credential travels across formats and geographies.

At With Others Brooklyn, the award functions as the primary trust signal available, and it is a substantive one. It positions the bar not as a wine-adjacent cocktail room but as a venue where both programmes are maintained to a standard that survives external scrutiny.

Planning the Visit

With Others Brooklyn's Bedford Avenue address is accessible from the L train at Bedford Avenue station, the most direct subway connection from Manhattan. For visitors combining it with other Williamsburg stops, the bar sits within the corridor that runs north from the waterfront toward the Northside's denser restaurant and bar concentration. The format and hours are not confirmed in our current data; checking directly before visiting is advisable, particularly for weekend evenings when the Bedford Avenue corridor draws higher foot traffic.

For a fuller picture of where With Others Brooklyn fits within the city's drinking and dining options, see our full New York City restaurants guide. Those planning a longer Brooklyn evening might also consider how the bar connects to other serious drinking rooms in the borough; With Others Brooklyn works well as an anchor for a neighbourhood-focused itinerary rather than a single-destination trip, given its position at the more contemplative end of what Bedford Avenue now offers. For a comparable dual-programme approach in a different American city, Julep in Houston offers a useful reference point for how a bar can build identity around programme depth rather than spectacle.