Best Wine Bars in New York City

b'artusi

b'artusi occupies a corner of Hudson Street in the West Village where Italian-American drinking and eating culture converge without ceremony. The bar anchors the experience, the pasta draws the crowd, and the format rewards those who arrive without a fixed agenda. It sits in the casual-serious tier that defines the neighbourhood's most durable restaurants.

Bar Oliver

Bar Oliver occupies a corner of Lower Manhattan's Financial District at 1 Oliver Street, positioning itself within a neighborhood that has steadily built out a post-trading-hours bar scene. The address places it among a cohort of Downtown Manhattan bars that serve a professional crowd transitioning from desk to evening. Booking and menu details are best confirmed directly with the venue.

Bar Susanne

Bar Susanne is a seafood and raw bar in Brooklyn that places the cocktail program at equal footing with the kitchen. The format suits the neighbourhood's appetite for technically serious drinking alongside well-sourced shellfish. For those working through Brooklyn's bar scene, it represents the category where the glass and the plate carry equal weight.

Cherry on Top

Cherry on Top occupies a corner of Bushwick's Suydam Street that sits closer to the neighbourhood's working creative edge than its more polished dining corridors. With sparse public-facing data and a name that signals a certain lightness of touch, it belongs to a category of Brooklyn spots that earn their following through word of mouth rather than press campaigns. Booking intelligence and menu details are best confirmed directly with the venue.

City Winery New York City

Deep wine list

City Winery New York City occupies a sprawling Hudson Yards-adjacent address at 25 11th Avenue, combining a working urban winery, live music venue, and full-service restaurant under one roof. It sits in a category of its own among Manhattan entertainment concepts, part production facility, part concert hall, part wine bar, drawing both wine-curious locals and touring music acts seeking an intimate performance space.

Daintree

Daintree occupies the 29th floor of a Midtown building on West 38th Street, positioning it among New York's quieter, elevation-defined gathering spots rather than its street-level scene bars. With sparse public data and a name borrowed from a remote Australian rainforest, the bar invites curiosity from those who already know where to look, the kind of place that earns its reputation through word of mouth rather than marketing.

Eavesdrop

A Greenpoint bar on Manhattan Avenue, Eavesdrop sits in one of Brooklyn's most active drinking neighbourhoods, where low-key room concepts and serious drink programs have quietly displaced the borough's earlier dive-and-craft divide. The address places it within walking distance of the neighbourhood's core bar circuit, making it a natural stop on any considered evening in northern Brooklyn.

Eel Bar

On Broome Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Eel Bar operates as a wine-forward neighborhood bar with a focused food program that has drawn a loyal local following. Its low-key room and deliberately unhurried pace position it outside the city's high-concept cocktail circuit, making it a reference point for the kind of honest, no-performance drinking that the LES does better than almost anywhere else in New York.

Elvis

On Great Jones Street in NoHo, Elvis operates where the downtown bar scene folds back on itself: part serious cocktail program, part kitchen-driven food pairing, with the low-lit density of a room that has seen a few decades of New York nights. The address alone carries history, and the bar earns its place in a neighborhood that rewards specificity over spectacle.

Fradei Bistro

A Brooklyn bistro on South Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, Fradei Bistro sits in a neighbourhood that has quietly become one of New York City's more serious dining corridors. The address places it within easy reach of the borough's bar and restaurant circuit, where the room itself often does as much work as the menu in setting the terms of an evening.

Have & Meyer

Deep wine list

Have & Meyer occupies a corner of Williamsburg's Havemeyer Street that sits closer to the neighborhood's pre-gentrification grain than its post-2010 cocktail bar wave. The address alone signals something about positioning: this is Brooklyn drinking culture at a remove from Manhattan's technical showmanship, with sourcing and place as the editorial spine of the program.

June

June Wine Bar has anchored Carroll Gardens' natural wine scene since its early days as a neighborhood-first bottle shop with pours. Located at 231 Court St in Brooklyn, it operates in a tier of low-intervention wine bars where the floor staff's knowledge carries as much weight as the list itself. A recent addition to the team has given the program fresh momentum.

Kindred

Deep wine list

Kindred occupies a third-floor address on West 24th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron district, placing it among a tier of New York cocktail rooms where considered programming and a deliberate remove from street-level noise define the experience. The venue sits within a broader shift in the city's bar scene toward spaces that reward intention over impulse, and where the room itself is part of the proposition.

La Cantine

La Cantine at 60 St Nicholas Ave sits in the Bushwick-Ridgewood corridor, where Brooklyn's neighbourhood bar culture runs deep and regulars keep their own stools. The format leans toward the kind of place that earns its crowd through consistency rather than hype, operating as a genuine community anchor in a stretch of the borough that has developed its own distinct after-hours identity.

La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels Centre St

Deep wine list

La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels on Centre Street has held Star Wine List recognition every year from 2023 through 2026, placing it among New York City's most consistently credentialed wine bars. The SoHo address situates it within a neighbourhood that has moved steadily upmarket, and the French-rooted concept brings a European idiom of natural and artisanal wine to a city that has made room for exactly that approach.

La Compagnie Wine Bar Flatiron

La Compagnie Wine Bar, on West 24th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron district, earned Star Wine List recognition in 2026, placing it among a selective tier of New York wine bars where curation and cellar depth take precedence over cocktail programming. The address puts it a short walk from Madison Square Park, in a neighbourhood that rewards those who look past the obvious.

Ladybird

On East 7th Street in the East Village, Ladybird occupies the quieter, plant-forward end of a Lower Manhattan bar scene that skews loud and spirit-heavy. Its menu architecture signals a particular set of priorities: drinks built around botanical thinking rather than classic framework, positioned between the high-concept cocktail programs of the East Village and the amaro-led bars a few blocks west.

Lai Rai

Lai Rai occupies a narrow storefront at 76 Forsyth Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, operating within one of New York City's most concentrated pockets of Vietnamese drinking culture. The bar draws a loyal neighborhood following and positions itself against a broader citywide shift toward spirit-forward, culturally specific programming. Booking intelligence and neighborhood timing are key to getting full value from a visit.

Million Goods

Million Goods occupies a corner of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where the bar food and drinks programme operate in close conversation with each other rather than as separate departments. Located at 88 Franklin St, it sits within a Brooklyn drinking scene that has shifted decisively toward food-forward bar formats. For visitors tracking where New York's bar culture is moving next, Greenpoint is worth the detour.

Parcelle Chinatown

Deep wine list

Parcelle Chinatown at 135 Division Street occupies a corner of Lower Manhattan where wine bar culture and neighbourhood life intersect. Part of the Parcelle family, it functions as a local gathering point rather than a destination-driven showroom, a place for deliberate pours in a neighbourhood that rewards those paying attention. The list skews natural and European, with pricing that invites return visits rather than single-occasion splurging.

Pearl's Social & Billy Club

Pearl's Social & Billy Club occupies a specific niche in Brooklyn's bar scene: a neighborhood room that operates more like a well-stocked clubhouse than a destination cocktail bar. Set on St Nicholas Avenue in Bushwick, it draws a local crowd with an approach to hospitality that prioritizes comfort over performance, making it a reliable stop in one of New York's most drink-curious boroughs.

Rhodora Wine Bar

A wine bar rooted in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Rhodora Wine Bar at 197 Adelphi Street occupies the quieter, more considered end of New York's natural wine movement. The format suits occasion dining as much as it does a low-key Tuesday: the wine list is the event, the setting keeps conversation at the center, and the neighbourhood rewards the detour.

Sauced

Sauced occupies a well-worn corner of East Village's bar scene at 47 2nd Ave, the kind of address that regulars know by habit rather than by search. The room reads as a neighbourhood gathering place first and a drinks destination second, the sort of bar that earns its keep through consistency rather than spectacle. For visitors to Lower Manhattan, it sits within easy reach of the East Village's broader bar corridor.

Skin Contact

Skin Contact occupies a narrow slot on Orchard Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, where the natural and orange wine movement found one of its earliest New York footholds. The bar's low-lit, close-quarters format is calibrated for conversation over the glass rather than spectacle, a format that has helped define the neighbourhood's post-craft-cocktail drinking culture.

St Jardim

Deep wine list

St Jardim occupies a corner of West Village at 183 W 10th St, where the neighbourhood's long tradition of intimate, craft-led bars finds a quiet expression. A reservation-first approach is advisable for evening visits.

Stars

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence · Deep wine list

Esquire selected Stars in New York City for its 2026 Best Bars in America list.

Sunrise/Sunset

Sunrise/Sunset sits at 351 Evergreen Ave in the Bushwick corridor of Brooklyn, occupying a stretch of the borough where bar programming has shifted meaningfully over the past decade. The venue draws on Brooklyn's evolving cocktail culture, where wine curation and spirit-forward lists increasingly define a bar's identity as much as its kitchen output.

Swan Room

Swan Room sits at 54 Canal Street in New York City's Lower East Side, operating in the tradition of low-profile neighbourhood bars that reward repeat visits over first impressions. The crowd here tends toward the local and the loyal rather than the curious tourist, which shapes everything from the pacing of service to the rhythm of the room. It is the kind of address that regulars keep quietly to themselves.

The Butcher's Daughter

On Kenmare Street in Nolita, The Butcher's Daughter occupies a corner of downtown Manhattan where plant-forward eating and a carefully assembled drinks program intersect. The café draws a steady crowd looking for something more considered than the neighborhood's typical bistro fare, with a menu and back bar that reward repeat visitors across seasons.

The Lot Radio

The Lot Radio occupies a converted parking lot on Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, operating as an outdoor radio station, bar, and community gathering space. The format is deliberately low-key: drinks served from a small window, music broadcast live, and no kitchen to speak of, making it an honest snapshot of how Brooklyn's bar culture has learned to do more with less.

The River

The River occupies a Tribeca-adjacent address on Bayard Street in Lower Manhattan, where the cocktail programme carries the weight of the experience. Positioned within a neighbourhood that runs from Chinatown's dense street life to the quieter blocks approaching the waterfront, it draws a crowd that knows what it came for.

With Others Brooklyn

A Star Wine List-recognised bar on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, With Others Brooklyn operates in the tradition of serious New York drinking rooms that treat the wine list and cocktail programme with equal editorial weight. The Bedford Avenue address places it inside Williamsburg's maturing bar corridor, where the conversation has shifted from novelty to sustained craft.