Dante set the standard when it was named World's Best. Bandits, Little Branch, and Katana Kitten kept the pressure on.
The full ranking
Dante set the standard when it was named World's Best. Bandits, Little Branch, and Katana Kitten kept the pressure on.
Dante
Founded in 1915 as Caffe Dante, this West Village Italian-American bar was named the World's Best Bar in 2019 and has since added a second West Village location. The Negroni is perfected here, the aperitivo hour is the best in Manhattan, and the sidewalk tables on MacDougal Street are among the city's happiest places.
Katana Kitten
Tokyo-born bartender Masahiro Urushido won Best New American Cocktail Bar at the 2019 Spirited Awards for this West Village spot, which ranked 27 on the World's 50 Best Bars in 2023. The Japanese whisky highballs are precise and generous, and the hospitality philosophy draws directly from omotenashi.
Little Branch
Founded in 2005 by the late Sasha Petraske, this below-grade West Village room set the template for the city's craft cocktail revival: no-sign entrance, candlelight, live jazz most nights, and pre-Prohibition classics executed without compromise. It remains one of the most consequential bars New York has produced.
Angel's Share
One of New York's most influential speakeasy-style bars, originally opened in the East Village in 1993 and directly credited with inspiring Milk & Honey and the modern cocktail revival. The bar relocated to 45 Grove Street in the West Village in 2023, bringing 30 years of Japanese bartending discipline to a new room.
Employees Only
The five industry veterans who opened this speakeasy behind a fortune teller's parlor in 2004 helped define New York's craft cocktail era, winning World's Best Cocktail Bar at Tales of the Cocktail and a top-four ranking in the World's 50 Best Bars. White-jacketed bartenders, art deco accents, and a kitchen that runs to 3 AM.
Sip & Guzzle
Named North America's Best Bar for 2026, this two-level West Village concept from Shingo Gokan and Employees Only veteran Steve Schneider pairs a lively ground-floor highball and snack bar with a refined, reservation-only basement devoted to Japanese-inspired cocktails. The A5 Wagyu burger, made in a daily limit of 12, has been called one of the world's best.
Bar Pisellino
From Rita Sodi and Jody Williams, the couple behind Via Carota and I Sodi, this 2019 all-day Italian bar on Grove Street imports the aperitivo ritual in full, from morning espresso and bomboloni to standing Negronis and Sgroppinos at the marble banco. It is the most convincingly Italian bar in a city full of impostors.
Bandits
A 1970s-diner-meets-dive-bar at 44 Bedford Street, with tufted green booths, checkered floors, a disco ball, and a cocktail list built around New York pop culture moments, including the best riff on a Cosmopolitan the neighborhood has produced. Martini Mondays at $10, Disco Brunch on Sundays.
Analogue
A warmly lit cocktail lounge on West 8th with over 300 whiskies, live jazz bands several nights a week, and a no-cover-charge policy that makes it the most civilized music bar in the Village. The leather furniture, jazz-legend portraits, and daily 5 to 7 PM happy hour make it work equally well for a date or a solo drink.
Binx
A pastel-walled, disco-ball-equipped natural wine bar on Christopher Street from the owners of Moonflower, where kimchi fried chicken and crab tortellini keep pace with a carefully curated low-intervention wine list. Fuzzy bar stools and surrealist decor make it one of the neighborhood's more visually distinctive rooms.
Ranked across 5 sources: The Infatuation 20 Best; Time Out 14 Best; World's 50 Best Bars; Yelp · Ranked by Rating (June 2026); Google Reviews · Ranked by Rating (June 2026). Full scoring is on the Methodology tab above.
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