The secret is out! A new edition of Secret New York: Hidden Bars and Restaurants is here. This comprehensive guide to the best off-the-beaten-path establishments includes a collection of more than 150 watering holes and eateries throughout NYC with amazing decor, eccentric owners, bizarre food, and more.
The hidden bars in NYC included in this guide will please and astonish underground and post-industrial design buffs, refined gourmets, cocktail drinkers, world food lovers, and anyone curious enough to explore the infinite possibilities to have fun in New York.
Written by Untapped New York founder Michelle Young, along with journalists Hannah Frishberg and Laura Itzkowitz, the book contains stunning photography by Untapped New York CEO Augustin Pasquet and photographer Alix Piorun. Here, we handpicked 10 of the most exciting hidden spots in Manhattan straight from the book, including recently added places from the new edition, to give you a sneak peek of what’s inside!
Since 1954, the Second Avenue Deli has been serving New Yorkers certified-kosher Jewish delicatessen offerings. And since 2017, 2nd Floor Bar & Essen – Yiddish for "to eat" – has been serving a finger food-ified version of its now certified-classic menu on the floor above it.
"We wanted Tigre to be a place that was about escapism, that was sophisticated and refined, but there's also an edge to it, said co-owner Joshua Boissy, who also co-owns Williamsburg oyster bar Maison Premiere.
They settled on a cocaine-chic aesthetic, with mirrored ceilings, patterned carpets, and banquettes covered in tiger print sourced from a mill in Milan.
At Manhattan's watery edge, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, on a cobblestoned portion of Front Street, sits The Little Shop. Walk through its blue double doors and the space feels true to the name: A particularly well-curated, upsale market offering a notably high-and-low-brow mix of buyables ranging from potato chips to small-batch chocolates to high-end deodorant. The floor looks unfinished; the ceiling has exposed beams; the contrasts are strong yet subtle: What a weird bodega.
Walk between the back aisles, though, and a portion of the white wall slides aside to reveal an intimate, sumptuously wallpapered, living room-like space serving up involved cocktails and light snacks.
Little Dipper bar caters directly to the astrologically-minded, offering a star sign-themed experience in an ironically underground space.
The entrance is easily missed – a painted fire door, propped open next to a single velvet-roped stanchion. Through it is a set of stairs, the walls painted in neon acrylic and glowing beneath a blacklight.
Downstairs, in the basement of the Courtyard by Marriott Chelsea, is a hotel-friendly bar designed to be sleek and approachable, but with the delightful horoscope-focused twist.
A barber shop, luncheonette, music studio, and massage parlor are among the most recent former incarnations of this underground address, but it’s now so full of plush carpeting and sumptuous armchairs that the ghosts of past businesses – as well as the hustle and grime of the subway mere inches beyond the black door – feel out of sight and out of mind.
6. Nothing Really Matters, in the subway at 210 W. 50th St
It’s difficult to imagine a more perfect address for such a nihilistically named watering hole. In a filthy corner of a Midtown subway station, past the glowing green light of a digital art gallery and down the crud-caked corridor, a surprisingly high-end saloon lies in wait. Nothing Really Matters took up shop in the 50th Street downtown 1 train entrance on December 31, 2021.
7. Jazz at Marjorie Elliot’s, 555 Edgecombe Avenue
Whatever the weather, if it’s a Sunday afternoon, Marjorie Eliot hosts jazz shows in her Harlem living room. She has been doing this for more than 30 years.
This art gallery is more than it appears. There is little to distinguish Frevo from any other storefront display room, but behind one of the works in its rotating solo exhibitions is the entrance to a C-shaped, 16-seat counter surrounding an open-format kitchen.
Behind the disguise of a locksmith and a shoe repair shop claiming to have been cutting keys and fixing leather since 1971, Keys & Heels serves up top-notch cocktails in stylish surroundings.
In the bowels of this Midtown record shop, a cavernous space not only slings drinks but also hosts karaoke. A combination event space and vinyl shop, RPM Underground offers old recordings upstairs and the opportunity to make brand-new ones below.
In the middle 1960s, a reverend decided to clean up a 200-year-old church basement storage room, buy a few tables, build a stage, name it after philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and start what has become one of Columbia University’s best-kept secrets. For nearly six decades now, Postcrypt Coffeehouse has continued to operate out of its little 30-person hollow beneath the university campus’ St. Paul’s Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue.
