5. Featherweight

NYC Hidden Bars and Restaurants-Featherweight-Bushwick Williamsburg-Michelle Young-Laura Izkowitz-NYC-001

On the border of East Williamsburg and Bushwick, Featherweight is marked only by a small framed image of a white feather on a black door—recently added because the bar was so hidden people looking for it kept walking past it. You get to Featherweight by going through the restaurant Sweet Science next door, but first you have to go through a dimly lit alley—closed off at some point in the building’s history. 

Featherweight is just one little room with a bar, three roomy mint-green booths, and some additional seating along the back wall and perched against a column. It’s warm and inviting, though, with weathered tin on the walls and ceiling—found upstairs and installed here—exposed brick, dark wood, and a black velvet curtain guarding the entrance.

These guys take their cocktails seriously. Protegés of the late Sasha Petraske, they follow the Milk & Honey school. The menu is composed of all original cocktails offering inventive spins on the classics, like the Dirty Harry—a dirty Martini variation made with gin, house-infused olive brine, dry vermouth, and cracked black pepper. Homemade syrups enhance many of their drinks.