Temple Bar

Temple Bar ran on Lafayette Street from 1989 to 2017 as the model of the grown-up downtown cocktail lounge — long mahogany bar, deep banquettes, martinis in proper glasses — and in late 2021 a team including Attaboy's Sam Ross and Michael McIlroy reopened it in the original space, on the NoHo edge where the East Village begins. The revival kept the dark glamour and tightened the drinks, and the room slipped back into the city as if it had never left.

This is a bar for the start of an evening you want to feel like an occasion: low lamps, a crowd that dressed a little, martinis and caviar-leaning snacks. Arrive early for a banquette and let the first drink slow everything down.