4.7Canon
Capitol Hill · Seattle, WA
A narrow room with one of the largest spirits collections on the continent and a staff that can find you a whiskey from any decade you name.
Hotel Bar
Style
Hotel Bar
Murals, martinis, and patience.
The grand rooms — lobby bars and hotel cellars where the ceiling is painted, the piano starts at five, and the martini is stirred by someone who has done it forty thousand times. Historic landmarks and their well-behaved modern descendants.
4.7
4.6Bemelmans Bar
Upper East Side · New York, NY
Ludwig Bemelmans' Central Park murals, gold-leaf ceilings, a piano after five, and the most civilized martini north of 59th Street.
Hotel Bar
4.5Milk Room
The Loop · Chicago, IL
Eight seats in a room that sold milk during Prohibition, now pouring bottles older than the building's current name.
Hotel Bar
4.5King Cole Bar
Midtown · New York, NY
Maxfield Parrish's mural presides over the room that invented the Bloody Mary's better-dressed cousin.
Hotel Bar
4.5Peregrin
Historic District · Savannah, GA
A rooftop hotel bar over the live oaks, best at the hour when Savannah turns from gold to blue.
Hotel Bar
4.5The Berkshire Room
River North · Chicago, IL
Leather wingbacks, a smoking-jacket mood, and a Dealer's Choice card that lets you order by adjective.
Hotel Bar
4.4Bar Margot
Midtown · Atlanta, GA
Deep velvet banquettes and a martini poured with hotel-bar patience, a few steps off a Midtown lobby.
Hotel Bar
4.4The Campbell
Midtown East · New York, NY
A 1920s railroad executive's private office — leaded glass, hand-painted beams — hidden inside Grand Central Terminal.
Hotel Bar
4.3Off the Record
Downtown · Washington, DC
A basement bar across from the White House where the walls are covered in caricatures of every administration since the hotel opened.
Hotel Bar
4.3Potter's Lounge
The Loop · Chicago, IL
Drinks beneath a ceiling fresco in the lobby of the oldest continuously operating hotel in America.
Hotel Bar
4.1ROOT Mediterranean Kitchen & Cocktails
Rittenhouse · Philadelphia, PA
A quiet Rittenhouse corner room pairing Mediterranean small plates with a short, well-built cocktail list.
Hotel Bar
Questions people ask
- Do I need to be a hotel guest to drink at a hotel bar?
- Almost never. Walk through the lobby like you belong there, which, as a paying customer, you do.
- Is there a dress code?
- Rarely enforced, frequently implied. A collar and closed shoes will carry you through every room on this list.
- When is the best time to go?
- Between five and seven, before the dinner crowd. You get the pianist, the good seats and an unhurried bartender.
The Gear Room
Gear for hotel bar nights
The Savoy Cocktail Book
Harry Craddock's 1930 compendium, written while America was dry and London was not.
$20–30Find it →
Old Fashioned Cocktail Kit
Bitters, demerara syrup and a rocks glass. Nothing here is optional and nothing is extra.
$30–50Find it →
Clear Ice Cube Mold
Directional freezing makes hotel-bar ice at home. Dilution slows, drink stops racing.
$25–45Find it →
Double Old Fashioned Glasses
Heavy base, wide mouth, room for a large cube. Built for whiskey and elbows.
$25–45Find it →
Art Deco Cufflinks
Small geometry for hotel bars with a dress code they no longer mention.
$18–35Find it →
Cocktail Codex
Six root templates instead of a thousand recipes. The fastest way to stop reading recipes.
$30–40Find it →
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