Feature

Toasts of the Town

Nights of Wine and Poses: Sipping pretty in Punch & Judy.

Best New Wine Bar
Punch & Judy
With most New York wine bars aping the customs of the old country, it's nice to see a place that's neither bar à vins nor enoteca. More...
• Lower East Side

Best Burger Bars
Old Town
A true New York classic: Ancient mariners sit side by side with sports nuts, frat boys, and hip preppies who struggle valiantly not to use their cell phones. More...
• Union Square

Corner Bistro
If you call yourself a New Yorker, then it's practically your civic duty to have a beer and burger here at least once, if not once a week. More...
• West Village

Lord of the Rings: SX137's Katherine Kiwi, with chardonnay-infused vodka.

(Photo: Kenneth Chen)

Best High Design on the Lower East Side
SX137
Though the all-white back room is, alas, no more, SX137, conceived by Harry Allen, who designed Soho shelter boutique Moss... More...
•Lower East Side

Best Up-From-the-Ashes Bar
The Bar on Gramercy Park
The bow-tied bartenders, bowls of Goldfish, and piano players may be gone, but the newly reincarnated Gramercy will not feel entirely unfamiliar to regulars. More...
• Gramercy Park

Best Place to Ditch (er, Upgrade) Your Date
Bungalow 8
Well, if you and your date can get in, that is... More...
• Chelsea

Best Bar at the End of the Earth
Sunny's
Ask a car service to take you to "the bar" in Red Hook, and you'll wind up at an unassuming little place by the river, near some railroad tracks that go nowhere. More...
• Brooklyn

Best Bars That Are Hardest to Find
Angel's Share
It's tough to find this elegant drink parlor tucked away inside a Japanese restaurant... More...
• East Village

Submercer
First, walk into the trendy hotel, favored by rock stars who love soaking in its deep tubs... More...
• SoHo

Best Jazz Bar
Smoke Jazz Club and Lounge
Smoke, which rose three years ago from the ashes of the late, lamented Augie's and was named for the Paul Auster novel written within, feels more like a living room than like a club. More...
• Upper West Side

Best Bar on Smith Street
Bar Below
If every month brings yet another (sometimes sparsely attended) new bar to Smith Street, Bar Below, beneath an Asian-fusion restaurant, seems like a keeper. More...
• Brooklyn

Fort Serene: Decompressing in Frank's, still Fort Greene's favorite.

(Photo: Stefan Studer)

Best "The More Things Change . . . " Bar
Frank's Cocktail Lounge
Veterans of Frank's Cocktail Lounge in Fort Greene were rattled this year when its vintage block-text front sign gave way to an all-too-tasteful burgundy awning.... More...
• Brooklyn

Best Hot Spot in a Non-Hot Neighborhood
Eden
The Upper West Side is no longer a culinary desert, but its nightlife still leaves something to be desired. More...
• Upper West Side

Best Cigar Bar for All Smokers
Club Macanudo
Given the location, it's no surprise that the clientele at this wood-paneled shrine to tobacco tends toward the pinstripe-and-cuff-link variety. More...
• Midtown

Best Speakeasy in Midtown
Single Room Occupancy
There's no sign outside this basement hideaway, just a glowing green sconce and the faintest throb of deep-house music. More...
• Midtown

Best Bar to Take Over With Twenty Friends
The Magician
Perhaps it's the popular conviction that magicians (read: David Blaine) are aesthetically unappealing that keeps this pleasant tavern so empty... More...
• Lower East Side

Best Bar in a Converted Space
Happy Ending
Like Double Happiness, its older, cheaper, ex-speakeasy sister bar to the west, this trendy one-year-old bar plays up its previous existence-in this case, as a massage parlor. More...
• Chinatown

Best Wag Bar
Langan's
Ever since irascible-lovable Steve Dunleavy stumbled upon this Irish pub, it's been home away from home for New York Post journos... More...
• Midtown

Best Bar for Playing Games
Pete's Candy Store
Pete's was once a local luncheonette for the neighborhood's Italian old-timers-as well as a candy store... More...
• Brooklyn

Best Strip Bar for Dancing
Pussycat Lounge
No, we don't mean onstage-- the real action happens upstairs from the T&A at the hippest financial-district scene around. More...
• Tribeca

Best Bars To Be An Amateur D.J.
Good news for bedroom D.J.'s: As a gesture of good will and cultural openness, more and more bars are letting their customers provide the tunes. (Or maybe they just want to spend less money on pro turntablists?) At any rate, here are the best spots to spin your way to stardom. No Simon Cowell to worry about-just your drunk friends cheering you on.

"The Record Party" at Halcyon takes place on the first Monday of every month. All you have to do is arrive at 8:30 p.m., sign up for a time slot, and they'll hand over the tables. All styles of music are welcome (though the sound leans toward the electronic), and the chill crowd and comfy setting make even beginners feel at ease. Bring your own needles.

Magnetic Fields in Brooklyn Heights also hosts an open-turntable night, starting every Monday around 9 p.m. Bring your own records, sign up with the bartender for a half-hour slot, and spin to your heart's content.

Less spontaneous (read: more prepared) types can check out "Homegrown" every Tuesday at the cozy, unpretentious Sin Sin, where four 60-minute slots are reserved each week for fledgling D.J.'s. Drop off your demo tape for a chance to spin at future parties.

If the last time you held a vinyl LP was when you bought Thriller in '85, there's always the "iParty" at APT. Starting at 9:30 on Tuesday (and going on until about 3 a.m.), trendy partygoers, armed with two iPods and a mixer, sign up for seven-minute time slots in which they choose from over 3,000 preprogrammed songs while rowdy onlookers shout their approval-or their dismay. (Hint: On one evening, Neil Diamond was not particularly well received.)

And if your Mac is your musical medium of choice, head to Openair at 5 p.m. on Sundays for "Share," where an eclectic mix of hippie-ish East Villagers, black-clad techies, and Williamsburg new-media types bring in their impossibly skinny laptops, plug in to the server, and make group music and visuals that are piped and projected throughout the party. Martinis abound, and even Luddites are welcome.

Edited by Jared Hohlt and written by Joy Armstrong, Sarah Bernard, Ada Calhoun, Sara Cardace, Lauren DeCarlo, Jeremy Gerard, Matt Gross, Michelle Handelman, Tony Hendra, Boris Kachka, Ben Kaplan, Beth Landman Keil, Sean Kennedy, Monica Khemsurov, Amy Larocca, Marc Malkin, E. J. Samson, Deborah Schoeneman, Michael Steele, Carl Swanson, Catherine Townsend, Jenifer Van Vleck, and Jada Yuan.