Red walls and floors with mint green chairs

8 Places to Grab a Design-Inspired Cocktail During the NYCxDESIGN Festival

DrinksxDesign is an opportunity to visit some of the city’s best-designed restaurant and bar interiors and enjoy bespoke cocktails.

With thousands of restaurants and bars, New York City’s nightlife scene is as diverse, vibrant, and potentially overwhelming as the city itself. Fortunately, NYCxDESIGN has teamed up with Eater and Punch for DrinksxDesign, a curated program celebrating some of the city’s best-designed watering holes with craft cocktails inspired by their architecture and interiors. Located in fabulous dining rooms, intimate speakeasys, and even a transplanted midwestern supper club, these nine venues are a sampling of the city’s impressive drinking and dining scene as well as its stunning hospitality interiors.

exterior stone buildings
COURTESY KINGS COUNTY DISTILLERY

Kings County Distillery

299 Sands St., Brooklyn

Kings County Distillery is New York City’s premier craft distillery and among the most acclaimed small distilleries in the United States. Located in the Paymaster Building in the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, the distillery is focused exclusively on whiskeys, including Bourbon, Peated Bourbon, Empire Rye, and others. 

interior bar with wood stools
COURTESY LIZ CLAYMAN

Bar Blondeau

80 Wythe Ave., 6th Fl., Brooklyn—Inside Wythe Hotel

Bar Blondeau is a warm, alluring space with soft natural oak walls, built-in banquettes and custom, gold-accented ambient lighting. The interior, designed by Bonetti/Kozerski comfortably seats small, intimate dinners or larger gatherings among jewel toned banquettes. 

bar interior with velvet couches
COURTESY ERIC MEDSKER

Dear Irving on Hudson

310 W. 40th St., Manhattan—Inside Aliz Hotel

Dear Irving on Hudson opened in 2019 to bring the cocktail magic of its original location to a bigger audience in Times Square. Located in the 40th and 41st floors of the Aliz Hotel, it continues its nod to Art Deco decor on one floor and a James Bond-style Mod decor on another. 

restaurant interior with curtains in the foreground
COURTESY GENTL & HYERS AND LOUISE PALMBERG

Comodo

23 Lexington Ave., Manhattan—Inside Freehand Hotel

Comodo, a Latin American–inspired restaurant inside the Freehand Hotel is sophisticated but unpretentious—and most importantly—welcoming to all. The warm and inviting restaurant features a signature cocktail program, mezcal-focused back bar, and a selection of natural wine.

COURTESY STEPHEN KENT JOHNSON

As You Are

252 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn—Inside Ace Hotel

As You Are’s inviting dining room—designed by Roman and Williams—is paneled in stained plywood, with large banquettes and custom wooden tables, earthy green upholstery and satellite-like, milk glass luminaires that warm the room from above. Lacquered black wooden floors lend the space a casual warmth.

interior restaurant blonde wood furnishings and pale walls
COURTESY LLAMA SAN

Llama San

359 6th Ave., Manhattan

Llama-San is a Peruvian izakaya tucked away in Greenwich Village. There, among Peruvian artworks and light wood fixtures that reflect Japanese minimalism, chef Eric Ramirez looks to his Japanese grandmother to explore the tremendous influence of Nippon culture on his Andean homeland. 

turks inn interior with decorated bar and red carpeting
COURTESY TURK’S INN

Turk’s Inn

234 Starr St., Brooklyn

Turk’s Inn is a re-creation of a supper club that existed in Wisconsin for 80 years before shuttering in 2015. It was then that Tyler Erickson and Varun Kataria, long-time patrons, sought to keep the spirit of Turk’s alive. With the help of interior design firm Butchko & co, the pair took the entire contents of the establishment and moved it to Bushwick to give the Turk’s Inn a second life and create magical evenings for a new generation of revelers.

silvery bar interior with curtains
COURTESY ERIC MEDSKER

Dear Irving Gramercy

55 Irving Pl., Manhattan

enjoy libations in a space that allows you to time travel from room to room, with decor inspired by Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.” Each room is an homage to an historical period, from the JFK era to the reign of Marie Antoinette.

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