Where to sup a gin fizz out of view? (We are of course recommending retro cocktails of to fit our new drinking habits... gimlets, negroni and sidecars).

Opposite Robert De Niro’s recently opened hot-spot, The Greenwich Hotel, is the watering hole, Smith and Mills, a new speakeasy with a web-site that states there no reservations available (yippee!!) and artfully forgets to mention its contact details. A De Niro establishment and a speakeasy all on one street (71 N.Moore Street) - this is definitely the beginning of our very own film noir. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said of Prohibition, “...the parties were bigger…the pace was faster…and the morals were loser”. Definitely our kind of evening.

It’s not the first of course. Milk & Honey, located in both London and New York claims to have started the trend for urban myth drinking spots, however the need to get beg entry via obnoxious media men’s referrals has always dampened our Gatsby-esque dreams.

The PDT, Employees Only, Death & Co and B flat are also other bashful bars hidden around Manhattan. "The Back Room" is our other favourite if only for its entrance sign that reads “Lower East Side Toy Co”. Its kitsch in its authenticity (Manhattan cocktails in tea-cups and beer in bags) but we give it ten points for trying anyway. After the vapid jeroboams of champagne we’ve seen consumed in Ibiza this summer we’re all for a dark corner and a dirty martini.

Kerry Olsen

Source & Photo Credit: Smith & Mills