Good bars should impress. The best ones do it without batting an eyelash. Some of these bars have a laser focus on one style of drink; others are just welcoming locales with solid cocktails. Any of them will serve you well.
Daisy, Sherman Oaks, California
Almost any cocktail these days that has tequila, sweetener and lime juice dubs itself a margarita. Daisy, located just north of Los Angeles, aims to reclaim the classic drink’s soul. The bar’s beverage director, Max Reis, “treats the margarita as both template and playground,” said Punch, a drink magazine. So the standard iterations are sublime. But there is “ample room for customization,” too. Choose tequila or mezcal as the base. Make it regular or picante, up or on the rocks. You get the idea. Discipline and free will are good bedfellows.
Gilly’s House of Cocktails, San Diego
“One thing I’m really proud of is,” when Gilly’s House of Cocktails is packed, “no one is on their phone. You see strangers interacting with each other,” said Erick Castro, one of Gilly’s owners, to Imbibe magazine. “That’s something that’s missing right now in American society. We need to feel like we belong somewhere.” Gilly’s has been around since the 1960s. Castro and his crew bought it a few years ago. It’s now employee-owned, the cocktails are top-notch, but the laidback, community-minded vibe remains.
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Loma, Providence, Rhode Island
Repeat after us: Latin American drinking is not a monolith. Loma, whose owners’ lineages trace to Puerto Rico and Guatemala, succeeds in proving the point — in the glass. You may find a singular rum from Michoacán, Mexico, used in a caipirinha or a Mexican mezcal stirred as the base of a martini. The food menu also flits from arroz y gandules (Puerto Rican rice and beans) to a local cheese plate. The hospitality welcomes, just as you hope it would.
Madeira Park, Atlanta
The newish wine bar from the crew behind beloved local institution Miller Union balances “historical appreciation and casual magnificence,” said Mike Jordan at Bon Appétit. The glass wine list centers on great styles and producers, like Domaine Fanny Sabre white Burgundy, tempranillo from Spain’s López de Heredia Rioja and, natch, a collection of vintage madeiras. Satterfield’s food menu at Madeira Park is, yes, grape-friendly: butter and anchovy tartine, a chicory salad with blue cheese and candied pecans, and steak au poivre with rutabaga.
None of the Above, St Louis
In agile hands, a speakeasy concept never grows tiresome. None of the Above sits below the events space City Foundry, hidden away as so many speakeasies are. But bar manager Fionna Gemzon has her sights looking up, up and away. There’s calamansi and red miso alongside black sesame-infused rye in the In the Mood for Love Cocktail. Gemzon’s “Filipino heritage inspires her tendency to lean on high-acid and sweet-sour flavors behind the bar,” said Imbibe magazine when selecting her as an Imbibe 75 Person to Watch.
Pretty Neat, Denver
No muss, no fuss, just friendly vibes and great cocktails. Pretty Neat stands by its name and mission. “It’s just a place to have good drinks and be comfortable,” said co-owner Xanthus Be Dell of his bar to Westword. The drinks move from deep classics, like the Amaretto Sour, to modern ones, including the Penicillin and Espresso Martini. And a bunch of Pretty Neat’s own inventions, such as Be Dell’s The Absinthe of the Fall, with vanilla-kissed rum, lime, pineapple, coconut puree and an absinthe rinse.
Providencia, Washington, D.C.
This wee bar in the nation’s capital is a group endeavor from bartenders Pedro Tobar and Danny Gonzalez with food from Erik Bruner-Yang and Paola Velez. Providencia is a “reflection of the quartet’s effort to seamlessly honor and remix shared and disparate influences,” said Elazar Sontag at Bon Appétit. It is, unabashedly, an immigrant–forward establishment.
So the Sabanetas cocktail with rum, blackberry and ginger is an explicit homage to Gonzalez’s mom’s blackberry agua fresca in Sabanetas, El Salvador. That same personal history runs across the rest of the menu. No hiding; only celebrating.
