Death & Co

Death & Co opened on East 6th Street at the start of 2007 and became one of the bars that defined the modern cocktail era — the dark room, the long spec sheet, the bartenders treating a drink order as a brief. Two decades on, the original is now the flagship of a small national family, but the East Village room still runs the way it started: candlelight, black walls, and a menu that rewards saying "bartender's choice" and meaning it.

The door works on a wait-list rhythm most nights — names go down, texts go out — and the room stays full without feeling like a line. It is the rare famous bar that is still, drink for drink, as good as its reputation.