Hide And Seek

Prohibition may be long over, but these cool speakeasies live on in the Big Apple.

- Robert Haynes-Peterson

GOTHAM HAS A love affair with the speakeasy-style of bar: Creative craft-cocktail spots, hidden behind unmarked doors or false storefronts such as laundromats and fortune tellers, appeal to a New Yorker’s sense of mystery and intrigue. More and more, though, you can also find a bar in hidden spots behind (or below) regular city restaurants. Call it a “practical” speakeasy, or perhaps “added value”: A restaurant should have a bar. But instead of putting it front and center, why not tuck it into an unused space and have some fun with it?

Coffee shop by day, bar by night. That sounds like a winning combination in anyone’s book. Probably the most speakeasyish of the bars on the list, the new Patent Coffee/Patent Pending doesn’t rely on a makeshift espresso counter to hide the bar: The daytime spot is legit. A stylish blond wood-and-tile espresso bar greets NoMad visitors with carefully sourced, single-origin coffees and tasty pastries. At 5 pm, the coffee shop closes. Ring the buzzer out front, and you’ll be lead through a secret door in the coffee shop, down winding stairs to a 30-seat “cocktail cave” with vintage turquoise banquettes and original brick walls. The drinks menu changes regularly, but the popular Radio Wave (tequila, mescal, agricole rhum, basil, Thai chili, lime and cucumber) will likely be available. The menu and cocktail names pay tribute to the fact that the building used to be both home and laboratory to famous inventor Nikola Tesla.