The best wine bars in New York City

This wine bar in the Lower East Side is exactly what you expect a 2024 wine bar to be like – decorated like a rich creative’s place in East LA, with natural wine and small plates. From the outside, Gem Wine looks welcoming and wholesome, with a red and white awning and a bright yellow exterior. Inside, you’ll find terra cotta floors, wooden rattan chairs, and earthy artwork.

If you come for the interior, you’ll stay for the wine. The 20-page wine list is hand-selected by 25-year-old Flynn McGarry, who’s been a key figure in the food industry since he was 11 (yes, that’ll throw you into an existential crisis). With daily by-glass white, rose, orange, and red, as well as a menu of small plates you’ll have to google under the table discreetly, it’s a sophisticated and warm space for an intimate event. Buyouts are available for up to 50 guests.

Parcelle is known for being an online wine retailer, which is so extensive that it offers a text hotline so you can chat with a sommelier to help you choose. They now have a wine bar in the Lower East Side, which is less a bar and more an exclusive lounge for wine-loving cool kids. You can order bottles from their inventory or choose from a changing selection of wines by the glass. You’ll find everything from old and rare bottles to splurge on to contemporary natural wines with Instagrammable packaging.

For such a small, wine-focused space, they have an impressive food menu: caviar sliders, burrata, and mushroom katsu are a few options. The seated space holds 30 for private events, and there’s standing room for 60. Private tastings are also available.

When we say Ruffian knows their wines, we mean it. They’ve gotten the Michelin Bib Gourmand four years in a row, and their selection of over 250 wine options will appease even the snobbiest of critics. The colorful bottles stand out against the white and stone of the interiors, highlighted by brick detailing and art posters, and everything is effortlessly mismatched. You can pair the wine with a selection of mostly vegetarian Mediterranean dishes à la carte, or enjoy a four-course tasting menu paired with accompanying wines from places like Austria, Georgia, or Macedonia.

Though it’s a small space, there are several options for private rent, from 50 guests in a full buyout to five in the snug street-facing alcove. An outdoor space can also accommodate larger parties, and you can wine and dine streetside.

You might think that mead lost its popularity before the US was even established, but it’s making a comeback – and not just at the renaissance fair. If you’re looking to try something new (or like, super old), Honey’s is the tasting room for Enlightenment Wines, a meadery using honey from local beekeepers upstate. There’s dandelion wine, tart cherry mead, and wild-fermented blackcurrant mead, to name a few. They are dry, unfiltered, and produced in small batches.

The space, both a meadery, tasting room, and cocktail bar, was once a restaurant equipment repair shop. The wooden booths are surrounded by cinder blocks and concrete, but somehow still look polished and stylish – maybe this is Bushwick-chic?

You can rent the entire space for up to 450 standing guests, or just the rooftop for 165.

This female-owned wine bar in Brooklyn was opened by an illustrator, and it shows. The interior feels almost like a page from her sketchbook, slightly wobbly and crafted with joy. Candy apple tables, custom playful cushions, and her own drawings make Cherry on Top a bright, cheery space to have a glass. A funky list of natural wines is unpretentious and affordable, with glasses under $15 and bottles under $50. One of the whites, City Nights, describes itself as tasting like “wet rock, straw, honey, and sea salt.” We’ll just leave that there.

A small food menu is inspired by all-day Parisian cafés, with charcuterie snacks like salami and pickles. Private events are encouraged, and the indoor space can hold 30 while the rooftop can accommodate an additional 70. Fun fact, the namesake is inspired by the owner’s name, Cerise, and the logo is a drawing from her childhood journal.