For writer Rosie Schaap, a bar isn’t just a place to grab a perfectly mixed cocktail on a Saturday night. As she writes in her new memoir, “Drinking With Men,” it’s more a “community center for people . . . who happen to drink.” In the book, Schaap, who grew up in the West Village and estimates she has spent no fewer than 13,000 hours in bars in her 42 years, chronicles the drinking holes she has known and loved. She lives in South Slope, Brooklyn, and in addition to writing and contributing to NPR, tends bar one night a week at South (629 Fifth Ave.). This is her drinking New York.
1. Milano’s, 51 E. Houston St.
The most threatened category of bar is the dive bar, and whenever I walk across Houston Street, I’m relieved to see that Milano’s is still there. It’s absurdly narrow and small, and decorated with photos of regulars and curious tchotchkes, giving it a really cozy feel. Every time I go, something interesting happens. I once ran into someone there that I’d hung out with at another bar a decade earlier. Neither of us [went] to Milano’s very often, so it really felt like serendipity. We had met in our 20s, and [here] we were meeting again in our late 30s. At first we didn’t recognize one other but once we’d figured it out, we had one of those late night bar talks that makes me love bars, just catching up on our lives.
2. Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle hotel, 35 E. 76th St.
It’s absolutely my favorite hotel bar. Even though I love a corner bar with windows, I love that Bemelmans is windowless. It makes you feel like you could be a spy or a movie star in hiding. It feels so timeless and the murals, [by “Madeline” creator Ludwig Bemelmans], are beautiful. [They depict the four seasons in Central Park]. I always have martinis here.
3. Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle hotel, 35 E. 76th St.
It’s absolutely my favorite hotel bar. Even though I love a corner bar with windows, I love that Bemelmans is windowless. It makes you feel like you could be a spy or a movie star in hiding. It feels so timeless and the murals, [by “Madeline” creator Ludwig Bemelmans], are beautiful. [They depict the four seasons in Central Park]. I always have martinis here.
4. Joe’s Shanghai restaurant, 9 Pell St.
I hope most of us know by this point that we ought to eat before we go out drinking. When I was a young drinker in New York, a pizza slice on the corner nearest to the [late] Holiday bar would do the job. That doesn’t [work] anymore, but Chinatown’s restaurants always provide a delicious, filling, inexpensive base for drinking. The soup dumplings at Joe’s are the best. I also love a dish there called Lion’s Head, which is like a big Chinese meatball.
5. The Burgundy Wine Company, 143 W. 26th St.
This is a wine store I really love. They’re absolutely focused on Burgundy and Burgundy-style wines. They’re super-knowledgeable, but I never feel this kind of wine-store snobbery — just real enthusiasm and a geekiness about it. A lot of people say it’s impossible to find a good Burgundy under $25 — well, you can do it here — I love that.
6. Winnie’s, 104 Bayard St.
This [30-ish-year-old] bar is one of my favorites in all of New York. It’s a timeless, crazy wonderful place. It’s run by Winnie herself, who is this extremely elegant Chinese-American woman. It’s not the most aesthetically distinguished bar in the world — it has sort of sad-looking plastic plants and tattered upholstery — but it’s always a blast. They start the karaoke pretty early, and it goes on forever.
7. Ward III, 111 Reade St.
When I have a friend to stay from out of town who doesn’t want the hotel bar experience but wants to have a great drink with no pretension, this is the cocktail bar we go to. You can go in and say, “I want something with kumquat and celery bitters” and they’ll do it, but I have friends who live in the neighborhood and go in and order a vodka and diet Coke, and there’s no attitude about it. Drink what makes you happy. Sit and have a good time.
8. The Subway Inn, 143 E. 60th St.
This is another great dive that constantly amazes me by hanging on and existing. I don’t know what kind of deal they have on that prime uptown real estate; it’s remarkable that you can drink that cheap[ly] in that neighborhood in something that charmingly divey. I had a great moment of contrast over the summer when someone took me to dinner at Le Cirque. It wasn’t very good, and after our dinner, we were like, “Let’s go have a nightcap at the Subway.” It felt like a great relief. It was exactly what we needed after all the ceremony at that kind of restaurant.
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9. The Black Horse Pub, 568 Fifth Ave.
A good friend and fellow regular from [the late] Good World [Bar] got me into [the British team] Tottenham Hotspur in 2006. He knew I was a Mets fan, and therefore liked an underdog! Now, having a bar where I can watch Spurs games is crucial to me, and I’m very lucky that there is just such a bar two blocks from my house. The Black Horse’s owner, Brian, is a Tottenham fan, but [this bar] isn’t as strictly factionalized as some other soccer bars. When Spurs beat their greatest rival, Arsenal, in a dramatic, come-from-behind upset in 2010, I shook hands with and bought shots for the Arsenal fans. It’s a very peaceable sort of place.