Where once bars felt distinctively one thing—a cluttered tiki bar, a low-lit dive, a commit-to-the-bit throwback—walk into any number of trendy new spots and it’ll feel more like a combination of choices united not by a theme, but a vibe. More and more, bar interiors feel personal, combining elements that have been slowly collected over years with hard-working tools and furniture carefully selected for both form and function.
It’s no surprise then, that today’s “it” bars often feel more like a (fancy) house party than a night on the town. There are exceptions, of course—revivals like Le Veau d’Or in Manhattan, for instance, or London’s Bauhaus-inspired A Bar with Shapes for a Name, gesamtkunstwerk spaces that exist in an atmosphere of their own, design-wise. But for bars that embody the here and now, there’s a distinctly intimate, idiosyncratic vibe.
Perhaps the best example of this is the recently opened Schmuck in Manhattan’s East Village, with its Togo chairs, mushroom lamps and terrazzo tabletops—mainstays of home design for the past five years or so. Individually, none of these elements feels particularly fresh, but in the context of a bar, mixed with more industrial features like concrete walls and a stainless steel bartop, they take on a new sheen. The result is a space that’s just the right level of aspirational, like the apartment of a friend with very good taste and an income to match.
And, as in residential design, there’s a lightness that runs through the interior of an “it” bar. That levity comes from materials like textured glass, the lack of backbars that break the wall between front and back of house, multiple points of light dotted throughout. For Moe Aljaff, Schmuck’s co-owner, this feeling rings true: “I think subconsciously we kind of designed it like a home,” he says. That vision became clearer later in the process, when it came time to name the areas within the space—one became the “living room,” the other the “kitchen table.” Each has a distinct energy, defined by design choices like placing seating areas on different levels to give each corner its own little ambiance.
The mi casa es su casa feel isn’t limited to physical accents—it extends to programming, too. Instead of an LED screen flashing live TV, you might find a projector screening an old movie, like at Ask for Janice in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, or even a vintage TV playing a VHS tape, as at Yellow Rose in the East Village. Instead of a Spotify playlist, there’s a vinyl collection, like at Charis in Chicago, XO in Kansas City, Missouri, and 48 Record Bar in Philadelphia. All of this makes sense. Because if you want people to come, spend and stay a while, why not create a space that feels like their home, but better?
For the “it” bar of 2025, it’s all in the details. At a time when a cocktail costs as much as an entrée, differentiation is a solid concept. If you’re going to go out for a drink, it’s got to be worth it, the kind of thing you couldn’t get anywhere else in a type of space that makes you want to leave your apartment. Despite the singularity of these newcomers, there’s inevitably some overlap—here’s what you’ll spot across some of the buzziest new (and newish) bars.
