Ye olde taverns
An ode to New York’s most enduring watering holes. Plus, a weekend guide to Montreal.
Hi, angels. It’s nice to write to you again!
I’ve had summer brain, been traveling, and planning more: Paris next week, Maine in August, and Japan in late September. (If you have burning, extra-special Tokyo recs, food and otherwise, hit my line.) But this weekend is America’s 250th birthday, and that’s… something. If anything, it’s a fitting time to talk about taverns, a category of restaurant-slash-bar that comprises our nation’s earliest public eating-and-drinking establishments. Perhaps this year’s milestone is why taverns are trending right now.
As per Grub Street editor Alan Sytsma, in an “Eating New York” newsletter from last month (subject line: Everything’s a ‘Tavern’), newcomers include Red Hook Tavern’s Tavern Next Door, Trudie’s Tavern (Carroll Gardens), Grimm Tavern (Prospect Heights), and Wainwright’s Tavern (UES).
For me, however, the truest taverns are not bona fide restaurants like Gramercy Tavern or Minetta Tavern, with dark interiors and best-in-the-city burgers, but casual neighborhood mainstays where drinking/gathering is the primary event, and the food is unfussily American (regular burgers, buffalo wings, familiar beers). Also, they are places that have been around for quite a while.
Taverns are the closest thing we have to Mexico’s cantinas and England’s pubs, where friends can get together and shoot the shit, groups growing and shrinking over the course of a night, food orders being placed if and when anyone gets hungry. They’re always there, being exactly what you need them to be. Fanelli’s was a foundational stomping ground for me, among high school friends when home from college, and then among coworkers, as an after-hours hang when I worked in SoHo. They’d give you a table even if you were just drinking, knowing you’d probably eventually get something to eat. Other taverns listed below played smaller roles at various points in my adult life.
It wasn’t until I moved to L.A., a city devoid of taverns (save for HMS Bounty, which fully counts—although parking is miserable—and The Prince, which is kind of the most perfectly L.A. version of this), that I realized how central they were to my social existence. I often longed for a place to enjoy rounds of cold beers and share properly crispy fries in an easygoing environment, surrounded by friends. I missed the East Coast, then. Now, I miss L.A. for all sorts of reasons, but at least we have taverns (plus the New York friggin’ Knicks :)).
These are my favorites. What are yours? Sound off in the comments, as they say…
The Ear Inn, purportedly New York’s oldest bar—although FiDi’s Fraunces Tavern says they are—in the neighborhood now known as Hudson Square. Est. 1817.
Old Town Bar in Flatiron, complete with a tin ceiling and tasty giant pretzels. In operation since 1892; renamed Old Town Bar in 1933.
Fanelli Café, aka Fanelli’s, my beloved SoHo watering hole for Stellas and fries, once a well-kept secret among downtowners in the know, now less appealing since it was taken over by Gen Z. Est. 1874; called Fanelli since 1922.
White Horse Tavern in the West Village, not really my scene, despite being located in the neighborhood where I was raised. I prefer Corner Bistro, which, I’d argue, counts—even if some people are there for a burger first and a beer second. Est. 1880 and 1961, respectively.
Pete’s Tavern of Gramercy, adored for its Christmas decorations and chicken pot pie. Est. 1864; called Pete’s since 1922.
Walker’s, which pours a solid Guinness in Tribeca. Newer to the game, with a founding date of 1987.
The weekend before last, David and I drove up to Montreal, stopping in Vermont for a wondrous creemee at a rural sugar shack (more on that below), and spending a night in the Berkshires at the lovely Inn at Kenmore Hall on the way back. It’s well-known that Montreal has a stellar food scene. Part of what makes it so compelling, for me, is the level of hospitality provided at some of its best restaurants. Because it’s both a smaller city than New York and a much more affordable, favorable environment in which to operate a restaurant, there’s not the same pressure to turn tables. Furthermore, you can feel real warmth and passion from the people working in establishments like Vin Mon Lapin and Le Violon. I think we tackled 48 hours there quite well; this was our dining itinerary. Here it is on Rec League, too, with some leisure recs included, such as a requisite visit to the grave of Leonard Cohen. (Paid subscribers get 50% off; code below the paywall.)
