Masahiro Urushido opened Katana Kitten on Hudson Street in 2018 and immediately collected the Spirited Award for the world's best new cocktail bar, a Japanese-American izakaya-bar hybrid that proved technical drinks and a loud, happy room aren't enemies.
Who would love it: groups, this is world-class drinking at conversation-impossible volume on weekends, joyfully. Who would hate it: whisperers; book elsewhere if the evening calls for candlelight.
The room runs two levels of neon-warmed wood with a soundtrack that takes its job seriously. Urushido's signature is the highball treated as craft: the Toki highball arrives colder and sharper than physics suggests, and the Hinoki Martini, cedar-scented, precise, is the quiet masterpiece on a loud menu.
Order a boilermaker pairing, the menu's matched beer-and-shot sets are the format at its best, with the katsu sando or the disco fries from the snack list. A 4.5 across more than a thousand Google reviews says the neighbourhood uses it as hard as the awards circuit does.
It holds a top slot in our best cocktail bars in New York ranking as the city's definitive high-energy cocktail room.
