Jack McGarry and Sean Muldoon opened The Dead Rabbit on Water Street in 2013 with a stated ambition — to build the best bar in the world — and the trophy case agrees they managed it: No.1 on the World's 50 Best, Tales of the Cocktail's World's Best Bar, and a 4.7 across more than 8,400 Google reviews from the people who just came for a pint.
It works on two floors and two registers. The ground-floor Taproom is a working Irish saloon — sawdust energy, Guinness handled with Belfast seriousness, and the Irish Coffee that most of the industry concedes is the world's benchmark. Upstairs, the Parlor takes reservations and runs the cocktail menu proper, a heavily designed document that changes themes the way other bars change specials.
The drinks: downstairs, the Irish Coffee — there is no second answer — with a whiskey list that treats Irish distilling as a living subject rather than a souvenir shelf. Upstairs, order whatever the current menu is proudest of; the kitchen's sausage rolls are the right ballast either way.
The crowd runs Financial District after-work through international cocktail pilgrims, and the room absorbs both without strain. Weekday afternoons are the Taproom at its best; Parlor tables on weekends want booking. Who should skip it: nobody, honestly — it's the rare world-famous bar that works as a casual stop.
It anchors our best cocktail bars in New York list and the global world top ten alike.
