King Cole is the bar that invented the Bloody Mary and never tried to be anything else.

The 30-second pitch

King Cole is the Midtown answer to Bemelmans.

The St. Regis Hotel opened in 1904 and the King Cole Bar moved into its current position in 1932 when the hotel acquired Maxfield Parrish's giant mural of "Old King Cole" — a piece originally commissioned for the Knickerbocker Hotel in 1906 and reportedly hiding a small but real visual joke about the king's flatulence in the courtiers' faces. The mural is the centerpiece. The bartenders are in white jackets. The Red Snapper — the bar's own term for the Bloody Mary they invented in 1934 — is still poured with the original recipe.

For a first date, the room functions as Bemelmans's slightly more accessible Midtown sibling. Same era, same gravitas, smaller cover, easier reservation. If you want classic-hotel-bar theater but Bemelmans is too far north or too price-prohibitive, King Cole is the move.

The moment it makes

You both find the joke in the mural.

The King Cole moment is hidden in the mural. The Parrish painting depicts King Cole on his throne with three courtiers in front of him, and the courtiers all have small expressions of distress — they're holding handkerchiefs to their faces, pinching their noses, looking pained. The story (which the bartenders will gently tell you if you ask) is that Parrish painted the courtiers reacting to a royal fart. The painter was making a joke that nobody who paid for the painting noticed for years.

That joke is the King Cole moment. You and your date are sitting at a candlelit banquette, you've each had your first cocktail, and the conversation pivots to the wall. You point out the courtiers. The bartender (or your date if they figure it out themselves) catches the joke. The room has been quietly funny for ninety-four years and now you and your date are in on it. The shared discovery is the bond. Hotel-bar formality plus a low-grade fart joke turns out to be a remarkable date format.

What to order

The Red Snapper. Always the Red Snapper, at least once.

The Red Snapper. This is what King Cole calls the drink that the rest of the world calls a Bloody Mary. The original — invented by bartender Fernand Petiot in 1934 when he moved from Paris's Harry's Bar to the St. Regis. Spicy, savoury, properly horseradish-forward, and built to be a meal in a glass. Order it as a daytime first round or as a brunchy aperitivo move; it's one of the most-historic cocktails in any New York bar and you should drink one in its birthplace at least once.

The St. Regis Martini. A precision build — gin or vodka, dry vermouth, lemon twist or olive — served very cold, in a bartender-jacketed sort of seriousness. The reliable evening order.

The Old Fashioned. King Cole's old fashioned is poured to a different recipe than Bemelmans's — slightly sweeter, slightly bigger, finished with both an orange peel and a brandied cherry. Worth trying side-by-side with Bemelmans's if you've had both.

Snacks: The bar offers a small bites menu — caviar service, deviled eggs, a small wagyu slider — at hotel-bar prices. Order one if you're staying for two drinks. The deviled eggs are surprisingly good.

Timing strategy

Take the 5:30pm slot. The room is yours.

King Cole is at its first-date best from 5pm to about 7:30pm — the Midtown work-day crowd is just starting to drift in, the room is half-full, the banquettes nearest the mural are claimable, and the bartenders are still chatty rather than crisp. By 8pm the room shifts: dinner-bound hotel guests, a small post-work crowd from nearby finance, a slightly-too-loud edge that the room loses some intimacy to. The early-evening window is the magic.

Reservations are recommended for banquettes; bar stools are always walk-in. The bar is a long marble counter facing the mural, which means you and your date sit side-by-side facing the painting — a perfect parallel-seating geometry that lets the room do social work. Take the bar over the banquette unless you want full privacy. Avoid Friday after 6:30pm; it gets corporate.

What makes King Cole King Cole

The mural is the bar.

Most great hotel bars in Manhattan have a defining visual element — Bemelmans has the Parrish-style murals, the Polo Bar has the wood paneling, Dukes Hotel in London has the trolley. King Cole has the Parrish mural and only the Parrish mural. The painting is eighteen feet wide, takes up the entire back wall behind the bar, and lights the room in a soft warm glow that's flattering to anyone facing it. Sitting at the bar means literally sitting in front of a 1906 painting valued in the seven figures, with a cocktail and a date next to you. The geometry is unusual and the cumulative effect is that the room feels like a small civilized museum that happens to serve excellent drinks.

The other thing that makes King Cole: the staff's institutional memory. Some of the senior bartenders have been there decades; the maître d' remembers regulars by drink order; the room itself runs at the slightly-slower-than-restaurant tempo that is the hospitality dialect of old hotels. A first date here gets the benefit of that pace without having to ask for it.

What it costs

Plan on $95 each for two drinks.

Cocktails $26-$30, with the Red Snapper at $30. Two drinks each plus deviled eggs lands at around $190 for two before tip — slightly less than Bemelmans, slightly more than most rooms on this list. Tip 22% on the post-tax total; the bartenders are doing white-jacket service and the deferred-pace work that comes with it. There is no cover charge at King Cole even after dark, which is a quiet gift that makes a 9pm date here cheaper than a 9pm date at Bemelmans.

The bar accepts cards, cash, and the room charge if you're staying at the St. Regis. There is no Apple Pay. There is also no rush. The bill arrives when you ask for it, not before.

Who you'll be sitting next to

The crowd is St. Regis guests, finance, and Midtown professionals.

King Cole's regulars are a different mix than Bemelmans's — slightly younger on average (forties), more international (the St. Regis is a major hotel in the global hospitality circuit), and more business-traveler-leaning. The post-5pm crowd includes a steady flow of finance, law, and management consulting from the surrounding Midtown blocks, all decompressing for forty-five minutes before heading to dinner. The room reads as professional rather than fashionable.

Dress code is "business smart or better." Suits and blazers in the evening; dresses or smart separates for women. Nobody at King Cole is in jeans. Match the room.

Failure modes

Three reasons a King Cole first date doesn't land.

You ordered something off-menu. The bar takes its menu seriously and the bartenders gently push you toward classics. Asking for a complicated craft cocktail will get you a polite redirect. Fix: order from the menu. The classics are why the room is here.

You went on a Friday. Midtown Fridays at hotel bars are corporate-celebration nights — louder, more group-oriented, less first-date-friendly. Fix: Tuesday or Wednesday.

Your date didn't know it was Midtown. The Upper East Side and East Village dates we've watched here sometimes arrived slightly resentful at the location, finding 55th Street and Fifth Avenue a touch corporate. Fix: confirm location in the booking text. "It's the St. Regis at 55th and 5th — black-cab distance from anywhere downtown."

If King Cole is full

Three second-choice Midtown first-date rooms.

Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle (76th and Madison, see our review). The closest peer.

The Polo Bar (62nd and Madison). Ralph Lauren's heritage hotel-restaurant bar. Harder reservation; equivalent gravitas.

The Lobby Bar at the Lowell (63rd and Madison). Smaller, quieter, more residential. A side-step from the formality.

Editorial verdict

The most reliable Midtown first date.

King Cole earns its #8 ranking by being the most reliable Midtown first-date room in New York. The bar nails the brief on every dimension: theatrical without being intimidating, classic without being stuffy, expensive without being predatory. For first dates between two people who work in Midtown — finance, law, the consulting trades — King Cole is the obvious move. It's a five-minute walk from twenty office buildings, you can go straight from work without changing, and the room doesn't punish you for arriving slightly tired.

If both of you live downtown, Bemelmans or Dante is closer to the right answer. King Cole's #8 ranking reflects geography rather than quality. The room itself is a #5 room; it just lives where Midtown lives.