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New York Reinvited Tiki Bars

This article is part of the FT Globetrotter guide to New York

It is Friday night at the East Village in New York City. In the 1970s, the neighborhood was the epicenter of punk. Now, however, it is known for its urban sophistication Sangfroid and Urbane. They are all great; Maybe too great. But inside the lost paradise, a waiter is lighting a flame cocktail for a carrousters table. The lights blink purple and white. The music is cut and replaced by a soundtrack of wolves howling and chained. The Aullan waiters. Customers howl. Cooling this is not.

Paradise Lost (see below) is the latest addition to the new New York Tiki bars, and one of the best. As for bars subcultures, Tiki has had a wild trip. The first Tiki bar, Don The Beachcomber, was inaugurated in 1933 in California by Ernest Gantt, a man who later renamed himself Donn Beach. Created the archetypal Tiki bar: a kitsch’s pastiche of exotic influences of exotic influences where the images of Polynesian gods and half Hawaiian women in Leis complement the merger foods and the intricate, often rum -based cocktails, served with maximum garrison in cups designed to resemble Moai as Moai as Moai statues. The trend reached its maximum point in the postwar years, partly as an antidote for the Eisenhower Tense administration. But for the 1990s, the incipient awareness that Tiki was, in fact, a kind of cultural appropriation based on colonialism, racism and sexism, helped to kill the environment.

Recently, however, bars like Paradise Lost have tried to redefine Tiki, moving away from their problematic past while preserving fun. It turns out that there are many ways to overlook. Not everyone is fetish. And now, when the real world is so chaotic, there can be no better time to escape a lush fantasy and rum.


Sunk Puerto Club

372 Fulton Street, second floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201
  • Well for: Strong drinks, shacking singing

  • It is not so good for: Those who get dizzy

  • FYI: Go to Gage & Tollner after a drink for one of Brooklyn’s best fillets. Sunken Harbor Club also has a place in Bermuda

  • Cocktail prices: $ 18– $ 32 (Shattered skull for two people, $ 45; King Pinky for four, $ 100)

  • Opening schedules: Sunday to Thursday, 5-11pm; Friday to Saturday 5 PM-Medianoche

  • Website; Instructions

The Hunken Harbor Club of TeMed Swits TeMed Pirate, with its wood holder entitled
The Hunken Harbor Club of TeMed Pirate-Ship TeMed © Lizzie Munro
The hands of a man who put the final touches for the skull cocktail shattered by Hunken Harbor Club: a large foamy red drink decorated with banana leaves, purple petals, a portion of orange and a cinnamon stick
‘ManiCally Strong’: Skull cocktail of Hunken Harbor Club © Archer Lewis

A flight on one of Brooklyn’s best grills, Gage & TollnerHis co -owner St John Frizell has forged the cabin of a pirate ship. An aqueous view from a portal is glimpsed; Fish shines, in the mid -tide, mounted on dark wood walls. Hunken Harbor is the Tiki bar that grows. Of course, the lights are faint, but the atmosphere is strongly nautical. In fact, space is built slightly crooked to better imitate a keel cabin.

The complex cocktails are inspired by the food and drink writer from the middle of the century, Charles H Baker, and are organized by force, from the shadows (“Easy drinking cocktails for a pleasant moonlight swimming”) to the abyss ( Maniacally strong and includes the skull skull, a combination of rums, grenade, vanilla and pineapple that serves two). For Tiki enthusiasts there is even a passport membership, with 36 pages of challenges.


Lost paradise

100 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003
  • Well for: First to the fifth dates

  • Not so good for: Serious conversations

  • FYI: In the heart of East Village, Paradise Lost is surrounded by excellent restaurants such as Disgusting witch and Spice Brothers

  • Cocktail prices: $ 16– $ 28, with large format cocktails that go to $ 130

  • Opening schedules: Daily, 5 pm to 2 am

  • Website; Instructions

The Saturday cocktail of the witches in Paradise Lost: an orange drink in a long glass with a large green leaf at the top
The Saturday cocktail of the witches in Paradise Lost, causes howls of Wolf when ordered © Noah Feks
A row of red seats in front of the bar in paradise lost, with red lights and straw -shaped material
Paradise lost the co -owner Kavé Pourzanjani says he wanted [the bar] To preserve the idea that you are playing with mystical forces but without appropriating Polynesian gods ” © Noah Feks

“I wanted to preserve the idea that you are playing with mystical strength but without appropriating the Polynesian gods,” says co -owner Kavé Pourzanjani from Paradise Lost, which he opened in 2023. “I decided on demonology.” The effect is more Mondo cane That Charles Manson. Pourzanjani combines elements of horror of Movie B, cartoon culture of Ed Roth’s Fink of the 1980s and DC Comics. The ceiling is a fish crowded of debris in the ocean: plates and model airplanes.

Meanwhile, the menu is almost as long as a poem by Milton, and full of zombie illustrations. Drinks are elaborate, qualified by skulls (strength), such as Tarman, which includes three ronos, Falernón, Canela and Granada, and on Saturday of witches (Ronos, Brandy, Ginebras, tropical juices, citrus and failure), the order of which triggers the flashing lights and howls of lupine.


Roller Xanadu Arts

262 Starr Street Brooklyn, NY 11237
  • Well for: Night disco skating

  • Not so good for: Manhattanitas

  • FYI: Alignment includes not only skate sessions but also concerts and dance parties.

  • Cocktail prices: $ 15 ($ 11 entrance, Skate rent $ 7)

  • Opening schedules: Wednesday at the end of Friday, 6 pm at night; Saturday, noon at 2 am; Sunday, noon -nocurna

  • Website; Instructions

Xanadu Skaterade cocktail: a blue drink in a short glass with a plastic flamenco in its upper part
‘A tequila riff forward on Gatorade’: the skateboard cocktail in Xanadu. . . © Joseph Jagos
Multicolor retro furniture in Xanadu
. . . A ‘hipster pleasure dome’ in Brooklyn

In the deep of Bushwick, the XANADU of 16,000 square feet is, as one could imagine, of stumbling. It is a hipster pleasure dome with a roller skating track, staggered seats, a DJ, a latest generation sound system and a disco in the bathroom. The carpet alone, a neon party, is a visual overload. The infinite clients’ circumvalations are driven by Tiki’s drinks from the poet-chain Keri Marinda Smith, whose most recent collection is called Drag anchor. Smith’s Drinks remember the tropical classics: La Mariquita Daiquiri, the cherry baby (Amaretto, Coñac, Black Currows and Cherry) and Skating, a tequila riff from Tequila back over Gatorade with Blue Spirulina. But be careful, skating customers have a limit of two dities.


Roberta Tiki Bar

263 Moore Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
  • Well for: Deep Brooklyn Adventurers, The Hungry

  • Not so good for: Tiki purists

  • FYI: For the wealthy, the Blanca approved by Michelin, part of Roberta’s family, is hidden behind the pizzeria

  • Cocktail prices: $ 16

  • Opening schedules: Monday to Wednesday, from 5 pm to 10 pm; Thursday -Seaves on days from 5 pm to 11 pm

  • Website; Instructions

Roberta Tiki bar, with wooden tables and chairs surrounded by surf memories and swimming on the walls
The Tiki bar in Roberta’s original Brooklyn location © Brandon Harman

In 2008, when Roberta’s began, the now iconic pizzeria was a matter of punk DIY in an old warehouse at the time Incognita terra Bushwick. His Tiki adjacent bar was a step above the Blue Pabst ribbon beer and other aqueous domestic beers favored by hipsters that adopt early. Now, Roberta’s is an empire, with locations in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Denver, Singapore and beyond. But that carefree without Big-deal qualification lives in the Tiki bar of the original location. As for the design, Tiki’s influence is light, although drinks are not. Among the bright Tiki riffs harvest are the Boi Marg, made with tequila, Triple Seg and Lima; The young money Melonaire (rum, width kings, spicy poblano, melon and campari); and the A $ AP W $$ Ail, a winter mixture of tequila and habanero pineapple with a spiced cider liquor and cider.


OTTO shrunk head

538 E 14th Street, New York, NY 10009
  • Well for: Divery good times

  • Not so good for: Romance

  • FYI: The rear of the bar often houses small concerts and music nights

  • Cocktail prices: $ 18 in a glass pint, $ 26 in a cup to take home

  • Opening schedules: Sunday and Tuesday to Thursday from 4 pm to 1 am; Friday to Saturday, 4 pm to 2 am

  • Website; Instructions

The bar on the head of Otto, with Sisal Bordeaux hanging from the ceiling
Otto’s is one of the oldest Tiki bars in New York
The blue ice cocktail on the head of Otto, in a high glass flanked by a pineapple and a tiki cup
The blue ice cocktail on the shrubed head of Otto

Perhaps the oldest of the city’s existing Tiki bars, the head of Otto opened in an old pharmacy in 2002. Once the block came out of bars, Irish, diving, karaoke, but now it has been given to Target and other large box stores. However, Otto has survived. The small bar is illuminated by Christmas lights throughout the year, the walls are covered with sisal and drinks are classic Tiki: Mai tais, Singapore slings and zombies. Only a few stands and stools, a photomaton (outside of always) and a video game (Big Buck Hunter II: Sportsman’s Paradise) They complete the feeling of an advanced position of the island slightly in ruins from another place and another moment.

Have you tried the new Ola of Tiki bars in New York? Tell us in the comments below. AND Follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram in @Ftglobetter

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