Overstory.
I love great cocktails. The problem is, they are hard to find. There are only a handful of bars in the U.S. that I consider true happy places--bars I have to visit whenever I am in that city because they transport me somewhere else entirely. Overstory is not just on that list. It is at the top of it, and at the moment, it is my favorite bar I have ever been to.
It tops plenty of other lists, too. As of this review, Overstory sits at No. 6 on North America's 50 Best Bars and No. 46 on The World's 50 Best Bars. Honestly, I think it deserves to be much higher on both, but forget the rankings. Let's talk about the bar.
The space | Overstory pairs one of the best views in all of New York with a bar program that fully earns the altitude. You enter by taking the long elevator ride up to Saga, the two-Michelin-star restaurant on the floor below, then walk up a curved stairwell to the penthouse level. Crown Shy, its sister restaurant, sits on the ground floor. All three operate under the same ownership, and the whole experience feels polished and intentional from the start when you check in at 70 Pine Street in FiDi.
The room itself is gorgeous. Overstory is dimly lit, with a disco ball overhead casting spinning points of light across the space as it turns. The interior is sumptuous and rich, with elegant Art Deco style, a beautiful illuminated main bar, and small intimate tables tucked along the curved back wall. Even the playlist is dialed in just right--modern and energizing, but never intrusive. It is the kind of place that somehow makes everyone in the room feel like a VIP.
The drinks | Overstory is not the kind of bar where they just mix ingredients and slide a cocktail across the counter. The team behind the bar--including brilliant mixologists like Atticus and Alisa--are among the best in the country: highly skilled, polished, personable, and real showmen. The menu is deeply developed, with many drinks built from components that take days or even weeks to prepare. A lot of the cocktails are prebatched, not for convenience, but to create layers of flavor, texture, and clarity that would be impossible otherwise.
The result is a menu of inventive, meticulously balanced cocktails that feel unlike anything else, often finished with high-end garnishes that actually add something to the drink. A great example is the Easy Money (vodka, coconut, yuzu, lime leaf, soda), a bright, refreshing sparkling cocktail topped with Japanese kinome (not easy to find)--a delicate garnish from the sansho plant that, when chewed, lightly numbs your cheeks and tongue and sends a little electric tingle through your mouth. It is a perfect match for its paired forced-carbonation cocktail.
And then there is the Terroir Old Fashioned. I am not traditionally an Old Fashioned person at all, but this is the drink that made me first fall in love with Overstory, changed my mind about the potential of the format, and remains one of my favorite cocktails of all time for good reason. Built with tequila instead of whiskey, then layered with palo santo, Vin Jaune, yellow Chartreuse, and Tilden Salt harvested by the bar team from Fort Tilden in Queens, it is inventive, precise, and unforgettable. It is served with a piece of real honeycomb that you can either let dissolve into the drink for added sweetness or just eat outright.
I cannot recommend this cocktail bar enough. It is exactly what I want in a high-end world class bar, and I will make a reservation every time I am in New York for a reason. I love it. I applaud the brilliant work they are doing. Ten out of ten. https://www.instagram.com/overstory
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