My Totally Subjective Guide To Drinking In Manhattan In August

What better way to beat the NYC heat than by going to a bar that looks for all the world like a ski lodge? And Le Chalet is in Saks Fifth Ave., of all places. (Photo by me)

You can often find me in one of NYC’s many top-notch watering holes, but save for wordy Instagram posts, I don’t write about them that often. With this article for the fine folks at Forbes, I hope to start changing that.

I love summer in NYC. The city empties out a bit. The pace is a slower. The calendar less full. Even on Tuesdays, it feels like folks are already thinking about the weekend. The streets are less jammed. And so, thankfully, are a lot of the bars and restaurants that are almost impossible to get into the rest of the year. With that in mind, my not-at-all seasonal and not-really-researched guide to drinking well in Manhattan as we creep toward Labor Day is nothing more or less than half a dozen places I’ve been enjoying since Memorial Day. And I think you’ll enjoy them, too. I couldn’t include every good bar I’ve visited recently, but that’s OK — this is the first of what I intend to be a regular series, so stay tuned. And venture forth into the heat and grab a cocktail in the meantime.