Double Chicken Please

Verdict

Double Chicken Please is one of the most decorated cocktail bars in New York City right now, and the trajectory of its Opinionated About Dining rankings tells you everything: #54 in 2023, #19 in 2024, #6 in 2025. That is not a bar coasting on a good opening; that is a program improving year over year. If creative cocktails are the point of your evening, book it. The Lower East Side address at 115 Allen St puts it squarely in a neighbourhood dense with drinking options, but few of those options have this kind of critical momentum behind them.

Portrait

The bar is led by Mark Chou, and the concept is built around a premise that rewards curious drinkers. Double Chicken Please structures its experience around two distinct spaces, each with its own approach to service and atmosphere. Walk in and the front room gives you the visual shorthand of a fast-food counter, deliberately lo-fi in finish. The back room shifts registers entirely: low light, more considered design, a setting that signals you are meant to slow down. It is one of the cleaner executions of a split-venue concept in the city, and it matters practically because the two spaces suit different occasions and group sizes.

The cocktail program is where the critical recognition lands. Double Chicken Please has built its reputation on drinks that treat food ingredients with the same seriousness that the leading kitchens apply to a plate. Stocks, fats, and culinary techniques migrate into the glass, producing cocktails that read less like drinks-list standards and more like a chef's response to a brief. For a guest who follows the New York City bar scene closely, or who tracks programs like Bar Contra or Katana Kitten, Double Chicken Please occupies a different lane: less spirit-focused, more kitchen-informed. That distinction matters when you are deciding where to spend an evening.

Recent jump from #19 to #6 on OAD's North American casual list in a single year is the clearest signal that the program has evolved materially, not just maintained. For the explorer-minded drinker who tracks venues the way a serious eater tracks restaurants, that kind of consistent upward movement is worth paying attention to. It places Double Chicken Please in the same conversation as the most technically ambitious bars operating in any American city right now, alongside programs at places like ABV in San Francisco or Carico Milano in terms of conceptual ambition, even if the format and geography are entirely different.

Bars that operate at a high level of concept sometimes polarise; the fact that general audience scores hold up alongside elite critical recognition suggests the experience translates beyond insiders.

For context on what is happening across the city's drinking and dining scene, see our full New York City restaurants guide, our full New York City bars guide, and our full New York City hotels guide. If you are building a broader trip, our New York City experiences guide and wineries guide round out the picture.

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