A Highly Curated List of New York’s Best Natural Wine Bars (2024)

A tiny wedge of town called Two Bridges, located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges in the eastern reaches of Chinatown, is where Nodar Toronjadze and Fernando Martinez opened Cellar 36 last summer. For nine years the two worked together at The Ten Bells on the Lower East Side, getting a crash course in natural wine. In this small, communal space, the staff is as comfortable assembling a cheese plate behind the bar and pouring tastes as they are talking about the wines. Here, you’ll find that the list offers several wines from each producer to give a full picture of their work, and a sincere curiosity about the world of wine beyond Europe and the U.S., with upstarts from Chile, Japan and Toronjadze’s native Republic of Georgia getting airtime.

Nice to know: The owners of Cellar 36 found a vintage record player on Facebook Marketplace and bought it on a whim. People in the neighborhood have taken to bringing in their own vinyl, making for impromptu DJ sessions.

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Last fall, chef Flynn McGarry relocated his Gem Wine on Broome Street to a larger space around the corner on Forsyth where he’d been running a tasting menu–driven restaurant. Here, the style is farmhouse modern, with long wooden tables, hanging dried flowers, rattan stools and table lamps draped in white linen aprons. The wine list, assembled by McGarry’s sister, Paris, is a roll call of France’s natural wine stars, from Mark Angeli to Jean-Yves Péron, alongside beloved German and Austrian winemakers. From McGarry’s kitchen come plates that are in service of the wine—sesame-crusted polenta cake with grilled spring onions and mustard greens, fluffy smoked trout beignets—giving the place the feel of a neo-bistro or fully actualized Parisian wine bar. In other words, Gem sits right on the fine line between wine bar and restaurant in the best way possible.

Nice to know: When you’re seated, you’re told that the by-the-glass wines aren’t listed, but they have “all the colors,” each priced at $16. It’s well worth the dice roll; they’ll pour you a taste before you commit.

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Just off Dimes Square on Division Street, Parcelle is a wine bar without a bar. Owned by Grant Reynolds (who ran the wine programs at Charlie Bird and Pasquale Jones, among others), Parcelle is a luxe, lounge-like take on the genre, with delicate stemmed glassware, tawny wood tables, plush seating and dim lighting. “We wanted to design the space so it felt nice, not divey at all. Come drink a well-priced, nice bottle of wine,” Reynolds says. Its lengthy wine list blends current releases with older-vintage bottles that Reynolds has been sourcing for years, with particular depth in Burgundy and other sought-after names from an international cast. In addition to the bar, Parcelle has a shop of the same name farther uptown. Cleverly, they’ve merged the two on the back end: After an evening at Parcelle, guests get an email from the bar with a list of the wines they had and links to purchase. This summer, Parcelle is set to open another location on MacDougal Street.

Nice to know: Tuesday through Thursday, Parcelle hosts chef Mitsuru Tamura, formerly of iconic Sushi Yasuda, to prepare a two-seating $200 omakase menu, giving rare access to a legend.

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When Ruffian opened in January 2016, no one else in the city (or the country, really) was paying attention to natural wines from Eastern Europe quite like co-owner Patrick Cournot. And to be fair, there were far fewer imported into the United States than there are today. Fast-forward and Cournot’s still at it, giving a deserved stage to the wines of Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Georgia and Slovakia, alongside a mix of natural-minded bottlings from the U.S. and Western Europe. To go with the wines, a primarily vegetarian menu (including a slew of snacky spreads) from chef Jes Monroe takes cues from the cuisines of many of these regions. That said, the four-course tasting menu here runs only $55 and is a smart representation of Monroe’s cleverness and deft touch.

Nice to know: Worried about navigating little-known wine regions? Fear not, as each one comes with a robust description. “We try to put it in writing so that you can choose your own level of engagement,” Cournot says. If you want to talk about the wines, great, but if you just want to read and point, that’s cool, too.

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There’s something about this long, dark bar that will make you wonder if you’ve been here before. With brick walls and just enough space to slide by on your way to a barstool, it looks and feels like a very familiar dive bar—just swap High Life for pét-nat and orange (ahem, skin-contact) wine. Run by Eben Lillie (along with Semi Lee), the next generation of Chambers Street Wines, New York City’s oldest and most influential natural wine shop, the bar sports an impressive list of natural wines that have become classics, as well as plenty of newcomers. Few of those wines top $100. “The best value is the bottle list,” says Lillie. “People just buy glasses and they could be crushing bottles and getting so much more wine for the same amount of money.” Lillie’s goal was to open a place that, like all his favorite local wine hangouts, encouraged folks to grab a bottle and stay awhile.

Nice to know: Skin Contact is located on a block that’s part of NYC’s Open Streets program, which means that from noon until 10 p.m. every day, the street is cordoned off to cars. Many of the bars and restaurants, including Skin Contact, put tables out front, giving the block the best summer-in-the-city street party vibe.

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Terroir, on Harrison Street in Tribeca, is run by legendary sommelier Paul Grieco, who oversaw the list at Gramercy Tavern for years before opening Hearth with chef Marco Canora in 2003 and the first (now-closed) Terroir in the East Village in 2008. This outpost, the second iteration of the bar, has been around since 2010. Grieco is well-known in the New York City wine scene not just for his generous personality and sense of humor but also for his constant, peripatetic exploration of the wine world. He’s perhaps most famous for his enthusiastic flag-bearing for riesling, but his wine list is unrestricted by trends, sending him to South Africa, Chile, Canada, France and all corners of Italy, in search of what is good. To sit at this bar is to commit to tasting a couple things, and to getting the backstory.

Nice to know: Grieco is masterful when it comes to teaching about wine. One-off classes are frequently offered at Terroir and they are as entertaining as they are knowledge-imparting.

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Owners Tara Noble and Kristin Ma met while working at wine-focused restaurant LaLou, and just last December, they opened Cecily in a welcoming corner spot off Greenpoint’s Franklin Street. Mirroring the neighborhood’s evolution, it feels like a real-deal grown-up wine bar, with nice, skinny-stemmed glasses and plenty of tables around for those looking for a proper dinner. The wine list skews natural, but not in a dogmatic way. “There are more interesting conversations to have around production and sustainable agriculture beyond just ‘natural,’” says Noble. Most of the wines are from France and Spain, with other parts of Europe sprinkled in. Cecily’s chef is Zach Frieling, who previously was chef at Jupiter. On a recent evening, nearly every table was snacking on his garlicky, pancetta-dotted mussel toast, but his pimentón fritters and pork chop with salsa verde are just as deserving.

Nice to know: Should you be more in the mood for, say, a glass of rosé followed by a completely perfect al pastor taco on a Sunday afternoon, Taqueria Ramirez! is one block away. “Genuinely, I recommend them all the time,” says Noble.

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In 2015, James Murphy (of LCD Soundsystem fame), Justin Chearno and Nick Curtola opened The Four Horsem*n on Grand Street in Williamsburg. Under Chearno’s watch, it remains one of the city’s very best natural wine lists—with a deep cellar that encompasses the genre, from the garagistes to the glitterati. In the kitchen, Curtola has turned the bar into a destination for wine as much as it is for his brand of “wine bar food,” which weaves among France, Italy and Spain with ease. This is one of those spots that walks right up to the line between restaurant and wine bar and doesn’t back down. It’s admittedly tough to score a reservation here, but with good luck you can still find a seat at the square, blond bar and treat the place like any other natural wine bar: Grab a glass and a snack and stay awhile. But don’t leave without letting the staff guide you; they are among the city’s most knowledgeable, and the cellar holds plenty of gems that they’ll gladly dig up.

Nice to know: In October 2024, Abrams will publish The Four Horsem*n cookbook, which is available for pre-order now.

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While Joe Campanale’s other restaurants (Fausto, Bar Vinazo) are wine destinations in their own right, Prospect Heights’ LaLou leans hardest into the wine bar promise. The bottle list is a deep exploration of Italy and France alongside a smattering of offerings from all over the world to round it out, all with a focus on organic or biodynamic farming. While the list skews natural, the classics are by no means boxed out. Here you can drink from a curated list of classic Champagne or Barolo alongside value-driven natural wines from upstarts in Portugal and Spain. Chef Ian Anderson’s menu hits all of its Is this a wine bar or a restaurant? marks, spanning the requisite She Wolf bread and butter, chilled seafood, a selection of composed vegetable dishes and a few larger mains for those looking to make a full meal out of it. Do not sleep on the bar’s tiny back patio, which is one of the dreamier spots to grab a glass in the warmer months. —Punch staff

Nice to know: From 5 to 6 p.m. on weekdays, LaLou offers a menu of co*cktails and wines by the glass at $10, and a half-dozen oysters to wash down at $12.

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Off of Bed-Stuy’s Marcus Garvey Boulevard is the oasis of Frog, a year-old wine bar that leans into the “just a bar” aesthetic (complete with pool table). This is the natural wine bar we all wish was just down the street, where no glass of wine costs more than $15 and you can stay as long as you’d like. “We always wanted it to feel super easy; we never wanted anyone to refer to it as a ‘nice’ or ‘upscale’ place,” says Alex McCown, who co-owns the bar with her partner Charles Gerbier, aka Frog. A small food menu offers an above-average grilled cheese and sardines with good bread, but in the summer, Frog also hosts a ton of food pop-ups with local chefs and cooks, like Mina Stone or Jay Rodriguez of Hera NYC, alongside wines McCown calls “cheap and cheerful.” There’s also a small wall of natural wines by the bottle with prices written on the bottles in white chalk, à la a Parisian cave du vin.

Nice to know: Next to Frog is McCown and Gerbier’s weeks-old Tadpole, a bar with live music four nights a week and DJs on the weekends, with a smaller set of wines by the glass and simple snack trays.

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After working as a sommelier in restaurants all over New York City, from Roberta’s to Estela, Brittany Myrick’s Lise & Vito in Greenpoint is all hers. During the week, it can be a pretty quiet place to have a co-ferment alongside a serious cheese plate from local monger Caroline Hesse. On the weekends, when the bar is open until 2 a.m., it’s a natural wine club, with Gen Z knocking back bottles of pét-nat (her sparkling selection is no joke) and Solid Wiggles Jell-O shots, and taking in DJ sets until midnight. It’s a broad range, but one that brings a welcome cheerfulness to the notion of “wine bar.” “The intention with everything on the menu is in hopes to show you something new,” says Myrick. “And also High Life! Just have a beer and a shot! You don’t have to have the heady orange wine; it’s going to be great.”

Nice to know: In addition to a great natural wine list and co*cktail program, Lise & Vito has a serious agave spirits selection as well.

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The current rendition of Ruthie’s, which opened in August 2022 as a family-friendly neighborhood spot, has refocused itself as the louder, more sociable wine-focused sister to nearby Bar Bête. Whereas Bar Bête tends to offer wines from the more beaten path in France and Spain, “Ruthie’s is a little more of the places that could use some love,” says Nick Ferrante, wine director of both. This manifests in offerings from the Republic of Georgia, Hungary, Virginia, natty California and next-generation Spain. Here, a seat at the bar with a bowl of hot honey–drizzled popcorn and a glass of rosé is an ideal stop on the way home. But chef-owner Marc St. Jacques also offers up a full wine-centric menu, with the dishes like grilled sea bream and crunchy Little Gem and pea green salad, if it’s dinner you seek.

Nice to know: Bar Bête’s list sports plenty of wines under $100, but if you’re up for a more indulgent evening, you’ll also find worthy splurges among selections from Burgundy’s new guard or even back-vintage Gravner.

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