Sip&Guzzle

The best bar in North America in 2026 is two bars stacked on top of each other on Cornelia Street. Steve Schneider, who came from Employees Only, runs Guzzle upstairs and pours Japanese beer and highballs into a loud room. Shingo Gokan runs Sip downstairs, a formal Japanese room where the drinks are engineered and served straight-faced.

Why go

Gokan built this as a sister to SG Club in Tokyo, which sat No.3 in Asia's 50 Best Bars in 2021 and No.10 in the world in 2020, and the two-concept split came with it. Upstairs the drinking is Japanese beer, highballs and classics turned once: the Saketini runs banana vodka, sake, fino sherry and a Castelvetrano olive. Downstairs, Gokan's drinks are engineered. The Doctor Green carbonates tequila, tomatillo, green apple, shiso and horseradish. The Negroni In The Shade is a white negroni built out with melon, kiwi and gyokuro.

Ben Yabrow, who had been head bartender at Double Chicken Please, ran Sip day to day until he left in April 2026, and the food across both floors is Mike Bagale's, who was head chef at Alinea in Chicago.3 Schneider and Gokan had done this once before, at The Odd Couple in Shanghai in 2018.3

Order this / avoid

Order upstairs: the Bikini, comte and ham, which 50 Best describes as billed as the world's thinnest sandwich, and made with comte and ham, it's also one of the most delicious.2 The Miami Vice Negroni is the drink to put beside it, strawberry-infused and coconut-washed over one big clear block.
Order downstairs: the Tomato Tree, where every part of the drink stands for part of a tree: tomato water is the fruit, dill-infused gin and shochu the leaves, St-Germain the flowers, mastika the bark.3
Order downstairs: the Royale with Cheese Meal, an A5 wagyu sando that arrives at the table in a gold box, with a boozy cherry cola float alongside it. It cost $150 in April 2026.3
Order cheap: the Electric Chicken, fried and handed over with scissors and a pair of latex gloves so you take it apart yourself.3 8
Avoid: picking a floor at random. Schneider's Guzzle and Gokan's Sip run separate programs, and Guzzle opens the earlier of the two.7

What locals & experts say

North America's 50 Best Bars 2026, No.1: the judges' own copy calls it a sister to Gokan's Tokyo SG Club, where the Greenwich Village destination touts two complimentary concepts spread over two floors. It also took The Best Bar in Northeast USA 2026.1
The World's 50 Best Bars 2025, No.39: Bipartite bar Sip & Guzzle is the latest collaboration between New York's finest Steve Schneider and Asian bar magnate Shingo Gokan, and the same edition gave it the Three Cents Best New Opening Award 2025.2
Morgan Carter reported what the drinks trade itself decided, for Time Out New York on 1 August 2025: Sip & Guzzle took Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar at the nineteenth Spirited Awards, the ceremony that closes Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, and the year before it went to Superbueno.5 6
Willa Moore, reviewing it for The Infatuation in January 2024, on the difference between the two floors: downstairs Sip is a Japanese cocktail bar that's more white glove than latex glove.8
Steve Schneider, on taking the North American No.1 in April 2026: This is the greatest professional experience of my life in all 24 years of doing this. Gokan and I first had the idea for this bar in 2019 and it took until 2024 to get it open.3

Good to know

The name and the story: the bar carries the story of the first samurai to visit America in the nineteenth century, which is where the trans-Pacific split between the two floors comes from.
Who is pouring: the 2026 ranking calls it a trio, not a pair, and puts Ben Yabrow beside Gokan and Schneider.4
The climb: it opened in January 2024, came onto North America's 50 Best Bars at fifth in 2025 with the Highest New Entry award, and took first place a year later.3
Hours: the two floors do not open together. Guzzle starts first, Sip an hour later, and both run later on Wednesday to Saturday.7

Jeff's take (his words)

Note: "Chef rec, 50 best bara, multiple recs and best burger; best burger 2026 americas." The 50 Best half checks out twice over, at No.1 in North America in 2026 and No.39 in the world in 2025. I still have not found the burger list he means. The nearest thing on the menu is the Royale with Cheese, and that is a wagyu sando rather than a burger.

Verdict

must-visit — The room off Guzzle's bar takes a booking and the bar itself does not, so decide which night you want before you arrive. Come for drinks with enough food to soak them up, and eat dinner somewhere else.

Sip&Guzzle.