Best Martinis in NYC

The best martinis in NYC start as a temperature order. You want it cold enough that the first sip bites, and you want to know whether the bar means a freezer pour, a sub-zero batch, or a blended drink with a dessert on top. Those are three menus. People search them as if they were one.

We checked the pages the bars publish now. Prices below come from those pages, plus a Punch story from September 17, 2021 on how Hawksmoor chased this drink when the New York room opened. The coffee version is a separate list: best espresso martinis in the East Village. The neighborhood version of this one is best martinis in the East Village.

At a glance

The late walk-in is the freezer door at FKA:. The steakhouse sub-zero is Hawksmoor. The $18 specialty martini with fries is The Dickens, on a short weekly clock. The slush is Canto.

• Coldest walk-in, latest hour: FKA: freezer-door martinis, $28, until 4 a.m.
• Sub-zero in a dining room: Hawksmoor, from $23, Gramercy, done by midnight
• Lowest printed specialty price: The Dickens, $18, Wednesday to Saturday, with fries
• Frozen, meaning a slush: Canto, frozen espresso martini, $19

Quick reference: the best martinis in NYC, priced

FKA: is the freezer door at one set of prices from open to close. Hawksmoor labels the list sub-zero and calls the page a sample. The Dickens prints $18 on the specialty list and does not print a price on the build-your-own. The Ivory Peacock prices are from a menu file dated August 2025.

Bar	The martini	Price	The clock
FKA: Formerly Known As	Freezer door: Duke’s Style, Vesper, Fisherman’s	$28	4 p.m. to 4 a.m., every day
Hawksmoor	Sub-zero. Fords gin, Little City vermouth, lemon oil	$24, others $23	Venue until 11 p.m. Mon to Wed, midnight Thu to Sat
The Dickens	Specialty list, or build your own	$18 specialty	Martini bar Wed to Sat, from 5 p.m.
The Ivory Peacock	4 oz sub-zero, August 2025 menu file	$21 to $22	Homepage lists a late close; confirm it
Canto	Frozen espresso, mascarpone and Baileys	$19	West Village dinner, latest midnight
Martiny’s	Reservation cocktail bar	Not printed	Daily, 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.

1. FKA: Formerly Known As

Best for: A freezer-door martini at 7 p.m. or at 2 a.m., with no reservation needed

The freezer-door list is three drinks, and every one is $28. Duke’s Style is named for Dukes in London, the hotel bar that made pouring martinis straight from the freezer famous: Ford’s Gin, Botanist Gin, Tito’s, and Ketel One. Ford’s is a London dry gin built with bartenders. The Botanist is an Islay gin made with 22 botanicals foraged on the island. Two gins, two vodkas, no vermouth, nothing watering it down. The Vesper is Ford’s Gin, Tito’s Vodka, Kina L’Aero d’Or, Lillet Blanc, and lemon oil. The Kina is the detail that matters: the Vesper in Casino Royale called for Kina Lillet, which was reformulated decades ago, and Kina L’Aero d’Or brings back that bitter quinine bite. The Fisherman’s Martini is vodka, oyster-shell-infused Lustau Vermut, cucumber water, and pickled shallot. Lustau is a sherry bodega in Jerez, its vermouth is built on sherry, and the oyster shell makes the glass taste like the raw bar beside it. Nothing on the card says shaken. The section is named for the freezer.

That price sits above the $18 specialty martini at The Dickens and above the $24 Hawksmoor Martini. The trade is the clock and the room. This bar is open 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day, the kitchen stays with it, and you walk in or book a table on Toast. Hawksmoor’s venue is closed by midnight even on the late nights. The Dickens martini bar is four nights a week.

All three come out of the freezer and into vintage glassware, thick and silky, with no ice melt and a first sip colder than anything shaken. Duke’s Style is the spirit pour. The Vesper is the Bond order, done the way the book wrote it. The Fisherman’s is the savory one, and it is the martini to put next to the raw bar. West Robbins oysters are $1 and the seasonal East Coast oyster is $2.50. A dozen West Robbins and the Fisherman’s is $40. At Hawksmoor, the bar menu lists a dozen seasonal East Coast oysters at $56 before the martini.

The nitro espresso martini is a different box on the same menu, at $15. If you wanted coffee, order that and read the espresso martini guide. If you wanted the cold one, stay on the freezer door. 221 2nd Avenue, between 13th and 14th. The menu is here.

• Address: 221 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003
• Price: $28
• Must-order: Duke’s Style if you want the freezer pour; the Fisherman’s if you are eating oysters

2. Hawksmoor

Best for: A sub-zero martini before a steak, earlier in the night

Hawksmoor New York prints a heading that says Sub-Zero Martinis, and the page says the list is a sample and can change. The Hawksmoor Martini is $24: Fords gin, Little City dry vermouth, lemon oil. The Steakhouse Martini is $23: Grey Goose vodka, Chardonnay, green peppercorn, olive brine. The Pink Gibson is $23. The Oyster Knife is $23. The Vesper is $24: yogurt-washed Grey Goose, Boatyard gin, Lo-Fi vermouth, Dolin Blanc.

The coldest-martini line has a paper trail. On September 17, 2021, Punch quoted beverage director Adam Montgomerie calling the Hawksmoor martini the coldest in New York, and described a batch held at minus 12 degrees Celsius. The gin in that story was Hepple. The gin on the current sample card is Fords. Treat 2021 as the origin of the claim. Treat the live card as the drink you will be charged for.

The room is a steakhouse at 109 E 22nd Street. Venue hours run Monday to Wednesday noon to 11 p.m., Thursday to Saturday noon to midnight, and Sunday 11:45 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. The kitchen stops earlier than the door: 9:30 p.m. Monday to Wednesday and Sunday, 10:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday. If the plan is a martini at 1 a.m., this address is already dark.

• Address: 109 E 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010
• Price: $23 to $24 on the sample list
• Must-order: The Hawksmoor Martini, if the steakhouse was the reservation

3. The Dickens

Best for: An $18 specialty martini and a pile of fries

The Dickens puts a martini bar on the second floor, Wednesday to Saturday from 5 p.m., at 783 8th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen. You pick a brand, then a spec: classic, dry, extra dry, bone dry, or dirty. Garnishes run from a lemon twist to blue cheese olives, and the blue cheese olives are an extra $1. The build-your-own block does not print a price.

The specialty martinis do. They are $18: espresso, pornstar, lemon drop, French, dill pickle, aviation, vesper, and cosmopolitan. Every martini order includes bottomless fries. Skirt steak or half a roast chicken is $25 on top of that. The vesper on this card is gin, vodka, and Lillet Blanc, three ingredients, $18. Ours is $28 and adds Kina L’Aero d’Or and lemon oil, poured from the freezer into vintage glassware, seven nights.

The venue itself runs later than the martini bar: Monday and Tuesday 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday noon to 2 a.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 3 a.m. Show up for this drink on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, from 5 p.m., on the second floor. The other three nights, the $18 list is not the offer.

• Address: 783 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10036
• Price: $18 for the specialty list
• Must-order: A specialty martini and the fries, on a night the second floor is open

4. The Ivory Peacock

Best for: A 4 oz sub-zero martini in a room built around gin

The Ivory Peacock at 38 W 26th Street, between Broadway and 6th Avenue, calls itself a gin bar and says the collection is the second largest in the world, after Atlas Bar in Singapore. The homepage lists Monday 2 p.m. to midnight, Tuesday noon to midnight, Wednesday and Thursday noon to 2 a.m., Friday and Saturday noon to 3 a.m., and Sunday noon to 11 p.m. Another page on the same site prints a shorter Monday. Use the homepage, then ask if you are planning the week around it.

The martini prices are on a beverage menu dated August 2025 that the site still hosts. Under “4 oz sub-zero martinis,” Dolph’s Martini is $22: a Hard Cut vodka martini, 5:1, on the rock, with olives. The Vesper is $22: Never Sink gin, Tito’s, Lillet Blanc. The Alaska is $21. The Dirty Gibson is $21: GB gin, Noilly Prat, house onion brine. That file is fourteen months behind this page. Confirm the number before you treat $22 as tonight’s price.

The Vesper there and the Vesper at FKA: share a name and a Lillet line. Ours adds Ford’s Gin and a quinquina, costs $6 more on our current card than their August 2025 file, and is poured until 4 a.m. in the East Village. Theirs sits inside a Flatiron gin room with a kitchen that, on the homepage, stops at midnight on Friday and Saturday.

• Address: 38 W 26th Street, New York, NY 10010
• Price: $21 to $22 on the August 2025 file
• Must-order: The sub-zero Vesper, after you confirm the file is still the menu

5. Canto

Best for: A frozen espresso martini, the slush kind

Canto is the page that answers “frozen martini” in the literal sense. The frozen espresso martini is $19: vodka, espresso, coffee liqueur, vanilla beans, and vanilla syrup, topped with mascarpone and Baileys. The straight espresso martini is also $19. The dirty martini is $19: vodka, dry vermouth, olive juice. This is a blended coffee drink with a cream finish. It is not a freezer-door gin martini, and ordering one when you wanted the other is how the night gets a dessert it did not ask for.

Two rooms pour it. The West Village is 117 Perry Street: Monday to Wednesday 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., Thursday 3 p.m. to midnight, Friday noon to midnight, with a shorter Sunday dinner. The Upper West Side is 2014 Broadway at West 69th Street, and dinner there runs to midnight. Neither room is an East Village walk-in at 2 a.m. If the coffee is the point and you are already downtown, the nitro espresso martini at FKA: is $15 and it does not come with mascarpone.

• Address: 117 Perry Street, and 2014 Broadway
• Price: $19
• Must-order: The frozen one, if the mascarpone is the point

6. Martiny’s

Best for: A booked seat in Gramercy, when the room is the reservation

Martiny’s at 121 E 17th Street posts hours, not a menu price. The contact page says the bar is open daily from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., with reservations on Resy and limited walk-ins. It ranks when people search for the best martini in the city because the room is a cocktail bar with martini in the name, a block from Union Square, and a seat you are supposed to plan.

We are not going to invent a price the site does not print. Go for the reservation. If you wanted a number before you left the house, the freezer-door list, the Hawksmoor sample card, and The Dickens specialty list are the three that publish one.

• Address: 121 E 17th Street, New York, NY 10003
• Price: Not printed on the public site
• Must-order: Whatever they pour as the house martini, after you have the table

How to order one without guessing

Read four lines before you sit down: the temperature word, the price, the food, and the clock.

The word. Sub-zero and freezer-door mean a cold martini, still a martini. Frozen, on Canto’s card, means a blended espresso drink with mascarpone and Baileys. Hawksmoor, the Ivory Peacock’s August 2025 file, and FKA: are in the first group. Canto is in the second. If a menu says neither, assume a shake over ice and ask.

The money. $28 for any of the three freezer-door martinis, $24 for the Hawksmoor Martini, $22 on a fourteen-month-old Ivory Peacock file, $19 for Canto’s frozen espresso martini, $18 for a Dickens specialty. The expensive glass is worth it when you wanted that glass. It is a strange spend when you wanted fries and an $18 vesper on a Saturday.

The food. A martini with nothing beside it is a fast way to order a second one. Oysters are the small answer at FKA:, at $1 and $2.50. Fries are the answer at The Dickens, included. A steak is the answer at Hawksmoor, and the kitchen there stops before 11 p.m.

The clock. After midnight, most of these rooms are finished or about to be. The Dickens martini bar does not open Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. Hawksmoor is dark by midnight. FKA: is pouring the same freezer-door list at 3 a.m. that it poured at 5 p.m. The late-night kitchen is the food version of that fact.

Come for the cold one. 221 2nd Avenue, $28, until 4 a.m.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best martini in NYC?

For a cold martini you can walk into late, the freezer-door list at FKA: Formerly Known As, 221 2nd Avenue. All three are $28: Duke's Style, the Vesper, and the Fisherman's Martini. The bar is open 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day. The Hawksmoor Martini is $24 in Gramercy, and the room closes by midnight. The Dickens lists specialty martinis at $18 in Hell's Kitchen, Wednesday to Saturday.

What is the coldest martini in NYC?

Hawksmoor prints its list under Sub-Zero Martinis. In a September 17, 2021 Punch story, beverage director Adam Montgomerie called theirs the coldest martini in New York. That story names Hepple gin. The current sample card names Fords, with Little City dry vermouth and lemon oil, at $24. FKA: pours freezer-door martinis until 4 a.m. The Ivory Peacock labels a 4 oz list sub-zero on a menu file dated August 2025.

What is a freezer-door martini?

A martini kept in the freezer and poured already cold, so it comes out thick and silky with no ice melt. At FKA: all three are $28: Duke's Style, the Vesper, and the Fisherman's Martini, in vintage glassware. Canto's frozen espresso martini is a blended drink at $19, finished with mascarpone and Baileys.

Where can I get a frozen martini in NYC?

If frozen means a slush, Canto lists a frozen espresso martini at $19 at 117 Perry Street and at 2014 Broadway. If frozen means ice-cold and still a martini, order the freezer-door list at FKA: or the sub-zero list at Hawksmoor. One is a slush. The other is a martini poured cold.

How much is a martini at FKA:?

$28, for any of the three. Duke's Style is Ford's Gin, Botanist Gin, Tito's, and Ketel One. The Vesper adds Kina L'Aero d'Or and Lillet Blanc. The Fisherman's is built on oyster-shell-infused Lustau Vermut. The nitro espresso martini is a separate drink at $15. West Robbins oysters are $1 beside it.