I think it’s possible for a bar to be both upscale and laid-back. Some of the most enjoyable bars in the world are pricey, but the experience isn’t just about their well appointed digs and delicate glassware. The drinks are unique and zingy, and the people who run the show make visitors feel welcome no matter the occasion, whether or not they have the PR to be on one of those “top” lists. A good bar draws the crowds, and compels them to return for another round. 

Last week (before the pestilence) I visited Bitter Monk, the newest member of the growing bar/tasting room family at Industry City in Brooklyn, and I look forward to a return visit. It joins Fort Hamilton (where I will be a judge in the finals of their first ever Battle of Brooklyn Cocktail Competition on Tuesday, June 11), Barrow’s Intense, and Standard Wormwood as an on-site maker of spirits with its own bar. These are in addition to the various breweries with taprooms (BIG aLICe Brewing, Brooklyn Kura, and Gun Hill Brewing) that are all located at this shopping and eating complex at the waterside edge of Sunset Park. 

Bitter Monk opened earlier this spring by married business partners Ektoras Binikos and Simon Jutras as an extension of Atheras Spirits, which consists of various liqueurs, digestifs, and a line of cocktail bitters. It is the younger sibling to Harlem’s Sugar Monk, one of my favorite upscale-yet-welcoming bars in town. I included that bar as one of the featured destinations in my book Drink Like a Local New York because of the way it manages to be what feels like an unforced balance between aesthetic beauty and functional informality.