This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to New York
It’s Friday night in New York City’s East Village. In the 1970s, the neighbourhood was the epicentre of punk. Now, though, it’s known for its urban sangfroid and urbane sophistication. Everyone is cool; maybe too cool. But inside Paradise Lost, a waiter is lighting a cocktail on fire for a table of ogling carousers. The lights flicker purple and white. The music cuts out and is replaced by a soundtrack of wolves howling and chains jangling. The waiters howl. The patrons howl. Chill this is not.
Paradise Lost (see below) is the latest addition to New York’s new breed of tiki bars — and one of the best. As far as bar subcultures go, tiki has had a wild ride. The first tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber, was opened in 1933 in California by Ernest Gantt, a man who later renamed himself Donn Beach. He created the archetypal tiki bar: an archly kitsch pastiche of exotic influences where images of Polynesian gods and half-clad Hawaiian women in leis complemented fusion food and intricate, often rum-based cocktails, served with maximal garnish in mugs designed to look like Moai statues. The trend reached its peak in the postwar years, partially as an antidote to the uptight Eisenhower administration. But by the 1990s, the incipient awareness that tiki was, in fact, a species of cultural appropriation based on colonialism, racism and sexism, helped kill the vibe.
Recently, though, bars such as Paradise Lost have tried to redefine tiki, steering clear of its troubled past while preserving the fun. As it turns out, there are many ways to go over the top. Not all are queasily fetishising. And now, when the real world is so chaotic, there can be no better time to escape into a lush, rum-powered fantasy.
Sunken Harbor Club
372 Fulton Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201
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Good for: Strong drinks, singing shanties
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Not so good for: Those who get seasick
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FYI: Head downstairs to Gage & Tollner after a drink for one of the best steaks in Brooklyn. Sunken Harbor Club also has a venue in Bermuda
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Cocktail prices: $18–$32 (Shattered Skull for two people, $45; King Pinky for four, $100)
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Opening times: Sunday–Thursday, 5-11pm; Friday–Saturday 5pm-midnight
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Website; Directions
A flight above one of Brooklyn’s best steakhouses, Gage & Tollner, its co-owner St John Frizell has carved out a pirate ship’s cabin. A watery view is glimpsed from a portal; fish glisten, mid-swim, mounted on dark wood walls. Sunken Harbor is the tiki bar grown up. Sure, the lights are dim but the vibe skews heavily nautical. In fact, the space is built slightly askew to better mimic a keeling cabin.
The complex cocktails are inspired by mid-century food and drink writer Charles H Baker and are organised by strength, from In the Shadows (“easy-drinking cocktails for a pleasant moonlight swim”) to The Abyss (maniacally strong and includes the Shattered Skull, a combination of rums, pomegranate, vanilla and pineapple that serves two). For tiki enthusiasts there’s even a passport membership, with 36 pages of challenges.
Paradise Lost
100 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003
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Good for: First through to fifth dates
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Not so good for: Serious conversations
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FYI: In the heart of the East Village, Paradise Lost is surrounded by great restaurants such as Foul Witch and Spice Brothers
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Cocktail prices: $16–$28, with large-format cocktails ranging to $130
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Opening times: Daily, 5pm–2am
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Website; Directions
“I wanted to preserve the idea that you are toying with mystical forces but without appropriating Polynesian gods,” says co-owner Kavé Pourzanjani of Paradise Lost, which opened in 2023. “I settled on demonology.” The effect is more Mondo Cane than Charles Manson. Pourzanjani combines elements of B-movie horror, Ed Roth’s Rat Fink cartoon culture of the 1980s and DC comics. The ceiling is a fish net cluttered with ocean detritus: licence plates and model aeroplanes.
The menu, meanwhile, is almost as long as a Milton poem, and littered with illustrations of zombies. The drinks are elaborate concoctions, rated by skulls (strength), such as the Tarman, which includes three rums, falernum, cinnamon and grenadine, and Witches’ Sabbath (rums, brandy, gins, tropical juices, citrus and falernum), the ordering of which triggers the flashing lights and lupine howls.
Xanadu Roller Arts
262 Starr Street Brooklyn, NY 11237
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Good for: Late-night disco skating
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Not so good for: Manhattanites
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FYI: The line-up includes not just skate sessions but concerts and dance parties too
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Cocktail prices: $15 (entry from $11, skate rentals $7)
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Opening times: Wednesday–Friday, 6pm–midnight; Saturday, noon–2 am; Sunday, noon–midnight
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Website; Directions
Deep in Bushwick, the 16,000-square-foot Xanadu is, as one might imagine, de trop. It’s a hipster pleasure dome with a roller-skating rink, tiered seats, a DJ, a state of the art sound system and a disco in the bathroom. The carpet alone, a fiesta of neon swoops, is visual overload. The endless circumambulations of the patrons are powered by tiki drinks from poet-bartender Keri Marinda Smith, whose most recent collection is called Dragging Anchor. Smith’s drinks recall tropical classics: the Ladybug daiquiri, Cherry Baby (amaretto, cognac, blackcurrant and cherry) and Skaterade, a tequila-forward riff on Gatorade with blue spirulina. But beware, skating patrons have a two-drink limit.
Roberta’s Tiki Bar
263 Moore Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
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Good for: Deep Brooklyn adventurers, the hungry
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Not so good for: Tiki purists
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FYI: For the well-heeled, the Michelin-approved Blanca, part of the Roberta’s family, is tucked behind the pizzeria
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Cocktail prices: $16
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Opening times: Monday–Wednesday, 5pm–10pm; Thursday–Sunday, 5pm–11pm
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Website; Directions
In 2008, when Roberta’s started, the now-iconic pizzeria was a punky DIY affair in an old warehouse in the then terra incognita of Bushwick. Its adjoining tiki bar was a step up from the Pabst Blue Ribbon lager and other watery domestic beers favoured by early-adopting hipsters. Now, Roberta’s is an empire, with locations in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Denver, Singapore and beyond. But that no-big-deal nonchalance lives on in the original location’s tiki bar. Design-wise, the tiki influence is light, though the drinks aren’t. Among the crop of brightly coloured tiki riffs are the Marg Boi, made with tequila, triple sec and lime; the Young Money Melonaire (rum, Ancho Reyes, spicy poblano, melon and Campari); and the A$AP Wa$$ail, a wintry concoction of habanero tequila and pineapple with cherry liqueur and spiced cider.
Otto’s Shrunken Head
538 E 14th Street, New York, NY 10009
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Good for: Divey good times
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Not so good for: Romance
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FYI: The back room of the bar often hosts small concerts and music nights
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Cocktail prices: $18 in a pint glass, $26 in a take-home mug
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Opening times: Sunday and Tuesday–Thursday, 4pm–1am; Friday–Saturday, 4pm–2am
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Website; Directions
Perhaps the oldest of the city’s extant tiki bars, Otto’s Shrunken Head opened in a former pharmacy in 2002. Once the block was peppered with bars — Irish, dive, karaoke — but now it’s been given over to Target and other big box stores. Otto’s, though, has survived. The small bar is illuminated by holiday lights year round, the walls are covered in sisal and the drinks are classic tiki: Mai Tais, Singapore Slings and Zombies. Just a few booths and stools, a photo booth (out of order since forever) and a video game (Big Buck Hunter II: Sportsman’s Paradise) round out the feeling of a slightly dilapidated island outpost from another place and another time.
Have you tried NYC’s new wave of tiki bars? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
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