Minetta Tavern is where crazy old Joe Gould bragged to The New Yorker's Joseph Mitchell about the greatest book never written. You can spot Gould's grizzled visage among the scores of black-and-white ink drawings that line the walls of this Village throwback. Former stars of stage, sport, politics, and literature—most of them long-forgotten luminaries—all clambered onto the bar stools of the former speakeasy, raising glasses of illegal beverages and offering their profiles for character sketches that survive them to this day. The tavern still boasts a wonderful red sauce on its chicken, and it has carried on another tradition as well: A few years ago, the owner pleaded guilty to conspiring to smuggle Ecstasy into the country.

manhattan
113 MacDougal Street at Minetta Lane
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Phone: 212-475-3850