Dear Irving Gramercy is on Irving Place between 17th and 18th Streets, close to Union Square, and it was built around the concept of time travel. The bar is divided into four rooms: the F. Scott Fitzgerald room, the JFK room, a Victorian room, and a Marie Antoinette room. Each has a distinct design lifted from its period. Crystal curtains, gold accents, passionate lighting that shifts the feeling of the space depending on which room you're in.

The bar is operated by Alberto Benenati and Yves Jadot, who run the Raines Law Room locations, and Bar Director Meaghan Dorman oversees the cocktail program here as well. The drinks lean toward the unusual and specific: rare spirits, inventive recipes, bartenders who know what's in everything and why.

It functions well as a date bar precisely because the rooms create privacy without being isolated, and the design gives people something to look at and talk about. There's also a Dear Irving location on the Upper East Side that has its own separate character.