Verlaine has been on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side since 2001, which in NYC bar years makes it a survivor. The room is large and calm for its address, with seventeen-foot ceilings and a minimalist aesthetic that creates the kind of breathing room that most downtown bars refuse to provide. They named the place after the French Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine, and while that could read as pretentious, the bar earns it with Southeast Asian-influenced cocktails and small plates that have a genuine identity rather than a theme.

The Hanoi Lychee Martini is their signature and has been since the beginning. Over a million and a half of them served across more than twenty years of operation. It's smooth, slightly sweet, and built around lychee in a way that's been copied and never quite matched. Happy hour runs Tuesday through Saturday until ten in the evening, which is an unusually generous window and one of the reasons the bar has maintained a loyal crowd in a neighborhood that has turned over multiple times around it.

The food runs toward Asian-inspired small plates, and the kitchen does them without overselling the concept. Verlaine is the kind of place that has figured out exactly what it is and hasn't needed to change it.