Have & Meyer

There's plenty to talk about at this self-proclaimed Italian "chatteria" from Milan-born restaurateur Andrea Alari (Va Beh'): the phrase comes from the Italian slang word chiacchierare, meaning casual dinnertime chatter. Beyond linguistics, the cocktail bar is covered in conversation pieces, from wooden saloon booths to a taxidermied boar's head, which nod both to the space's former tenant High Horse Saloon and to Tuscany's cattle-tending butteri. At the marble-topped bar, barkeep Alessandro Alesandrini's cheekily-named cocktails reference historical figures and old-time movies: a pisco–egg-white Farewell Ilsa nods to Casablanca and a Van Brunt moonshine-charged Hugh Glass is named after the American folk-hero frontiersman who was famously grizzled by a bear. (The menu fittingly sports a warning to "never drop your gun to hug a grizzly.") There are also 10-buck quaffs on top, including a Negroni and a Stolen Bike, stirring dark, bittersweet amaro Montenegro with dry white wine. Slow-food chef Alessandro Trezza (L'albero dei Gelati) works up a similarly casual-Italian menu of crostini (shrimp with walnut pesto, octopus carpaccio) and charcuterie plates, featuring stuff like raw cheese from Vermont's Jasper Hill Farms and Pennsylvania-sourced bresaola from Salumeria Biellese.