Tooker Alley

Stripped-back decor with bare wooden floor, exposed and white washed brickwork, a bar counter fashioned from a truck flatbed, utilitarian furnishings and industrial light fittings. It may be workaday but Tooker Alley is a hell of a bar.

Essentially a single rectangular room with a yard outback, Jazz and Hammond organ fills the dimly lit atmosphere with night-lights providing flickering dots of warmth. Owner Del Pedro brings serious central Manhattan talent (he's ex-Pegu Club) to the boroughs and he's put his creative soul into the menu - more a book filled with trivia including a chart of hobo symbols.

Drinks-wise it offers "Serious Cocktails (without the seriousness)" at "eleven bones apiece" with descriptors that give you a hint of the creativity behind signature cocktails and detail the history behind each classic.

Bar snacks are appropriately small but incredibly tasty, especially the Hangover Brisket & Biscuit. Be sure to wash this down with a Red Emma cocktail. The beers are all domestic and mostly local. The back of the menu has blank pages headed "Don't Yelp Me Bro!" where customers are encouraged to write notes to other drinkers and sketch drawings: they're an artistic bunch in Prospect Heights.