THE HOUSE OF THE DRAGON BROTHERS ARE having a smoke outside their hotel, looking like the most famous British rockers who never existed. There’s Ewan Mitchell, twenty-seven, whose six-foot frame is hidden by a baggy black hoodie and sweatpants. At hi

The name is not a typo. The Gramercy carriage house that houses this Tokyo-meets-Manhattan-style bar was once owned by sculptor Philip Martiny. And yes, you’ll get a lovely martini, but go beyond the straight-up classics and try the Grand Martiny, a

“SO, WHAT ARE WE THINKING?” THE WAITER ASKS. YOU look across the table to your date and run through the possibilities. It’s time to choose what you’re eating tonight—a little game we play every 24 hours. Leaving this situation with all parties satisf

Portrait Bar, in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, stands as a shining example of what can transpire when people really know what they’re doing. The drinks and the food reflect a quiet but confident virtuosity. You may think a martini has no use for aguardient

ANDER MONSON (01) is a wuss. (Self-proclaimed! Esquire, Summer issue.) That only amplified his curiosity about the emerging sport of professional slap fighting, in which, yes, two men take turns slapping each other in the face as hard as they can. In

THE LAST SUMMER OF MY TWEENS—1987—I GOT MY HANDS ON a cassette of Too $hort’s Born to Mack and was titillated by the first rap songs I’d heard with profanity. Beyond the curse words, the way $hort spoke about women gobsmacked impressionable me. On “F

BY LATE AFTERNOON AT CHURCHILL DOWNS, I’D LOST TRACK of the number of bourbon drinks I had consumed. There were icy mint juleps by the bucketload and more than a few Old Foresters on the rocks. I was feeling pretty damn good. My wife, Sally, and I ha

California is to find yourself saying, with alarming frequency, “Yeah, I’m one of those assholes now.” If you’ve come from somewhere else—somewhere more corn-fed and homespun and other synonyms for unhealthy—you may adopt a wholesome habit out here.

This intimate Lower East Side bar is like the slingshot that launches you into the glorious night. It’s the Golden Snitch of a good time: a compact gilded room lined with undulating booths and bodies undulating on them, bathed in a low light, reached

AFTER YEARS OF ANYTHING-GOES style, guys are cleaning up their act and getting dressed with a sense of occasion again. When it comes to swimwear, that means ditching big, baggy suits and opting for something with a more streamlined fit. Enter Orlebar

SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT TO SETTLE IN. SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO call the audible, cancel the next meetup, ask the sitter to stay late, and get your friends to come to you, because you’ve found the place with an energy so perfect—exactly what you were loo

FINE IS… FINE. BUT IF YOU WANT TO REACH the very top tier of jewelry, you need to get high. The world of baubles and sparkles has layers. At the base is costume stuff that delivers the glitz but leans on cheap materials. Above that, there’s fine jewe

I’VE WORN HORN-RIMMED GLASSES SINCE I was seven. In the early days, they were made in England. Those held me until I was in my 20s or 30s—and then they stopped making them. So I started chasing them, going to more and more obscure manufacturers until

“DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO BELVEDERE CASTLE?” Bill Skarsgård and I have been walking for an hour and forty-seven minutes, winding our way aimlessly around Central Park on a moody New York City morning in April. Over the bridges, around the baseball fiel

MAJOR FASHION BRANDS ARE INTERested in your skin. Not in a creepy way. They are banking on the idea that if you like what they do for your wardrobe, you’re going to love what they do for your mug. The good news is that these labels have technology an

You are welcomed with the ol’ secret-bar shtick: Discreet door. Buzz to open. But this isn’t some dimly lit drink temple. It’s much weirder: a tropical bar with punk sensibilities (this is the East Village, after all) and ultra-nerd cocktail ambition

It’s more than five thousand miles from Honolulu to Victoria Harbour. In between, it’s open ocean, the odd pinprick of an island punctuating all that blue. The distance is imposing. Unless you’re Pharrell Williams. Hawaii and Hong Kong may seem far r

DEION SANDERS MIGHT BE BETTER AT TOSSING BONS mots than at coaching football. The grizzled, never-not-controversial head coach of the University of Colorado Buffaloes is full of them. There’s “If your dream ain’t bigger than you, there’s a problem wi

THE IMAGE THAT I CAN’T FORGET—THE ONE THAT TRULY PULLS ME INTO THE SAVAGE, surreal, and ridiculously compelling world of professional slap fighting—is the open hand of heavyweight champion Damien “the Bell” Dibbell smashing into the giant bearded fac