Lai Rai
Wine bar · Chinatown
76 Forsyth St, New York, NY 10002
Highlights
Vietnamese-inspired wine bar with creative ice cream & snacks
Vietnamese-inspired wine bar with creative ice cream & snacks
"At this Lower East Side wine bar, you’ll find creamy avocado and Vietnamese coffee ice creams, as well as the most refreshing seasonal fruit flavors. Their light green ambarella sorbet is lovely: like a perfume sample that has you repeatedly sniffing your wrist, it unfurls more citrusy and grassy notes with each spoon. The calamansi sorbet is also great, almost bitter with rind, and you’ll want to try the toasty banana leaf ice cream too. Get in touch with them on Instagram to order by the pint." - bryan kim, willa moore, sonal shah, molly fitzpatrick, kenny yang
"A New York wine bar that pairs its mostly French and Italian natural wine list with creative ice cream scoops—such as avocado or toasty banana leaf—bringing chilled, unconventional flavors into a wine-focused setting." - ByKate Kassin
"On the Lower East Side, the spotlights the work of a Vietnamese rice wine maker, bringing a less-common category of regional spirits to its program." - Bettina Makalintal
"Lai Rai is putting a Vietnamese spin on the micro trend of wine-and-ice cream bars. The flavors are constantly rotating but, on a recent visit, they included flavors like banana leaf, fish sauce caramel, and avocado. The wine list is diverse, with bottles produced everywhere from Italy to Spain to Virginia."
"If you head to Lai Rai in Chinatown for a drink, you should also do snacks and dessert. The tiny natural wine bar—a collaboration between Mắm down the road and Đi Ăn Đi—serves up oysters on ice and a few excellent little Vietnamese snacks, like headcheese that's as marbled as the bar it’s served on. And they also do ice cream. (Shoutout to Folderol.) The flavors change, but a good rule of thumb is just to order one of every scoop, especially if banana leaf is involved." - willa moore, molly fitzpatrick, sonal shah
