Karaoke

The most polished karaoke room in the city, and the closest thing to it that exists near the hotel — it is quite literally across the street. A proper cocktail bar at the front, leather stools, and behind it a handful of private rooms decorated like hotel suites: exposed brick, upholstered banquettes, and a songbook that will not fail you. It is also the most expensive room in this collection by a wide margin, and the room charge carries a service charge of its own, so ask us for the full figure before you commit. For a small party that wants the experience without the elevator ride and the fluorescent corridor, it is worth every dollar. For eight people on a budget, walk four blocks north instead.

If you want one address and no explanation, this is it — the highest-regarded karaoke room in the city by a considerable distance, with several floors of soundproofed rooms above 32nd Street, bottle service, and open-bar packages. The rooms are genuinely quiet between one another, which in this category is rarer than it should be. They will hold a credit card on file, and the desk on each floor operates semi-independently, so if you are told there is nothing available, ask which floor to try next rather than leaving. Good for a birthday, a large group, and anyone who wants the room to look as good as it sounds.

No decor to speak of, no theatre, and no pretence: a floor of plain dark rooms above one of Koreatown's better barbecue houses, priced per person and open from one in the afternoon until four in the morning, every single day. Rooms are ordered by tablet or from your own phone, the song catalogue is broad and current, and Korean and American bar snacks arrive quickly. This is the answer to the two most awkward karaoke requests a concierge gets: it is Tuesday at three in the afternoon, and it is Sunday at two in the morning.

The warmest room in this section, and the one we send couples and pairs to rather than parties. There is a proper front bar where you can buy a song and sing where you stand, and private rooms behind it if you would rather not — so if you have not decided which kind of evening you want, you do not have to decide at the door. The staff are the reason it appears here: the same names come up again and again in the praise, and on a quiet night they will run the room like hosts rather than attendants.

The bring-your-own room on the block, and the one that quotes a flat price for the room and the hours rather than assembling a bill as the night goes on — which, in this category, is worth a great deal. Divey, cheerfully so, with a tambourine in every room. Two warnings, both from regulars rather than from us: the catalogue is thin on Korean and Japanese titles despite the address, so if you want a K-town room in the strict sense, go elsewhere; and there is no air conditioning, which matters between June and September.

The friendliest public room in Manhattan, and the one for when you want to sing but not to organise anything. You buy a song at the bar for a couple of dollars, an emcee keeps the queue moving briskly, and you sing to a room of strangers who will be on your side before you reach the chorus. Regulars report the same thing repeatedly: people who arrived swearing they would never sing end up on the stage. There are private rooms behind and an event space with its own stage, but the bar at the front is the point. Wednesday nights the karaoke is backed by a live band, which makes this the one address that appears in two sections of this list at once.

No stage and no rooms: the microphone travels around the bar and you sing from wherever you are sitting, with the swivelling stools turning to face you. It is a small, dark, unbothered place, and the surprise is the kitchen — the Taiwanese popcorn chicken has a following, and people order a ribeye at a karaoke bar and are glad they did. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Pay attention when the mic comes round; there is no list, and your turn simply arrives.

The old Winnie's on Bayard Street was a New York institution and closed a decade ago; this is the name brought back on a second floor across from the Kit Kat Club, which makes it genuinely useful on a theatre night. House cocktails with names like Dragon Punch, a graffitied room, a stage at the back, and a crowd that commits. Two things to know before you send anyone: song requests are handled in cash at the discretion of whoever is running the queue, and moving up that queue is a matter of tipping. If you find that charming you will love it. If not, go to Baby Grand.

A curved-booth, low-lit lounge that has decided it is Las Vegas in the mid-seventies, with a pianist at the back and several hundred songs he can play behind you. This is the most theatrical option in the collection and the best one if you actually sing — there is a great deal of musical theatre on any given night, and the standard is high. Singing begins at nine and reservations are advisable; without one you will be in the front bar rather than the back room, which is not the same evening. Two things to know: the entrance is around the building and down the alley, and you should carry singles, because the pianist is tipped by the song. One honest caveat — the running order is his rather than the queue’s, so if you have one rehearsed song you may wait a long while for it.

Every Monday since the late nineties, this former Puerto Rican bodega — the grocery shopfront is still there — hands its stage to whoever signs up, backed by a live house band that will play classic rock, pop and most things in between. It is not karaoke as the rest of this list means it: there is no screen to hide behind and no room to close the door on. It is three minutes of being the singer, in a hundred-and-fifty-capacity room where The Strokes were once the house band. Moby has done AC/DC here. Bring earplugs; it gets loud.

The best-reviewed room in this collection by a clear margin, and the most deliberately designed. The private rooms are soundproofed and built around a small raised stage rather than a banquette along the wall, there is an auto-tune setting if you want the help, and there is a proper cocktail bar out front where a party can carry on once its booked hours have run out. The drinks are treated as seriously as the singing, which is not true of most of this list. For a celebration where the performance matters but nobody wants to be in Koreatown at two in the morning, this is the one.

The best-run room downtown and the most flexible: an open karaoke bar at street level for people who want to sing to the room, and a floor of plain private rooms in the basement for people who do not, priced by the person and by the hour. You may bring your own bottle, which changes the arithmetic of a long night considerably. Fried chicken and rice-cake skewers from the kitchen. Open until four every night of the week, and from two in the afternoon at weekends — there is no hour at which this is closed and you are stuck.

Beneath a working record shop in the Theater District: eighteen private rooms built for five to thirty people, each decorated to its own theme rather than to a template. There is a room lined with old comic books, another holding an antique radio collection, and one with a wall of New York licence plates. The songbook benefits from the music obsessives upstairs. The location is the practical argument — it is the only serious karaoke room within a short walk of the Broadway houses, and it is open well past the point at which you would otherwise run out of options after a show.

Korean barbecue at the front, cooked at the table for you, and private karaoke rooms at the back, which solves the logistical problem this whole list otherwise creates: what to do about dinner. The pajeon and the short ribs are the order; the cocktail programme is better than a barbecue house needs. Five themed rooms, open since 2015, and a full evening in one address rather than a stop on the way to another — two streets from Public Records, should the party want to end somewhere quieter than it began. Two firm house rules to relay: karaoke bookings carry an automatic twenty per cent gratuity, and room capacity is a fire regulation rather than a guideline. A party that arrives over the number will be asked to leave early and still charged for the full booking, so give them an accurate head count.

The most charming entry here by a distance, and the least like a business: a husband and wife run a karaoke lounge in the lower floor of their own East Williamsburg home, take one party at a time, and host it themselves. It holds twenty-five, there is a kitchen, and you bring your own food and drink — which is why the hourly rate reads high and the evening ends up costing less than the equivalent in Koreatown. For a private celebration where you want to be looked after by name rather than by floor number, nothing else on this list comes close.

Cheerfully chaotic, cheap by the standards of anything in this collection, and equipped with both an open bar where the microphone circulates and private rooms behind it. The audio is not the finest you will encounter and the frozen cocktails are an alarming blue, neither of which anybody has ever minded here. Its real function is geographic: it is what northern Brooklyn does instead of getting on a train to 32nd Street, and it closes at midnight midweek, which suits you if you want an early night after all.