At Double Chicken Please, you can try hand-crafted cocktails inspired by your favorite dishes.

NEW YORK — French toast, Waldorf salad, Creamy raisin cookies. This may sound like the start of a brunch menu, but at Double Chicken Please in New York, it’s actually a list of cocktails.

“At first, we turned a dish into a drink just because we love to eat,” co-founder and CEO Fei Chen explains with a laugh. Her current favorite is Cold Pizza, a cocktail of tequila infused with burnt toast and cheese, basil liqueur, fresh tomato water, lime wedge and egg white.

Such unexpected drinks have become the hallmark of the bar that has conquered the world. Last year it caught the attention of the World’s 50 Best Bars, an annual list that ranked Double Chicken Please at number 6, propelling it to the forefront of the international cocktail bar scene.

“I think before we opened this place, we definitely thought about it. Like, okay, one day we want to be in the top 50 in the world, but once we actually got there, it really blew my mind,” says Chen.

When Double Chicken Please opened in 2020, it was a long time ago. Chen and her co-founder G. N. Chan have dreamed of opening their own bar for years and have already tested the idea by touring the country in a 1977 Volkswagen minivan converted into a mobile bar.

Once they found their permanent location on Allen Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the duo set to work creating the perfect chic setting to complement their cocktail menu. They took an unconventional approach, settling on a double concept that divided the bar into two rooms. Draft cocktails, nicknamed Taptails, are served in the Front Room, while guests will find more intimate handcrafted cocktails in the Back Room.

The rapid success of Double Chicken Please is largely the result of the talent and dedication of Chen, Chan and the team they have gathered around them. According to Chen, her team motivates her every day.

“In the beginning we were definitely young and we had ambition. We wanted to achieve something,” Chen explains. “But now Double Chicken Please is a dream not only for me and GN, but for our entire team. So I think this is one of the reasons that makes me do what I do every day. It’s also part of their dream, part of their future.”