Most Londoners' experience of a hidden or 'secret' bar usually starts and stops when they find Milk and Honey (psssst it's on Poland Street).

Unless, of course, you've ever searched for "that" Triad-run drinking hole in Soho.

Not so in New York. In a city gripped by tobacco prohibition, and where the social food chain dictates that you are only as useful as who (or rather where) you know, speakeasy culture has been evolving over the last couple of years. Whilst many of the better-hidden bars continue to offer a crafty reprieve for the city's smokers, many others just provide a discreet hangout for cool New York.

One of the first to come out of the shadows was a chintzy bar/eatery 'discovered' at the dark end of Freeman Alley on the Lower East Side. Whilst half of NYC has still never even heard of Freeman's, many of the local hipperati have now moved on, leaving you a decent chance of getting a table if you're ever in town.

Amongst a host of veritable 50 Cents, The Back Room is, by contrast, pure Capone. Found by taking short subterranean path from a street-level gate marked 'The Lower East Side Toy Company', the inside is pure NY speakeasy. Back Room even has a secret prohibition bar, hidden behind a false bookcase (YES! ­ a speakeasy within a speakeasy!).

Along the road, Esquina is a secret restaurant hidden in the vaults of a gritty East Side diner called The Corner Deli. Whilst the diner clientele obliviously stuff their faces with burritos upstairs, a surreptitious dart through the door marked 'Employees Only' leads you through a maze of corridors and down into the dingy, gothic-styled Mexicana eatery. Book (and you should) by dropping into the vaults to get their phone number.

Oh, and keep it to yourself, eh?