The Best Barbershops in New York City
Spring does something to men’s hair in this city. The winter beanie comes off, the damage reveals itself, and suddenly every guy in Manhattan is staring at his reflection on the subway glass, wondering if it’s time to try something new. It is. And New York, for all its failures of affordability and common sense, remains the best city in America to sit in a barber’s chair, which, for the uninitiated, is a different proposition than a salon. A salon styles. A barbershop cuts. The tools are different (hot lather, straight razors, clippers), the training is different, and the loyalty between a man and his barber rivals anything you’d find in a therapist’s office.
The first great barber here was an enslaved Haitian-born man named Pierre Toussaint, who arrived in Manhattan in 1787 and became the most sought-after hairdresser among the city’s elite before buying his freedom in 1807. He is the only layperson buried in the crypt beneath St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and every New York barbershop since has operated on the principle Toussaint understood 200 years ago: that the chair is where craft, identity and trust converge.
By 1913, Joseph Molé opened a shop on Lexington Avenue that still operates today. What happened in the chairs across the city tracked every cultural shift that followed. The pompadour carried the postwar decades. The afro, which was a deliberate rejection of the barber’s chair as much as a political statement, nearly killed the industry in the 1970s. It might have stayed dead if hip-hop hadn’t revived it with the hi-top fade exploding out of Harlem and Brooklyn in the mid-1980s, which turned barbershops back into essential cultural cornerstones. That revival owed everything to Black barbershop culture, which had sustained the institution during the lean years—shops from the South Bronx to Bed-Stuy functioning as communal living rooms and political forums long before the rest of the city remembered that a good barber was worth knowing.
The modern renaissance is, in large part, a rediscovery of something Black New Yorkers never lost. Today, the range spans from neighborhood-priced to genuinely extravagant, with excellent work at every tier. A city with this many barbershops could never be captured in a single list. There are institutions and innovators in every borough that deserve their own entries, and leaving anyone out is an occupational hazard of the format. Neighborhoods matter, but Neighborhood Barbers matter more. Here are 16 worth knowing.
The Best Barbershops in New York City
Haar & Co.
- 45 Christopher St., New York, NY 10014
Michael Haar sang at the Metropolitan Opera as a boy before training at the American Barber Institute, apprenticing in London and studying under Italian masters—a résumé that sounds fictional but explains everything about this Art Deco jewel box on Christopher Street. Every appointment runs a 30-minute minimum with Proraso straight-razor finishes and espresso pulled on arrival.
Paul Mole Barbershop
- 1034A Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10021
Joseph Molé opened a barbershop on Lexington Avenue in 1913 after inheriting his uncle’s establishment around the corner. The address has shifted slightly over the decades, but the three original chairs made the move every time. Adrian Wood, an Englishman, took over in the 1970s and still runs the place alongside Michael Wood. Fathers bring their sons here, and those sons bring theirs. At around $40 a cut, it may be the last appointment on the Upper East Side that hasn’t adjusted for inflation.
Barberino’s
- 520 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022 (flagship)
- 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112
Co-founder Michele Callegari’s great-grandfather, Giovanni, emigrated from Italy in 1910 and cut hair under the name “Barberino.” Four generations later, Callegari and Niccolò Bencini resurrected that legacy into Italy’s leading grooming house, opened a Madison Avenue flagship and followed it with a second outpost at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Grand Central is next, and the early returns suggest the hypothesis that American men are ready for grooming treated with Italian dinner-hour seriousness is correct.
Astor Place Hairstylists
- 2 Astor Pl., New York, NY 10003
Walk-in only since 1947, aggressively indifferent to aesthetics and the closest thing New York has to a democratic institution that also gives excellent haircuts. Barber Jose has held his chair for 25-plus years; men cross the Hudson from New Jersey specifically for his hands. The walls are layered in decades of celebrity Polaroids nobody has bothered to curate, and the Saturday crowd—punks, bankers, tourists sharing the same plastic bench—is a beautiful chaos you cannot manufacture.
Neighborhood Barbers
- 439 E. 9th St., New York, NY 10009
Three chairs, no signage worth noticing and a Russian-born master barber named Eric Uvaydov who has held court here for 25 years, even as the East Village gentrified in concentric waves around him. From editors to grad students, everyone takes the same numbered ticket—Uvaydov has not adjusted a single thing about his practice since the Clinton administration.
Martial Vivot Salon Pour Hommes
- 39 W. 54th St., New York, NY 10019 (flagship)
- 639½ Hudson St., New York, NY 10014
Vivot started apprenticing in the south of France at 15, then trained in London, and finally showed up in Manhattan in 1999, attracting clients who need partitioned stations and complimentary bourbon to take the edge off what they’re about to spend. A cut in his chair runs $420, and nobody who’s sat in it has ever called it unreasonable twice. Protégés trained in his image now staff both the Midtown flagship and a West Village location, which means you can get the Vivot school of thought without the Vivot price tag, though plenty of people pay it, anyway.
Fleischman Salon
- 424 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017 (flagship)
- 57 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019
- 381 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016
Fleischman calls itself a salon, and technically it is one—no clippers cross the threshold, every cut is scissor-over-comb and the experience has more in common with a high-end stylist than a traditional barbershop. It lands on this list anyway because the results are unmistakably barbershop-caliber: precise, structural, built to hold shape. A Fleischman haircut at week six still looks like a Fleischman haircut, which is more than most clippers can promise at week two.
Fellow Barber
- 5 Horatio St., New York, NY 10014 (West Village flagship)
- 33 Crosby St., New York, NY 10013 (SoHo)
- 101 N. 8th St., Brooklyn, NY 11249 (Williamsburg)
- Additional locations in NoMad and Hudson Yards
Sam Buffa opened this West Village spot in 2006 before the phrase “barbershop renaissance” existed, and the argument can be made that every shop on this list owes him a modest debt. Additional locations in SoHo, Williamsburg, NoMad and Hudson Yards followed—the Williamsburg outpost inherited a former Yeah Yeah Yeahs rehearsal space. Fellow Barber also runs a “Pay What You Can” program for clients in financial need.
Geno’s Barberia
- 48 Greenwich Ave., New York, NY 10011
Geno Bicic learned to cut hair at 13 in Montenegro, moved to New York at 24 and spent a decade barbering at a friend’s shop down the block before opening his own place in 2010 with nothing but a client list and a lease. A Times mention followed, a fourth chair was added and word of mouth did the rest—Square CEO Jack Dorsey plugs the shop on his own social media unprompted, and Daniel Day-Lewis, Nick Wooster and Sean Avery are known to have been regulars.
12 Pell
- 12C Pell St., New York, NY 10013
When an NBA franchise trusts you with a first-round pick’s hairline, you’ve made the argument. The Knicks featured 12 Pell in their official Rookie’s Guide to New York, the city cheat sheet handed to newly drafted players who need to look camera-ready before their first press conference. A consultation here includes an assessment of hair texture, scalp condition, and bone structure, which takes longer than most shops spend on the entire appointment, and that forensic intake is exactly why people travel boroughs for barber Tim’s chair.
Made Man Barbershop
- 170 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011 (flagship, Chelsea)
- Five additional Manhattan locations
Sam Chulpayev emigrated from Uzbekistan, where his grandfather ran a barbershop, and opened a five-chair storefront on West 23rd Street in 2013 that filled so fast he expanded across the street within a year. The family operation has since grown to six NYC locations without losing the original shop’s personality, informed by Sam Chulpayev’s personal collection of antique barber tools dating to the 1880s, including a brass cash register and a chair from 1901.
Mildred New York
- 124 Ridge St., New York, NY 10002
Rob McMillen and Eric Holmes left Blind Barber to build the opposite of a speakeasy barbershop—named after both their grandmothers, who happened, with storybook neatness, to both be named Mildred. A collaboration with menswear label 3sixteen sends 10 percent of product sales to the local elementary school PTA, which tells you everything about the clientele and the values.
Persons of Interest
- 84 Havemeyer St., Brooklyn, NY 11211 (Williamsburg)
- 88 S. Portland Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217 (Fort Greene)
- 299 Smith St., Brooklyn, NY 11231 (Carroll Gardens)
The Williamsburg flagship shares square footage with Buzzed Monkey Records; Fort Greene neighbors Brooklyn Tailors; Carroll Gardens anchors Smith Street. All three seat you in restored 1960s Belmont chairs with built-in ashtrays, hand you a cold beer and let the barbers show you why their personal followings function like small congregations.
The Stepping Razor
- 952 Flushing Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11206
Barber Danny has been at this cash-only, appointment-only spot for 13 years—clients have booked flights from other time zones to sit in Niamh’s chair, which is the species of loyalty most businesses never even approach. Cape Verdean-owned since 2010, with mint-green plaster walls, skateboard decks for décor and a resident mutt named Buckley who has never once rushed a client.
Cut Shop
- 191 Nassau Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11222
Tomcats Barbershop was a Greenpoint institution on India Street—who could forget the free PBR the moment you sat down— and a vibe users described on Foursquare as a cross between a motorcycle bar and a Harlem barbershop. In October 2019, the crew received a text message from the out-of-state owner giving them two days’ notice that the shop was closing. Manny Zee, who spent nine years at the original, and David Arce led the regrouping—the entire team refused to split up, and serviced clients at neighboring shops until they could sign a new lease and reopen together on Nassau Avenue as Cut Shop.
Frank’s Chop Shop
- 19 Essex St., New York, NY 10002
Mike Malbon opened this on Essex Street in 2006 and named it after Benjamin Franklin—”a smart modern man of leisure of his time,” as he put it. When the shop first opened, the neighboring brothel assumed it was a surveillance front, and SWAT teams would raid next door while clients sat mid-shave in the four vintage chairs. First-chair barber Brandon “Mr. Bee” Wiseman, a self-taught cutter who learned on mohawks during a punk-skater youth in Boston, has held the same station for over a decade. Adrien Brody, Drake, Anderson Cooper and GZA have all sat in those chairs.