“Best pub worth waiting in line for.”

“Best hamburger ‘The Star of Manhattan.’”

“This is the center of coziness, and the center is holding.”

“Like being back in the old country,” this “ultimate” Gramercy Irish pub features “sawdust on the floor,” “toasty” logs on the fire, and “sweet” sons of Erin behind the bar (who’ve “been there for years”); proudly “old-fashioned,” it also pours one of the “best pints of Guinness in the city.”

This is a place to have a pint by the fire or, even better, to have a meal in the back under the glow of warm orange lighting from chandelierlike fixtures, and walls with dusty memorabilia that the warm orange lighting doesn’t quite allow you to make out. Shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, chicken pot pie, lamb stew are all served in a homey style that even the most non-Irish person in the world (say, a Bangladeshi farmer) would recognize as comfort food.

Describe Molly’s to your friends and you’ll sound like you’re parroting all the clichés about an “authentic” Irish pub: stern but jovial bartender, sawdust on the wooden floor, Irish tunes on the jukebox, etc., etc. But convince them to come here and they’ll realize that Molly’s is the kind of place that inspires clichés (and scores of clichéd imitators), not obeys them. Don’t be surprised if your “just one pint” turns into five or six—especially in winter, when the fireplace is crackling.

This is the kind of place where middle-aged white men come to sit at the bar and drink straight alcohol alone, and yet.... Maybe it’s the real fireplace, the jazz music playing softly, or the black-and-white photos of Irish writers on the back wall, but there’s nothing depressing about Molly’s. Sink into a wooden booth and lap up a creamy Irish coffee with Bailey’s.