This one is a basement in Marylebone, from design studio Golem, with a glossy counter and booths upholstered entirely in soft red velvet. The idea is that the room is never quite finished. Glossy surfaces are meant to pick up scratches from glasses and jewellery, and the velvet walls and floors are meant to hold the imprint of bodies. In other words, the patina is the point. A bright bar near the entrance gives way to a darker, more intimate lounge down a short flight of steps. Order the French toast martini, made with brioche gin, brown butter and spices. Then stay for another.

Offices have spent a decade trying to look like hotel lobbies. Fabio Fantolino has gone the other way. His Turin bar borrows the visual language of 1960s office interiors: chrome, stainless steel, reflective surfaces and bold colour. You enter past a stainless-steel counter set against deep red enamel. Downstairs, a gridded mirror ceiling multiplies the walnut, amber light and Mart Stam S33 chairs. Upstairs there are cubicles, made from small leather sofas with mustard bouclé backs. It is the only cubicle anyone has ever wanted to sit in.

Adolf Loos designed this bar in 1908, the same year he argued that ornament was a crime. He made an exception for materials. The room is tiny, lined in onyx, marble and mahogany, with mirrors set high on the walls so it appears to go on for ever. It seats very few people. Arrive early, sit at the bar, and admire an architect losing an argument with himself.

Bar Basso is where the Negroni Sbagliato was invented, supposedly by accident. That was the late sixties, and the room has had the good sense to stay more or less as it was. During Salone, half the design world stands on the pavement outside holding a goblet the size of a vase. The rest of the year, you can get a seat. Order the Sbagliato.

It's the one classic on the list, and it has earned its place. Ludwig Bemelmans painted Central Park across the walls, with picnicking rabbits and ice-skating elephants, and was paid in rent: eighteen months at the Carlyle for himself and his family. Add leather banquettes, nickel-trimmed black glass tables and a ceiling of 24-karat gold leaf. The queue can run to an hour, and influencers have found it. The room has survived worse.

It's a basement with the manners of a penthouse. David Collins Studio has lined the room beneath Crying Tiger in River North with emerald velvet drapery, which falls from the ceiling and gathers behind the bar. There is smoked mirror, polished nickel and low amber light. Pierre Paulin stools in red animal print line the bar. Handwoven macramé leather screens divide the room, and a 1978 Robert Kushner painting hangs behind the bottles. The waiters wear green velvet dinner jackets. It seats 60, and there's a walk-in freezer station for very cold drinks. Reservations drop 30 days ahead at midnight and go fast.