Finding a bar in New York isn’t rocket science.

They’re on every other block, and they make it easy for you by having a sign outside that says “Bar” in orange-neon letters. Which is just fine if all you want is a drink, but after a few of those, you might start thinking, “Hey — I wonder where all the cool people are?”

I’ll tell you. They’re in bars too — but the ones they’re in are hidden away behind phone boxes, in tailors’ shops, down underground tunnels.

They don’t have signs outside and, unless you’re in the know, you’d never guess they were there. . . which is just how the locals like it. They’re the coolest joints in the coolest city on earth — and I wanted in.

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The Gotham in crowd don’t make it easy for out-of-towners, but a bit of determination and a lot of phone calls produced a list of places that, I was cheerfully informed, I didn’t stand a chance of finding, let alone getting into. I like a challenge, and so does my wife, Jaqui. We hit the streets.

First stop, La Esquina. The address we’ve been given leads us to a slightly grubby-looking Mexican diner in a litter-strewn part of NoLIta. It feels like the sort of place that crops up uncomfortably frequently on NYPD Blue, generally with a blood-spattered corpse lying face down in the tortillas.

We’re about to give up when we spot a door inside. There’s no sign, but it’s open and leads to a flight of stairs. Then down into a basement kitchen, staffed by three hassled-looking cooks.

“Oh, sorry. . . ” we say, turning back.

“It’s that way, buddy,” scowls one, with a jerk of his thumb.

And it is. We squeeze through the kitchen, along a tunnel and down another flight of stairs (God knows how deep we are now), then walk into a large, dimly lit room, full of smartly dressed people drinking cocktails and talking at the tops of their voices. We’ve arrived.

It’s all terribly civilised, with a long, packed bar, comfy sofas and ironic 1980s pop-funk on the sound system. The natives are even friendly: I have a chat with Lesley Bender, a glamorous 29-year-old bar-hopper in a little black dress (a lot of those about). I feel sheepish about my Primark jeans.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “In New York, it’s not about what you wear. . . ”

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