A new ESPRIT based direction of departure(DOD） and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation method for bistatic multi-input multi-output (MIMO) radar with unknown mutual coupling is proposed, in connection with the presence of unknown mutual coupling which severely affects the performance of DOA and DOD estimation. The proposed method can estimate the DOA and DOD accurately by utilizing the structural properties of antenna array matrix and the strip feature of mutual coupling matrix of uniform linear array (ULA). Moreover, the new method is free of search with a small amount of calculation. Even in low SNR environment or mutual coupling effect is significant, the performance of the proposed method is also stable. Simulation results illustrate the feasibility and correctness of the proposed method.