Penny is a worthwhile addition to the city’s ever-growing collection of wine bars. Photo: Hugo Yu/
Last week, I reviewed Penny and Demo. By name, they are each a wine bar, although the cooking is ambitious enough to think of them as wine restaurants. Whatever phrase is preferred, this style has become the dominant genre of restaurant in the city: casual, dark, shareable plates, and lots to drink. In reviewing these two newcomers, it seemed like it would also be a useful exercise to assemble a (non-exhaustive) hit list of the best and most interesting wine bars/restaurants I’ve encountered in my own travels. I’ve tried to account for a variety of moods, tastes, and vintages (the bars’, not the wines).
The promising newcomers: Early days are looking good at With Others in Williamsburg, with Scandi-Japanese interiors and a blackboard menu: Get some lemony crab toast with a glass of Mathieu Apffel’s Savoyard “Avant la Tempête” Jacquere, Alpine zip. The food is less ambitious at the new Whoopsie Daisy in Crown Heights, from the people behind the nearby wine store Fiasco!, but they do have salumi from the excellent upstate producer La Salumina and better-than-the-usual drafts of red, white, and rosé, available by the glass, half-bottle, or liter.
The tried-and-trueables: Recent and recentish arrivals now settled into the landscape include La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, which is soon expalnding to Flatiron; Place des Fêtes, where on a recent Friday night I was able to sneak in without a reservation for lamb with roti and and a Kool-Aid-pink bottle of light-extraction Syrah from Lolita Sene in the Rhône; Chambers, whose kitchen is now firmly under the control of Jonathan Karis, but whose wine list remains in the award-winning hands of Pascaline Lepeltier; and Gem Wine, which is humming along after the few different iterations of Flynn McGarry’s Gemiverse that preceded it.
The Establishmentarians: I can confirm, after a recent revisit, that the Four Horsemen is still operating at a very high level. An insider whispered to me that it’s worth dropping by for lunch, when chef Nick Curtola plays around with new ideas and smaller-batch ingredients that wouldn’t stretch through a whole dinner service. In midtown, Aldo Sohm Wine Bar is the passion project of Le Bernardin’s longtime somm (and author of a very good beginner’s guide to wine) with a living-room vibe and a thoroughly decent duck confit. It gets busy around happy hour, but if you happen to be in the area later — say, post-theater, in what’s otherwise a pretty dead zone for elevated boozing — Sohm’s somms start doing special pours from the cellar at 9 p.m.
“Natural” wine: Try Skin Contact on Orchard Street, a bar with pedigree: Eben Lillie, one of its founders and directors, is also a partner at Chambers Street Wines, one of the city’s best wine shops and a pioneer in biodynamic, organic, and so-called natural wines. (He’s also the son of its founder, David Lillie.) I never leave without a few lacy kerchiefs of Tête de Moine (“monk’s head”), a spiral-sliced cow’s-milk cheese from the Swiss Jura.
Spanish wine: Head to Park Slope’s Bar Vinazo for tapas and Tempranillo (and much else). An all-Spanish by-the-glass list, including some more expensive options dispensed by Coravin (the vacuum-pump system that allows semi-open bottles to stay fresher much longer) — I loved the very Burgundian “Arroyo del Tortolas” from Bernabeleva, just outside Madrid.
Italian wine: Don’t laugh, but I’m going to suggest Eataly’s flagship Flatiron location. While chaotic (watch out for tourists bumbling toward gelato), the grocery emporium hosts several restaurants and counter bars, each with individual wine lists, pairings, and producer spotlights; try Bar Milano, whose selection covers both up-and-comers like Chiara Condello in Emilia-Romagna and established giants, plus ten Baroli by the glass and by the flight. Bonus points for the Eataly Vino wine shop next door, one of the city’s better selections of Italian wine.
Alsatian wine: A little French, a little German, more than usually good — we should all be drinking more Alsatian wine. Alsace-hailing Michelin chef Gabriel Kreuther has several by the glass at his namesake restaurant, and many more by the bottle.
Austrian wine: The “proper” restaurant Wallsé gets more credit, even after all these years, but Kurt Gutenbrunner’s wine bar next door (formerly called the Upholstery Shop, now simply Wallsé Next Door) is a good pit stop for a quick schnitzel and Grüner.
German wine: Riesling — the king of German wines — has long had an evangelist in Paul Grieco of Terroir, who offers not only over a dozen by the glass and by the flight, but also a full manifesto on the subject for interested (and maybe slightly terrified) would-be converts.
Greek wine: An often underrated wine region! Perhaps Stafili Wine Cafe, which has locations in Tribeca and the West Village, can change everyone’s mind. You probably know Assyrtiko, the razor-sharp white from Santorini, but do you know Malagouzia, Xinomavro, and Agiorgitiko?
Balkan wine: Another underrated region, and one of special note for the orange-wine fans out there. (Lots of maceration and amphora aging in these parts.) Ruffian is doing its bit to raise awareness: Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia by the glass. Really, who else outside of Ljubljana is offering a three-wine flight of “Wines of Eastern Slovenia”?
South African wine: There is something for everyone at Kaia Wine Bar on the Upper East Side: bottomless brunch, elk carpaccio, and the most extensive by-the-glass South African wine selection I’ve ever seen.
Australian wine: Tip from a former consultant to the Australian wine industry: It’s all by the glass at Sonnyboy, as is good stuff from nearby New Zealand (which isn’t all lawn-grassy Sauvignon Blanc, despite what many would have you believe).
Champagne: Champagne is everywhere, but “Champagne with ambience” is not, which is why I like La Mercerie’s recently opened Guild Bar: a bare handful of seats, a very judicious eye for grower Champagne (rather than the name-brand, you’re-buying-the-label stuff), poured into the most exquisite, handblown Japanese and Austrian artisan glassware you can’t afford (but that the Guild store sells if perchance you can).
Sweet and fortified wine: Eleven Madison Park’s wine list is justly famous for many reasons, but you rarely see so many sweet and fortified wines by the glass — available at the bar, space permitting, whether or not you’ve ponied up for the $195 bar tasting menu. I’d cruise past the decades-old collectors’ stuff (2000 Chateau d’Yquem, Port and Madeira from the ’50s and ’60s) and treat myself to a 2011 late-harvest Pinot Gris from Alsace or a 30-year-old Chenin from the Loire for $25.
