Wine&Spirits Magazine

CITYSCENE

> Tertulia

Photo by Evan Sung

Tertulia is Spanish for an informal party, the name chef Seamus Mullen gave to his new restaurant in the West Village. It's his take on the cider houses of northern Spain, with Andalucian cider poured from a keg and a steady stream of small dishes coming from the wood-fired grill. Bigger dishes, however—like huevo y cordero, a lamb ragu and poached egg melting into polenta, or paella de mariscos, a wide pan of rice colored to a rich sepia by cuttlefish ink and topped with sweet shrimp—provide plenty of excuses to delve into the wine list. Organized by style (e.g. "bright and elegant," "dark and robust"), it's heavy on high acid choices, like the rustic Monje Tradicional 2008 Tacorante-Acenejo from the island of Tenerife, or Galician reds such as the D. Ventura 2009 Vino de Burato from Ribeira Sacra. All a good reason to brave the crowds.

—Annie Sullivan

Tertulia, 359 Sixth Ave., New York; 646-559-9909, tertulianyc.com (reviewed W&S, 12/11)

> Boulud Sud

Photo by B. Milne

Daniel Boulud may have a southern soul. Raised on his family's farm near Lyon, he tends to be a bit earthier than many of his fellow French celebrity chefs, though Upper East diners at Daniel could be forgiven for thinking him posh. And those same folks could be forgiven if they allow Boulud Sud, the chef's new dining room around the corner from Bar Boulud on West 64th, to jet them to their fantasy of Monaco for the evening. On the surface, this is the moneyed French Riviera. Underneath, it is the Mediterranean sea, with its Greek fishermen, Algerian farmers and traders from the Middle East. Dishes like Chickpea and Eggplant—a plate of hummus, baba ganoush and falafel—capture the Mediterranean, especially with a glass of Argyros 2010 Santorini Atlantis, a Greek white with the kind of wind-driven acidity that carries all the spices in the dish. Or try Sperina's Piedmontese rosé, Rosa del Rosa, another one of the obscure and delicious wines wine director Michael Madrigale has corralled for his list, which he's organized accordingly to the winery's proximity to the sea. And don't miss the roast goat, braised with wild garlic and served over orecchiette, a deep and soulful Mediterranean staple to match the rich southern spices of a Fallenc Sainte Marie Corbières.

—Joshua Greene

Boulud Sud, 20 W. 64th St.; 212-595-1313, danielnyc.com (reviewed W&S, 10/11)

> Edi & The Wolf

Photo by Daniel Krieger

New Yorkers looking for a short escape to the country can find it on Avenue C in the East Village, where Seäsonal partners Edi Frauneder and Wolfgang Ban keep the heuriger doors open every night 'til 2 a.m. While their midtown dining room is stark Vienna high-tech, everything about their village tavern is warm and inviting. The barn wood that panels the walls and ceiling seems to mute the lights, hung from a long tangle of rope above a wide copper bar. The buzz in the room is relaxed and friendly—it's not unusual to see Edi sitting down on one of the benches to help choose a wine for the crisp plate of pork belly or Ban's simple and perfect schnitzel. He guided us toward Hirsch's Gaisberg Riesling from the Kamptal and toward buttery pillows of spätzle with wild mushrooms and brussel sprouts. The wine list imports a few bottles from Germany, France and Spain into an affordable Austrian mix of classic veltliners, rieslings and more esoteric bottles. The most expensive wine on the list is $91, for a magnum of Hajszan's 2008 Weissleiten Gemischter Satz, a field blend of white varieties from Vienna. There are, in fact, eight gemischter satz on the list, something you won't see very often, even in a heuriger in Wien.

—Joshua Greene

Edi & The Wolf, 102 Ave. C; 212-598-1040, ediandthewolf.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> ABC Kitchen

ABC Kitchen may not have set out to be a neighborhood haunt, but it may be the restaurant we've returned to more often than any other in the last year. Unlike other diners, who may have wandered in after shopping next door at ABC Home, the furnishings store, we go expressly for the food—a roasted carrot salad with avocado and spice that won't let go, its intense carotene-and-spice jolt like turmeric gone wild; mackerel as pristine as the sashimi at the finest sushi bars in town. Bernard Sun, last year's recipient of the James Beard Award for Outstanding Service in wine, has carefully selected enough organic and/or biodynamic wines to fill two pages, all at peak performance with the food, regardless of their philosophical upbringing. "Organic wines don't pull any punches," he says. "When the wine is stinky, it's really stinky," he says. But you won't find a lot of stinkiness at ABC. So go ahead and order that Sancerre you never heard of, or anything, for that matter. Sun has made sure that it will be as refreshing and clean as the food.

—Joshua Greene

ABC Kitchen, 35 E. 18th St. (btw. Broadway & Park Ave); 212-475-5829, abchome.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Carmine Club Café

Every restaurant in town seems to have wine on tap these days, but Carmine Club Café was the first we noticed with Prosecco flowing. It fits in well with the vibe, an immensely friendly place with a neighborhood bar-like feel, and more than a few surprises. The first is the food, which transcends the surroundings. The burger is of tender heritage pork laced with spice and topped with smoked pepper mayo; squid come grilled rather than deep-fried with a zingy mint salsa. The Italian leanings of Joe Vigorito, late of dell'Anima and Lupa, show up in dishes like grilled branzino with fennel and polenta. The fried chicken wings, with their dusting of coriander, fennel and umami-rich garum, simply demonstrate an understanding of food made for drinks. Because drinking is imperative in a place where Prosecco is on tap, the wines by the glass might include Musar Jeune, Thierry Germain's Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny and Alain Graillot's Moroccan syrah, Syrocco. If you need help navigating the list, owner Noel Cruz is glad to help out. Just don't bring in a bottle of Yellow Tail: Corkage for that is $100.

—Tara Q. Thomas

Carmine Club Cafe, 41-43 Carmine St. (btw. Bleecker & Bedford Sts.); 212-933-0705, carmineclubcafe.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Buvette

Located in the heart of the West Village, where cute is chic, everything at Buvette is diminutive. That goes for the short oval water glasses and the little crocks of lentils. Gastrognomes, as Jody Williams calls them, line the bar in their pressed French aprons, shaking Martinis and circumspecting their pours of the wines by the glass. They'll give you a taste to make sure you're okay with each one before pouring a generous two-thirds' full. The Bourgueil on the list, a Canonières from Barc Vallée, is obscure enough that it doesn't appear in Google. But it came alive with a tiny taste of two pieces of toast, smeared with a commanding combination of potatoes, Cantal cheese and smoked ham. Then there was a stew with cotechino, trotters, beans and cabbage and Alain Allier's Mouressipe Pitchounet, a 100 percent cinsault that does come up in Google: Alice Feiring describes it as "initially charming, ends with puppy breath." I definitely got the puppy breath, but it didn't bother me with the stew. Like Buvette, the wine is old-fashioned by choice, the drink and the marble bar feeling like pre-war France in some small country town, a local bar that took care with every plate and glass. There's nothing diminutive about Buvette when it comes to satisfaction.

—Joshua Greene

Buvette, 42 Grove St. (btw. Bleecker & Bedford Sts.); 212-255-3590, ilovebuvette.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Lincoln

Lincoln may be the most astonishing new restaurant in the city, a dramatic plate-glass space perched on the edge of the Lincoln Center plaza. Chef Jonathan Benno, formerly of Per Se, has put together a challenging all-Italian menu: testa di maiale translates as Berkshire pork terrine, the menu description leaving aside the heady parts; there is also gigli neri con seppia e polpo (cuttlefish and red wine-braised octopus) and cacciucco with Spanish mackerel and fennel. Those red-wine seafood dishes are particularly delicious with a glass of the Terre Nere Etna Rosso, or a bottle of the Occhipinti Frappato, the sort of wines that Aaron Von Rock (late of Telepan) and general manager Paolo Novello (another Per Se alum), packed onto the 400-bottle all-Italian list. Sure, there are verticals from legendary estates and plenty of star power at the requisite price. What surprises are the steals, especially when viewing the list from an oversized red banquette. Von Rock knows geek chic, and you can drink extraordinarily well here in the $45 to $70 range. Go late, once the Lincoln Center crowd is safely seated for the ballet or opera. Lincoln is a destination in its own right and a performance not to be missed.

—Joshua Greene

Lincoln, Lincoln Center, 142 W. 65th St.; 212-359-6500, lincolnristorante.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Ai Fiori

Michael White's foray down the Riviera, from Liguria to Nice, may be his most exciting restaurant to date, a procession of dishes far sunnier than the hotel surroundings would intimate. Check out chewy Ligurian trofie bathed in a sea-scented crustacean ragout; wake the taste buds with rouget given a sunny Provençal jolt from basil and capers. Hristo Zisovski, former chief sommelier at Jean-Georges, proffers a list as deliciously challenging, piling the wines-by-the-glass thick with obscurities (Champagnes Doyard and Doquet; Poggio dei Gorleri's pigato), devoting two pages to half-bottles and another to grower Champagnes, as well as whole sections to vibrant finds from Italy's and France's Riviera. This is the sort of hotel dining that sails far above the requirements of the usual business trip or meeting; this is food for everyone, tourists and jaded New Yorkers alike.

—Tara Q. Thomas

Ai Fiori, 400 Fifth Ave. (btw. 36th & 37th Sts.); 212-695-4005, setaififthavenue.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Osteria Morini

Morini starts as a memory of Bologna. The top of the menu is a selection of prosciutto, mortadella, coppa and other salumi in a room where most everyone is drinking fizzy red wine. The ceiling is open to the beams, the kind of massive wooden structure that might have graced Soho before 19th century cast iron. In fact, the beams come direct from Italy, reclaimed from an old farmhouse. The food comes from Michael White, whose pastas have captured the imagination of New Yorkers at Marea, Alto and Convivio, here presented on bare wooden tables with paper napkins. The wine list centers on Emilia-Romagna, with pink Lambrusco di Sorbara (Villa di Corlo's tart cherry-scented '09) and the deeper red Lambrusco dell' Emilia (Camillo Donati's organic fizz) available by the glass. Rarities like the 2005 Fontana dei Boschi from Modena are the liquid companions for a deep-toned duck liver mousse and manage to bridge the crespe, a horned pasta with lightly spiced tomato-and-shellfish sauce, and cappelletti with truffles and speck. There's plenty more beyond the pasta and the Lambrusco (from porchetta to aged beef), but if you go to Morini, let the fizzy reds reign.

—Joshua Greene

Osteria Morini, 218 Lafayette St. (btw. Broome & Spring Sts.); 212-965-8777, osteriamorini.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Eataly

Photo by Evan Sung

New Yorkers don't like to stand in line. Nor are we much for mega-stores. Yet there we were, countless times, waiting on Broadway and 24th to get into Eataly, the New York branch of Oscar Farinetti's Turin food hall. Opened in collaboration with the Batali-Bastianich Hospitality Group, the place is immense: 50,000 square feet and packed with options. Power lunchers can head to the steakhouse-within-the-store, Manzo, which serves up meat from celebrity purveyor Pat LaFrieda and Northern Italian reds to go with it; the simply hungry but discerning can grab a glass of Prosecco and some mozzarella made that minute, or crudo courtesy of Dave Pasternack, the fish guru who runs Esca. The panini are fast, hot and filled with top-notch salumi and Italian cheese; the pizza is Neapolitan-style, thin and well charred. And the pistachio gelato is, perhaps, the best reason to ever wait on line.

—Tara Q. Thomas

Eataly, 200 5th Ave. (btw. 23rd & 24th Sts.); 646-398-5100, eatalyny.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Porsena

We'd walk over the Brooklyn Bridge (and do) for Sara Jenkins's porchetta, sliced thickly and piled onto bread at her East Village Porchetta—but the lack of seating and wine list make it mainly an on-the-fly affair. Now there's Porsena—still porky, but with a long bar perfect for solo dining and tables, including a big wooden one a few steps from the kitchen. Get a group together and book it, as it's the best table in the house: A reservation puts you entirely in Jenkins's hands, as it's family-style only, her choice. She might start you off with tiny red peppers filled with anchovies, as bracing as a cold Martini without the unfortunate after effects; or send out bowls piled high with fat mussels, plenty of liberally garlicked bread on the side to sop up the juices. Her pastas are justly famous, toothy and perfectly sauced—this may be the one restaurant where it makes sense for someone over six to order pasta al pomodoro—but leave room for the secondi, as you may score the Niman pork chop, cracklings and all. Jenkins's wine list is like her food: direct, mouthwatering and affordable, an array of bottles from small producers and unsung appellations—Jenkins's idea of picnic wines, if she were cooking.

—Tara Q. Thomas

Porsena, 21 E. 7th St. *btw. 1st & 2nd Aves.); 212-228-4923, porsena.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Spasso

Chef Craig Wallen has joined forces with Choptank's Bobby Werhane in a cozy corner spot in the West Village. Italian for amusement, Spasso may read as a playful neighborhood trattoria, but the care Wallen takes and the quality of his ingredients make simple preparations taste surprisingly sophisticated. The ricotta strascinari, chewy dumpling-like lengths of pasta, are elevated from their rustic Sicilian origins by a smoky sauce of braised duck leg; a trout wrapped tightly with prosciutto and sage is cooked to perfection. The Italo-centric wine list provides a comfortable range of tradizionali wines, to which Gordon Adams has added an exciting array under "sorprendenti," lesser-known wines such as Radoar's Loach, a zwiegelt from Alto Adige, or Scilio di Valle Galfina's Phiale, a red from Etna that tastes as though it was built for those strascinari.

—Carson Demmond

Spasso, 551 Hudson St.; 212-858-3838, spassonyc.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Ciano

When John Slover opened Bar Henry last year, he did something crazy: He put a chalkboard in the bar area, and then told people they could order any bottle off the list by the half. There was no extra charge; the other half of the bottle went up for sale by the glass on the chalkboard. As you might expect, this attracted a lot of wine geeks short on cash and long on desire to taste stuff they couldn't afford by the bottle. And the chalkboard saw some wild and arcane wines going by the glass. Slover has now taken the concept upmarket to Ciano, where his former Cru colleague, Shea Gallante, is in the kitchen. Here, Gallante looks to Italy for inspiration and to the farmers' market for food, putting Nantucket scallops together with a hubbard squash mostarda or pairing beets with whipped robiola and wild watercress. To match, Slover has dug deep in Italy—this may be the only list in the city with a category titled "Italian Orange" between white and red, as well as a 22-year-old schioppetino (Ronchi di Cialla; $120 a half). There are bright, sharp Ligurian vermentinos as well as Barolos from the 1960s, plenty of Tuscan reds and southern producers such as Occhipinti—plus a wide range of French wines and select array of German and Austrian bottles. It's a wine geek's dream.

—Tara Q. Thomas

Ciano, 45 E. 22nd St. (btw. 5th Ave. & Park Ave. S.); 212-982-8422, cianonyc.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Kin Shop

Photo by Vicky Wasik

There are no chopsticks on the tables at Kin Shop, the first clue that this place is serious about its Thai food. And while you can pretty much bet that broccoli romanesco has never shown up in a sour curry in Thailand, you'd be hard pressed to find a version in Manhattan as true to its powerful, puckering flavor as Harold Dieterle's riff. That holds true for much of the menu here—it may not be traditional to make laab from ground, cooked duck, or to carefully cube pork belly and serve it with fried oysters, but who cares? It's the spirit that counts, and he's got that down. He's also got real spirits on the list: Cocktails such as The Aln—made from gin and Thai pickle brine—share the clarity and savor of Dieterle's food; the mostly white wine list compiled by Alicia Nosenzo specializes in bottles that can handle a little heat and add their own spice. The sparkling section alone can satisfy most any dish: Champagnes from Aubry, Hébrart and Jean Milan, Fitz-Ritter Riesling, Opera Lambrusco, Black Chook Sparkling Shiraz, Bordelet Poire Authentique...

—Tara Q. Thomas

Kin Shop, 469 6th Ave. (btw. 11th & 12th Sts.); 212-675-4295, kinshopnyc.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Hung Ry

Asian-food-loving wine geeks have long looked West at The Slanted Door with unabashed jealousy; while we have some decent Asian food in our coastal city, the best tends to be served up in dingy rooms without wine lists. Hung Ry's changed that, setting up shop in an airy space with high ceilings, a birch bark wall and an open kitchen. Noodle soups are the focus, whether it's a restorative, clean-tasting chicken soup with winter greens, a light squash broth tangy with tamarind or a deep, dark bowl of oxtail and brisket, all piled with noodles pulled into particularly toothy compliance by an A+ crew whacking them out in the kitchen. The wine list is packed with deliciousness—like Királyudvar's Tokaji Sec, Alary's roussanne, Muscadet from Bruno Cormerais and the Schoffit Vieilles Vignes Pinot Blanc. Those wines demand attention to the appetizers, whether a salad of chewy squid, smoky guajillo chile and crunchy pumpkin seeds or a veal head terrine. Nearly every bottle runs under $50 save those on the reserve list, an eclectic selection of bottles ranging from the 1996 Dominus to magnums of Sea Smoke Cellars' Southing Pinot Noir or the '82 Pontet-Canet.

—Tara Q. Thomas

Hunt Ry, 55 Bond St. at Bowery; 212-677-4864, hung-ry.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Rouge et Blanc

Thomas Cregan, who once manned the lists at Chanterelle and The Beacon, has opened his own warm Village restaurant. The exclusively French list runs the gamut from classic to eclectic (Cour-Cheverny, Gueule de Loup or Les Mûres, for example), allowing for plenty of play with chef Matt Rojas's Franco-Vietnamese plates. Fried rouget, presented whole as if plucked straight from the sea, gets dressed with chile, lime, garlic and peanuts; molten bone marrow comes with grilled baby octopus, fennel salad with pickled plum sauce and a hint of citrus. These are terrific excuses to indulge in a Condrieu, although duck confit with an 11-year-old Domaine des Grands Fers Fleurie is hard to beat, too.

—Carson Demmond

Rouge et Blanc, 48 MacDougal St.; 212-260-5757, rougeetblancnyc.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)

> Junoon

Junoon brings a Taj Hotel-level elegance to Indian dining in New York, from the black limestone façade to chef Vikas Khanna's intricate cooking and the list of 250 wines selected by Scott Carney, Ms. Khanna's dishes present the pure flavor of the main ingredient, layered with the trebles and bass of spice. Lobster tandoor comes in two tails, slightly charred but not dry, with a subtle heat to bring out the brininess of the shellfish; Zilliken's Saarburger Rausch dives right in and brightens it up. The riesling also sweetens and lightens a three-lentil shorba, a rich, wintry soup spiced with fresh turmeric, cumin and cilantro that echo in high notes, red notes, green notes and browns. Red wines find a playing field with the curries and grilled meats; a Tollot-Beaut Bourgogne Rouge makes a light, fruity accompaniment to a goat matke wala (a handi, or curry, with tomato, bay leaf and pomegranate). Junoon may not convince you to give up beer with Indian food for good, but it proves wine can be a welcome alternative.

—Joshua Greene

Junoon, 27 W. 24th St. (btw. 5th & 6th Aves.); 212-490-2100, junoonnyc.com (reviewed W&S, 04/11)