New York City will never reach peak wine bar
Not long ago, I would have looked right past the wine list at a restaurant. I guess that’s expected: Growing up in a beer drinkers’ household, I almost never saw wine on the table, and came to think of it as haute, expensive and impenetrable. When I started writing about restaurants, that became a problem. I found myself fumbling through the wine menu, in the way a vegan might try to describe the weekend-only pastrami at Hometown Bar-B-Que. If you relate, I have some good news: There’s never been a better time to get to know wine. Today when I look around the city, I see wine bars experimenting with new pairings (shrimp siu mai and … Loire Valley pet nat) and bartenders eager to explain them. If all your heart desires is a Nickelodeon-orange wine that smells like a stable, you were born at the right time. But classic wines are cool, too. You can find them just about anywhere a bucket of bottles can fit.
The new doyenne of DoyersDrinking Riesling on Doyers Street in Chinatown used to be a ticketable offense. But ever since the wine bar Lei opened in June, it’s all any of my friends seem to want to do. That’s no accident. The owner, Annie Shi, is the beverage director and co-founder of the restaurant King in Soho. Her strength there, and here, is making it ridiculously easy for diners to have a nice time. Picking a glass or bottle is the easy part: The mostly dry, low-intervention wines pair with just about everything on Lei’s menu. It’s much harder to decide between the cat’s ear noodles, oil-slicked and showered in herbs, and the decadent short rib served on the bone in a mire of tart strawberry sauce. (Both times I visited, I waddled away from the wine bar, having eaten more than I would at most restaurants.) If you have to pick, veer toward the lower half of the menu with more substantial dishes, like a plate of fried whiting with a Grinch-green exterior thanks to a nori batter, and a bowl of brothy steamed cockles. 15-17 Doyers Street (Pell Street), Chinatown
Bed-Stuy, n’est-ce pasThe fastest, most affordable route to Paris, as far as I’m aware, is riding the B26 bus to Howard Avenue, or the C train to Ralph Avenue, in Bed-Stuy. Not far from either, you’ll find Badaboom, a bright blue portal to the 10th Arrondissement. The restaurant (really, a rotisserie chicken bar) comes from an owner of the perpetually packed wine bar Frog, and shares its emphasis on natural wines. My introduction to the place was a Grenache that was especially refreshing in the middle of the city’s umpteenth heat wave. You can try treating it like any other wine bar, but it’s probably game over when you see the flock of rotisserie chickens twirling in the open kitchen. (It’s definitely game over when you spot the bed of potatoes that soak up their juices and come with each order.) Served in four pieces — one of them the backbone — and stacked like a set of Lincoln Logs, the half chicken ($32) has a flavor and moistness that stands out from other expensive birds in town. It comes with a few chicken-y spuds, but you won’t regret adding on an order of the thick-cut fries to swipe up the juices. 421 Bainbridge Street (Howard Avenue), Bed-Stuy
A bar with no InstagramOne of my favorite places to drink wine right now was never supposed to exist. The wine bar Horse With No Name is technically a storage unit — the owners Cameron and Christine Blizzard were searching for a wine cellar for another bar they’re opening in the area, called Cupid’s. When the space they found was bigger than they expected, they decided to set up some tables and chairs. The bar doesn’t have a website or an Instagram, but someone besides me must be talking about it, because every time I stop in, there’s a new group of blissed-out customers sitting at the bar. There’s no list of wines by the glass, either, but, for $14, you can enjoy a pour of whatever they have open. One downside to the approach is that occasionally you’re introduced to a glass you love — and find that you can’t have a second one because someone beat you to the last sip. (If that’s the case, there’s always the bottle list — or a bucket of five Narragansett beers for $20.) One of the bar’s strengths is that you’re in someone’s cellar, but it feels like someone’s apartment, right down to the food menu. My current obsession: the bar’s $5 order of Hal’s Chips with ketchup and mayonnaise. 223 East Fifth Street (Second Avenue), East Village ICYMI: Eleven Madison Park will no longer be veganFour years after the chef Daniel Humm announced that his restaurant Eleven Madison Park would be going vegan, he’s reversing course. In an interview with the Times reporter Kim Severson, Humm offered a handful of reasons for the switch-up, most of them economic: Labor costs, fewer private events bookings, and dropping wine sales. The revamped $365 tasting menu, which debuts on Oct. 14, will still be predominantly vegetarian and plant-based, with options to add meat and seafood along the way. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have New York City restaurant questions? Send us a note at here. Follow NYT Food on TikTok and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.
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