I became a sommelier over a dozen years ago before working my way up to my current role of liquid overlord and partner in a restaurant group—last month alone I bought over half a million dollars’ (!) worth of booze for our restaurants. This makes going out to drink in my New York City backyard a challenge, as I know the exact wholesale cost of every bottle of wine and what a standard markup should be versus an egregious price gouge. Plus, I know the wine buyers—who is clever in their curation and who is really just phoning it in.
It has become a challenge to find a restaurant that has my holy trinity of wine offerings: 1) delicious selections (cutting-edge producers and the classics—when did everyone start hating Bordeaux!?) 2) fair prices and 3) a distinctive voice and cool vibe. So on that note, here is my insider take on just a few of my current favorites in Manhattan where I like to vote with my dollars.
DELLA’S
Tribeca
Liz Nicholson took over the beloved Tribeca wine shop Frankly’s before the pandemic. Shortly after, she opened Della’s, an homage to her grandmother of the same name. This delightful jewel box of a wine bar showcases her Italian-by-way-of-the-Midwest heritage. For fans of The Bear, you can get your Italian-beef fix right here in N.Y.C.! You can also tag on “The Gravy Meat” (you definitely should) with the Italian-beef sandwich from her Nonno Pasquale “Patsy” Prosio. Her wine list reads like her career: She started at industry favorite Inoteca on the Lower East Side, then went on to run the wine program at the Gramercy Park Hotel’s Maialino, and then she landed at the formerly two-star Marea, where she and I worked as sommeliers. There are lots of Italian gems here, and I dare say few know more about the Boot than Liz. You can get a chilled glass of Rosso from the iconic Elisabetta Foradori alongside a bright and zippy Central Coast Cali Chardonnay from the up-and-coming Dunites. She also has a happy hour where you can get legitimately good wine for eight to ten dollars a glass—where else in N.Y.C. is this happening? The best part is that if you like an offering or warm up to Liz (few are more fun than her), she can help source bottles for you through her retail shop next door. The best sort of doggy bag!
PARCELLE
West Village
Even if you don’t intend to feel a little bit fancy, it’s hard to avoid it when you are drinking from an eighty-dollar wineglass. The charm of Grant Reynolds, the owner and visionary behind the Parcelle brand (it has a wine bar in Chinatown as well as a retail shop in midtown west), is his lowbrow-highbrow approach to wine. Formerly of the Charlie Bird and Pasquale Jones restaurants, he was able to work with collectors to showcase hard-to-source verticals of wines like Monfortino but also have some easy drinkers like cru Beaujolais. This vision is still alive in his wine bars, and the newest West Village location (in the old BABS space—RIP!) is fresh. The Champagne list, for example, is filled with cult classics at cutting-edge prices—such as Tarlant, Suenen, and Savart—but also the OGs like Dom Pérignon and Krug. Little diamonds shine—take a 2009 Benanti Etna bianco for $150 or a 2021 Antoine Jobard Meursault Premier Cru “Blagny” for $310, which is a generous Parcelle retail pricing. Its Old and Rare section will also mess you up in the best way. Isole e Olena 1989 for $170! Billecart-Salmon Cuvée Louis Salmon 2007 for $175! Bernard Faurie Hermitage 1997 for $385! Rousseau Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru 1988 for $1,785 (yes, that is a big number, but yes, that is also a steal!). Sorry, I just let my geek flag fly, but get thee to this wine bar!
ANTON’S
West Village
Industry power couple Natalie Johnson and Nick Anderer have created the perfect all-day café. Of course, there are other Italian West Village classics, like I Sodi and Via Carota nearby, but Anton’s does a bit of a deeper dive on wine, thanks to Natalie’s know-how gathered from tenures at wine legend Bobby Stuckey’s restaurant Frasca in Boulder or chef Dan Kluger’s New York locavore hit Loring Place, where she was the opening wine director. Her bottle list has more than five hundred selections, with gut punches of deals in the Loire (Boudignon! Château Yvonne! Collier!), red Burgundy (Chevillon! Ampeau!) and, naturally, Italy (Sperino! Burlotto! Giacomo Conterno! Ronchi di Cialla! Bartolo Mascarello!). If you’ve been eating in New York City for a while, Nick’s food has a touch of familiarity—he was Tom Colicchio’s sous chef at Gramercy Tavern and then Mike Anthony’s—in the same ways as returning to your grandmother’s house for a meal: nostalgia, comfort, and most of all satisfaction. It’s that sort of dangerous spot where you can end up going for a boozy lunch with friends and find yourself still there for dinner—and perhaps later on into the evening. A sort of thing you used to do in the bygone days of New York, before table turn times were a thing. (As a restaurateur I have to say it, but we need your table back!) After all, Anton’s is named after Nick’s great-great-grandfather, who immigrated to New York City and paved the way for a line of butchers and bakers—and eventually this West Village wonder. Hot tip: This autumn they’re opening an Egyptian-inspired spot, Leon’s, across the street and fittingly named after Natalie’s great-grandfather.
HEARTH
East Village
Almost forgot about this place, didn’t you? A shame! Another Tom Colicchio and Gramercy Tavern alum, Marco Canora, opened this corner restaurant two decades ago. “I have very little interest in innovation or what’s cutting-edge,” Canora has famously said, and although he’s gone on to win James Beard Awards and create the now-stocked-in-Whole-Foods runaway success Brodo, his restaurant remains timeless. To juxtapose the food, wine director Christine Wright (or Wine Frog, as she titles herself on the beverage menu) has carefully compiled one of the most entertaining programs in the city. Unicorn and Kool-Aid Man emojis are present! It’s silly to keep the reader engaged, but the content is quite serious. Top eye grabbers are 2019 Fourrier 1er Cru for sub $400, a 2002 Olga Raffault Chinon for $150, and love in not-so-obvious places like a 2013 Fekete Harslevelu for $75—why not! At this non-fussy neighborhood eatery stuffed with tchotchkes you might find at Grandma’s house, you can have an excellent bowl of gnocchi dressed simply in summer tomatoes and aromatic basil with a bottle of Burlotto’s Pelaverga (pulled from the Xtina’s Picks page on the wine list) and be the happiest diner in New York City.
PASTIS
Meatpacking
Most twenty-five-year-old restaurants in New York City have terrible wine lists. After a couple decades, they sort of give up and open the floodgates for big companies with not-so-compelling wines to pay for placements. However, this Stephen Starr x Keith McNally restaurant has a secret weapon, and her name is Mikayla Cohen. I recently went to its Miami opening (it now also has a D.C. location) and upon opening the wine list was truly impressed. I mean, this never happens to me. I would drink the shit out of every single wine on that list. Cohen is a ferocious and tiny package of a woman, and her lists are the same. On a recent visit to Pastis N.Y.C., I sat across the room from the only three-Michelin-starred female chef in the world, Dominique Crenn, and her talented actress and film producer wife, Maria Bello, as perfectly executed dish after perfectly executed dish landed. The food is way better than it needs to be—it is where a three-Michelin-starred chef eats!—and we drank a few bottles of Henri Germain 1er Cru white Burgundy and Bérèche Champagne, but I would have been just as delighted with her other offerings from favorite producers like Domaine Villaine, Chantereves, Tempier, Chateau Simone, Ulysee Colin, and Yves Leccia—or a glass or carafe (it is one of those glorious places that still offers carafes of wine) of Sébastien Christophe Chablis. Plus, you know what really sucks about most places now with good wine lists? They often have no vibe! They’re all snobby and yell at you if you touch the wrong wineglass. Here it’s the opposite. In fact, we had people coming and going—chef John Fraser and his wine director, Amy Racine, popped in—and everyone was so chill. Long live New York!
KING
SoHo
Chef Jess Shadbolt’s olive-oil-soaked dream of a restaurant on King Street in SoHo is truly my favorite place to eat and drink in New York City. Shadbolt’s charming take on southern-French and Italian-coastal cuisine came from her time at the fabled River Café in London, and her front-of-house partner and sommelier, Annie Shi, built one of my favorite wine lists that just expanded with her handwritten, secret Friends of King (aka FOK if you are in the know and/or saw it on Annie’s Instagram) wine list. Okay, these wines are expensive! But they’re rare, beautiful, and the same price you would find at a retail shop—just kidding, you would never find them at your average retail shop, because they are rare—and she is practically offering them up for free. Run! The list kicks off with 1997 Salon Champagne for $1,450. Let’s compare this with other excellent and fair wine lists around the city. Well, Eleven Madison Park offers the 2007 vintage (ten years less rare!) for $1,500, Gramercy Tavern offers the 2013 for $1,800, and Manhatta has the 2007 for $2,250. You see what I mean? From there it continues to get wilder with Roumier, Mugneret-Gibourg, Raveneau, Coche, Gonon, Leroy, Prieuré-Roch, Mouton-Rothschild, and ends with a bam: for $350, Chappellet Napa Cabernet from 1979. The good old days!
PENNY
NoHo
A dream of mine has been to build the best white-wine list ever. Red wines often hog the spotlight (rude!), after all. My dream was crushed when I realized that Penny had beat me to it. With a raw bar and shellfish counter where one should most definitely order the caviar and say oui! to the Ice Box PLUS, Chase Sinzer and his team offer up an embarrassment of blue-chip classics wildly well priced (how!?) as well as avant-garde producers. For Germanic, think Keller, Egon Muller, and a Knoll Smaragd for $220, plus gems from Corsica and the south of France like 2016 Antoine Marie-Arena for $98, a 2003 Abbatucci Général de la Révolution for $188, and a sick Mas Julien vertical back to 2000. If you’re a classics kind of gal, don’t worry; there’s a vertical of Chave blanc, old Vatan Sancerre, Ganevat back to 1998, a sweet Roulot vertical, Lagon, Coche (Okay, pause here, because the 2010 Meursault from here is essentially retail pricing—that is, if you can ever find it. Someone take me and buy a bottle!), PYCM, Raveneau, Dauvissat, and a sprinkle of curiosities like 2005 Kreydenweiss Muscat for $125. Old Muscat. I mean, don’t you at least wonder what this little guy tastes like? If you really want to get your freak on and have heavy reds with fish, they let you! And beyond that, they give you offerings that are practically losing money on DRC, Bartolo Mascarello, Rousseau, Roumier, Mugnier, Leroy, and Clos Rougeard. And finally, an homage to the sweet—don’t be scared of sugar—for there is Angeli’s Bonnezeaux Vieilles Vignes for less than $300 from 1990. That’s less than nine dollars a year!
ROSCIOLI
SoHo
I love a good upstairs/downstairs concept. Roscioli pulls off both a casual Roman trattoria/deli/alimentari situation on their first floor and, down below, a swanky tasting menu with five courses and wine pairings for less than $150—which, in today’s N.Y.C., is a deal. Plus, the staff is the rarely-seen-in-the-wild combo of both hip and nice. You’ve most likely heard of its 200-year-old outpost in Rome, and this is the Gotham City version that restaurateur Ariel Arce added her own flare to alongside beverage director Kenneth Crum. On a recent visit, sommelier Hugo poured me Roagna’s Langhe Bianco Solea with age, and I was reminded that sometimes Italy can stand neck and neck with better white Burgundies. Best yet, this is the spot I always recommend for oenophiles who want to learn more about wine. It offers wine and cheese classes (bonus: you learn about olive oil and balsamic vinegar, too!) in its object of virtu cellar, which is dug straight out of the Old World with rounded, cavernous ceilings. Hot tip: This autumn it’s opening up a new spot, Heroes, and I won’t spill the tea on the concept here, but essentially it’ll be all about the winegrowers. Which we love.
And a few honorable mentions...
- Il Buco - For fans of Edgar Allan Poe, legend has it that the current underground wine cellar here was once the building that was the true-life inspiration for The Cask of Amontillado. That being said, I highly doubt anyone was actually buried alive here; instead, treasures are squirreled away! Especially from Umbria, where the often forgotten noble wine of the south—Sagrantino di Montefalco—shines with back vintages and producer spotlights.
- Café Sabarsky - This Viennese café in the Neue Galerie will transport you to Austria, with wood-paneled walls and newspapers hanging on sticks. Take down some Wiener schnitzel or spaetzle with a bottle of Pichler Grüner for $72 or dry Prager Riesling for $150, and finish with a few of its desserts (dozens are available under glass cloches in true Austrian abundance) and Reisetbauer schnapps—the Carrot and Hazelnut being particularly delightful.
- Bibliotheque, SoHo - Wine and book nerds rejoice; we have our place! This bookstore-plus-wine-bar opened a couple years ago from a very cute father-son team who quite simply combined their passions into a storefront. Mostly private cellar wines reign here, meaning some crazy prices and finds, all of which you can enjoy in its crisp new library.
- Nice Matin, Upper West Side - Twenty years ago, this spot was made legendary to winos when they snatched up mixed cases of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Riesling that came directly from President John F. Kennedy’s cellar. Today, this encyclopedic wine list still has hidden gems, especially southern French and island bottles with age.
- Carvaggio, midtown - This is a true pre-pandemic wine cellar. How do they have a four-hundred-page wine list in today’s economy? I have no clue! And while the list is dominated by big brands (but actually whole pages are dedicated to single stalwarts such as Gaja, DRC, and Ornellaia, all going back decades), it is a place where every student of wine must make a pilgrimage.
- Barbetta, midtown - Laura Maioglio took over for her father in 1962 at this iconic Piedmontese restaurant he opened in 1906 (!). Noted as one of the first places to serve truffles and risotto at a time when Italian American food meant red-sauce joints with checkered tablecloths, this Old World dream is still decked out with a great chandelier from the Savoy dynasty and 18th-century antiques. The wine list has more than 1,700 wines (mostly from Piedmont, though it has been picked over quite a bit in the past two decades) and now has mostly recent vintages. There are still a few eccentricities that, when paired with its slow-roasted Piedmontese rabbit, make for a remarkable journey.
- Le Dive, Lower East Side - Fans of natural wine might notice that there is nary a natty bar listed above. I do love natural wine; I just hate when a lack of education is hiding behind trendy bottlings that are, quite frankly, not good. What’s more, oftentimes people claim what value natural wine has, since many are so affordable. But actually, if you look at the markups, this is rarely the case. Wholesale bottles that cost nine or twelve dollars are listed for seven or eight times that price! Still, this little French Tabac–inspired bar downtown has won my heart. Have the radishes and butter or the roast chicken and settle into a glass of the 2020 Ferme de Jeanne Bugey Chardonnay for sixteen dollars, which retails for around twenty-two dollars per bottle. And in today’s world, that’s a deal.
- Monkey Bar, midtown - Graydon Carter’s famed eatery has since moved into the hands of Hogsalt Hospitality (of Au Cheval and Four Charles Prime Rib fame), and it’s never been better. Long live midtown! Bottles aren’t free in this pricey part of the city, but great selections reign. A glass of Lionel Faury Syrah will go a long way with the double cheeseburger at the bar, and if you’re going for dinner, start with a shrimp cocktail and a bottle of Raveneau or Dauvissat Chablis or Couche Champagne, then with your prime rib check out its Clape Cornas vertical back to 2007.
