This place has been on a lot of different food blog Hot Lists for its natural wine list and ties to James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame. The place is a very minimalist, chilled out scene (it's got a Scandinavian feel to it although I think James Murphy is from NJ) compared many of the other loud booming restaurant/wine bars in the neighborhood. The menu is more bar food/small plates vs. a full menu but you can definitely find enough to nosh on here to make yourself fairly full for the night.
I met up with Neel, Caitlin and Sarah as part of a tradition of trying to keep in touch and catch up over wine since we all parted ways from our old work team. We got here fairly early (6pm) and it was pretty empty but I would still recommend making a reservation because there aren't a lot of seats and it can get crowded fairly quickly. As I mentioned, the place is known of its natural organic wine list - in addition to red and wine wines, they also have a nice selection of rose and orange wines from across Europe and the US. If you're a wine junkie, you'll have a great time here and even if you're not, you'll definitely be able to find a great tasting wine here.
The menu has a meat and cheese section, snacks, small plates, large plates and dessert. We ordered the fried potatoes ($10), warm house bread and cultured butter ($6), roasted sunchokes ($14), beef tartare ($15) and the tajarin pasta ($18). This actually turned out to be enough food that I was pretty full by the time I got home. The fried potatoes were thrice cooked and served with aioli and tomato chipotle sauce - this dish was like crack cocaine. Super super addictive, salty and delicious. The potato was perfectly crispy and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I could have easily housed the entire dish myself but I'm glad that I didn't. The warm house bread was also pretty delicious - there really seems to be this huge movement towards warm housemade sourdough bread served with cultured butter (I saw it at Wassail and Semilla) - despite trying to avoid carbs, there really isn't anything more god damn delicious than soft warm bread and salty creamy butter spread on top of it. The sunchokes were served with a salsa verde and capers - solid dish but nothing mind blowing.
Neel and I had very high expectations for the beef tartare because we had had an overwhelmingly perfect version at Wildair. This one was good but not as good as that one. I didn't really love the buttermilk and seeds on top of it or the sesame crackers served with it. I think if I didn't have such a high bar for it, I would have enjoyed it more because the beef was chopped up well and was the right texture and flavor but the one at Wildair just sheer perfection in my book. Lastly we had the tajarin pasta which is a very thin version of tagliatelle pasta and it was served with rock shrimp and chili. It was superb - the pasta was the perfect consistency and the combination of it with the rock shrimp and chili was spot on. This was another dish that I could have eaten all on my own as well.
Overall, this is a lovely, if not slightly hipster-ish (I mean, it is Williamsburg) wine bar with really solid food. I like how it's not some dark dank wine bar with only a menu of olives and hummus - it's bright, airy and got enough wine and food options that will make you happy you came. Total bill: $50/pp with tax, tip and 2 glasses of wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
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