La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the “restaurant story of the year . . . the explosion of casual restaurants with good—I mean, really good—wine lists right out of the gate.” Our visit to Racines NY prompted that comment, but I also had another spot on my mind: La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, which opened at around the same time, not very far away.

Both take advantage of NYC’s sudden love affair with French cuisine, which seemed so terribly out of fashion just a decade ago, as Frank Bruni came off the plane from Italy and administered the last rites. Six months ago, when the Torrisi boys (both of Italian descent) announced they were opening Dirty French, it was like Nixon going to China. France had permission to be cool again.

(I’ve been writing about a French comeback for at least six years, only to realize I’d been premature. I don’t recall any recent French opening that elicited the kind of heavy breathing that accompanies a Torrisi project, like Dirty French. If there’s finally an inflection point, this could be very well be it.)

But I digress. La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels is a mini-chain of three wine bars—Paris and Seven Dials in London have the other two. Just like Racines, there’s a Michelin star chef in charge of the food: La Chassagnette’s Armand Arnal. You’ll note I didn’t say, “in the kitchen.” This feels like a consulting job. The menu is timid, and has barely changed in four months.

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Racines NY

If there’s a restaurant story of the year, it’s the explosion of casual restaurants with good—I mean, really good—wine lists right out of the gate. I’ve mixed feelings about the claptrap ambiance of such places, but if the wine selection is good enough, the other sins are nearly forgiven.

Welcome to Racines NY, with a two-letter suffix to distinguish it from the original Racines, which opened in 2007 on the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris. Practically all of the pre-opening press describes it as a wine bar. With its ample selection of offbeat wines by the glass, you could be very happy if you came here only to drink.

But the owners prefer the term “neo-bistro.” The chef, Frédéric Duca, is straight off the plane from Paris, where he earned a Michelin star at L’Instant d’Or. He serves a tightly-edited and frequently-changing menu of just five appetizers ($14–18), four mains ($31–38), and three desserts ($10–12).

Hardly a restaurant opens these days without a separate list of bar snacks, seemingly for noshers who don’t want to commit to a full meal; or, more cynically, a ploy to lure diners into ordering an extra course. Racines goes the opposite way: the only item really suitable for snacking is a cheese course ($18). Exactly what the lithe, 108-pound starlets sipping rosé at the bar are nibbling on is a mystery I leave for another day.

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Sofia Wine Bar

Nearly six years ago, I had dinner at DeGrezia, which just might be the city’s best Italian restaurant that no one writes about. This week, I had dinner at Sofia, which just might be the city’s best Italian wine bar that no one writes about.

The two spots share the same block and the same founder, Tommaso DeGrezia. Tommaso sold his share in the restaurant in 2001. With his wife, Toni, he opened Sofia in 2009.

If you were led into Sofia blindfolded, and asked to guess the location, you’d probably think downtown—perhaps the East Village. It has that familiar, rustic Italian bric-à-brac look without being derivative. And with just 38 seats in two rooms, it feels like it belongs in a residential neighborhood, not a townhouse a block away from midtown.

Toni DeGrezia designed the space herself (it was formerly an art gallery, which she owned). The larger front room (above) sports an L-shaped bar, a few tables, and broad French windows facing the street. The windowless back room, where we were, seats just 12. It gets loud when full, as the sound bounces off the exposed brick walls and has nowhere to go.

Espcially striking is a hand-sculpted limestone replica of the Bocca della Verità (“mouth of truth”), a Roman relic from the 1st century AD. Legend has it that if you put your hand in its mouth and told a lie, it would be bitten off. Do that here, and you might get burned by the votive candles inside.

These days, there’s no rhyme or reason to the amount of food a wine bar may offer: it can range from a handful of snacks to practically a full menu of appetizers and entrées. Sofia is smack in the middle, with pizza as the only real main course, aside from a lasagne that’s served on Sundays.

A daily housemade pasta will be offered starting in the fall. In the meantime, you can certainly put together a meal several times over from the raw bar, and various meat and cheese platters, hot and cold starters, and panini.

Wine’s the point, and it’s a strength here, with an international list of 200 bottles, many of them from boutique producers. The printed list shows about 70 wines by the glass (most $12–15), though with daily specials that number can rise to 100, and I am told the list changes monthly. There are also around 25 exotic beers, none of which we sampled.

I visited at the publicist’s invitation and didn’t pay for my meal. We asked the server to pair wines with the food, which he did extremely well. I won’t try to describe the wines or to reproduce his explanations of them, but the labels are shown below.

Most items on the menu are in the $12–20 range (some a bit more), desserts $6–12. The cuisine is home-style Neapolitan and Sicilian classics, nothing revelatory but most of them well made, and all from organic ingredients. Shared appetizers and a pizza would run about $60 for two people, which is a fair price for the neighborhood. Food is served on charming distressed pottery china with a fleur-de-lis pattern on the edge.

 

We started with the vegetarian lasagne (above left), in what was described as a Neapolitan style, not as thick or as heavy as that dish typically is. Tomatoes and house-made mozzarella ($12; above right) were excellent.

 

Stuffed mushrooms ($14; above left) with prosciutto, Pecorino Romano, and sour cream, were the best dish of the evening. But meatballs in tomato sauce ($12; above right) seemed too routine.

 

I skipped the Eggplant Crostini ($12; above left), as I don’t like eggplant, but two of my tablemates found it under-seasoned and over-cooked. The Pizza Margherita (above right) was wonderful. It sported a thin crust, just slightly floppy at the center, with a rich, smoky flavor. It’s offered plain, as here, for $14, or with a variety of toppings, most of them either $3 or $5 each.

 

Spinach and artichoke dip ($14; above left) was terrific; Cannoli ($5 for two; above right) were just fine.

If Sofia Wine Bar wants to raise its profile, it ought to begin with the antiquated website, which has a food menu without prices and no wine list. For an establishment where wine is the point, this is a sad state of affairs. In the meantime, you’ll just have to take my word for it that a visit here will amply reward the investment of your time.

Sofia Wine Bar (242 E. 50th Street, slightly west of Second Avenue, Turtle Bay)

Brooklyn Winery

We usually plan our meals with some deliberation—old-fashioned, I know. But our visit to Brooklyn Winery recently was entirely impromptu and thoroughly worthwhile.

The space is right out of the Williamsburg playbook:

The wine bar is designed predominantly from reclaimed materials, including a decorative wall made from barn wood, World War II ammo boxes standing in as wine racks, vintage industrial lighting, and beautiful 1940s wallpaper. The bar itself is clad in wood reclaimed from church pews, and topped with zinc.

It’s splendidly renovated, with an attractive bar, communal tables, a garden, and upstairs several secluded rooms with coffee tables and comfy sofas. Next door is a small-batch winery. They’ll eventually be sold on tap at the bar, and I believe for purchase to take home by the bottle.

There are about 35 wines by the glass ($8–15), an eccentric international list that’ll take you off the beaten path. We were headed elsewhere afterward, but enjoyed a glass of the Grüet Brut Rosé from Albuquerque, NM. Next time, we’ll need to stay longer.

The food menu offers a variety of antipasti ($3–5), more substantial appetizers or small entrées ($7–15), and desserts ($7–8). A really good Duck, Pistachio, and Dried Cherry Pâté with crisp bread (right), which two could easily share, was just $5.

You can’t miss Brooklyn Winery. Although it’s on a side street, the name of the establishment is painted in big block letters on the side of the building, visible from Driggs Avenue. It’s a cliché to write about the unpretentious wine bar—do they ever claim to be anything else?—but on a brief look, Brooklyn Winery seemed to be the real thing.

Brooklyn Winery (213 N. 8th St. between Driggs Ave & Roebling St, Williamsburg)

Food: The kind of snacks you want with wine
Wine: 35 wines by the bottle/glass, inexpensive and off-the-beaten-path
Service: Good
Ambiance: The same distressed chic you find on every block but well done

Rating: ★
Why? The good selection of inexpensive, unusual wines

Uva Restaurant and Wine Bar

I am leery of accepting dinner invitations from publicists, as it’s sometimes a signal that the restaurant is desperate.

At Uva Restaurant and Wine Bar, it is entirely the opposite. On a Wednesday evening, the charming, rustic space was bustling, full of the young, energetic, value-conscious diners that most people think the Upper East Side doesn’t have.

After it opened in 2005, Uva received just one professional review that I can find, a mostly favorable write-up from The Times in $25 & Under. It has received little media attention since then. Our visit was at the publicist’s invitation, and all of the usual caveats apply. However, between the four of us we were able to sample a good deal of the menu, and my friends didn’t hesitate to share their critical reactions, both positive and negative.

Uva is owned by the Lusardi family, whose sister restaurant down the block, Lusardi’s, serves a very similar Northern Italian menu in considerably more upscale surroundings. To the younger crowd that favors Uva, Lusardi’s is the old-fashioned white-tablecloth place where they’d take the grandparents. My age is about midway between most of Uva’s patrons and grandpa, and perhaps I’d probably enjoy the higher-priced (but much quieter) Lusardi’s a bit more. Uva is more cozy: with low ceilings and exposed brick right out of the downtown playbook, it does get loud in there.

But Uva has its charms, with 40 wines by the glass, most of them $12.50 or less; and 250 wines by the bottle in a wide range from $28 to a few reserve selections in three and four figures. (I assume Uva shares stock with Lusardi’s, which has a 500-bottle list.)

Although Uva is marketed as a wine bar, it has a full menu of antipasti, cheeses, pastas, and entrées. Portions are ample, and nothing costs more than $22. There is also a late-night menu from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., a rarity in this neighborhood.

Chisolino ($9.50; above left) is a dish I’ve not had before, an Emilian-style focaccia with Robiola cheese and preserved black truffles. This was one of the more satisfying and memorable dishes of the evening.

Of the two bruschette we tried (both $6.50), our table voted a slight preference for the Sundried Tomato Puree, Pesto & Pine Nuts (above left) over the Wild Mushrooms, Arugula & Parmigiano Cheese (above right).

The appetizer course was the evening’s best, with a quartet of excellent dishes:

1. Insalata di Barbabietole ($9; above left), a salad of red beets, goat cheese and fava bean salad. Some version of this dish seems to appear in every restaurant, but this was a fine rendition of it.

2. Involtini de Melanzane ($10; above right), eggplant stuffed with ricotta and spinach, baked in a pink sauce with mozzarela. This is a dish I’ve not seen before, and frankly one of the few eggplant dishes I have ever liked.

3. Polenta Tartufata ($9; above left), fresh polenta filled with robiola cheese in a black truffle sauce. This was probably my favorite dish of the evening, and like the stuffed eggplant, I haven’t seen anything quite resembling it before.

4. Burrata Barese ($13; above right), creamy mozzarella with yellow beef tomatoes, fava beans, and a balsamic glaze.

The pasta course (right) was competently executed, but less distinctive:

1. Gnocchi di Ricotta ($18), home made ricotta gnocchi in a creamy black truffle and chive sauce. (Truffles seem to figure in a lot of the dishes here.)

2. Pappardelle al Ragu di Vitelo ($17), house-made pasta ribbons sautéed with ragout of veal and montasio cheese.

3. Cavatelli al Pesto ($18), house-made pasta shells in a creamy pesto sauce with shaved ricotta.

All three were acceptable, but the sense of the table was that we’d had better versions of them elsewhere.

The entrées were all quite heavy, plated and sauced in a style that isn’t fashionable these days. Three of the four seemed to be swimming in the identical dark brown sauce, which was too much of a good thing.

Anello de Capesante e Speck ($22; above left), was the most striking of these dishes, with five scallops arranged in a pentagon held together with a string of smoked prosciutto, resting in sautéed spinach and a white wine sauce. The whole production had a rich, dusky flavor.

Polpaccio d’Agnello ($21; above right), a braised lamb shank, seemed (like most of the entrées) over-sauced.

Vitello Gratinato con Melanzane ($22; above left), veal topped with eggplant and soft pecorino cheese in a rosemary sauce, was a higher quality and more tender veal than the pounded-into-dust versions served at lesser restaurants.

Petto d’Anatra ($22; above right), a pan-seared duck breast in a thyme sauce, was served with sautéed oyster mushrooms, spinach, and fingerling potatoes. Here, the suace was so overwhelming that it was hard to taste much of the duck at all.

All four desserts we tried were excellent:

1. Torta di Mandate ($8; above left), an almond tart served warm with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.

2. Baci Perugina Mousse ($8.50; above right), a chocolate and hazelnut mousse topped with chocolate sauce and toasted hazelnuts.

3. Salame del Papa ($6.50; below left), a chocolate “salame” Venetian style.

4. Fragole con crema al mascarpone ($7.50; below right), fresh strawberries topped with mascarpone cream.

There wasn’t a dud among these, but if I must choose, the first two were more memorable.

To summarize, the starter and dessert courses were clear winners. The pastas were about typical of a good Italian restaurant in New York, while the entrées struck us as a tad old-fashioned and somewhat heavier than many diners are looking for these days. Having said that, they are certainly good for the neighborhood, especially at just $22, a good $4–5 less than many places would charge.

The service was excellent, as you’d expect at a pre-arranged meal, but if Uva is packed on a Wednesday in January after seven years in business, they are probably doing something right.

Uva (1486 Second Avenue between 77th & 78th Streets, Upper East Side)

Tolani Wine Restaurant

It’s not exactly news that most wine bars these days have deep enough menus to serve you a full meal. So now comes Tolani Wine Restaurant, standing astride the borderline between a bar and a full-service dining room.

The website is desperately in need of an editor, but it at least explains the philosophy, if not exactly elegantly:

The space at Tolani was imagined and created into two distinct divides – the upstairs is a semi-casual bar meets lounge, while the downstairs lends itself to the fine-dining experience.

There is too much self-congratulation in the pitch:

“Tolani” means “too good,” and that is exactly what this UWS gem is – an unpretentious spot of which you simply can’t get enough. Drawing from the very best flavors, techniques and ingredients from each corner of the world, Tolani Wine Restaurant’s menu brings a culinary adventure to your backyard, marrying authenticity with ingenuity.

Filled with small to medium sized plates meant to be shared, the menu is best experienced as a journey around the world. Start in Greece with a grilled octopus salad, hop over to the West Indies with goat curry and mango, shoot over to the Maghreb for a duck pastilla and shoot pea salad, enjoy a T-bone cooked Brazilian-style or perhaps a Thai Green Papaya and cucumber salad with crisp rice peanut sauce.

The menu’s inventiveness is representative of the eclectic group of people who dreamt and built Tolani into existence.

The décor screams “date place.” It’s warm, low-lit, and comfortable. Wines are mostly $30–80 a bottle, with twenty selections by the glass. We ordered a $36 Portuguese wine from Dao, one of the better values we’ve had lately.

The chefs are a couple of Picholine graduates. Craig Hopson of Le Cirque is consulting, while David Rotter runs the kitchen full-time. Their work isn’t very impressive. The menu features the comfort foods of about 20 different nations. When a chef purports to master so many different styles, it’s a sure bet the results won’t be great.

Robiola Cheese ($11; above left) with orange honey was the most enjoyable item. Tuna Tartare ($16; above right) with blood orange, fennel, and avocado, was forgettable.

 
 (Please forgive our camera fail.)

Pasta Carbonara ($17; above left) and Greek Octopus Salad ($17; above right) tasted flat and under-seasoned.

Cuban Style Pork Loin ($17; above left) was over-cooked and dry. A Giant Meatball ($11; above right) – described thus on the menu – was just fine, but you could have made it at home.

The menu is in two sections, cold and hot, with sharing plates ranging from $9–26. The server recommended three per person, which was one or two more than we needed. Even after we specifically asked that the dishes not come out too quickly, the kitchen insisted on sending them out in pairs.

Aside from that, the service was good, and we especially appreciated having our wine decanted.

The bill came to $124 before tax and tip, which seemed high for such mediocre food. If I lived in the area, I’d love to stop in again for some wine, but I wouldn’t bother having dinner here.

Tolani Wine Restaurant (410 Amsterdam Avenue between 79th & 80th Streets, Upper West Side)

Food: no stars
Service: *
Ambiance: **
Overall: *

Anfora

Note: Founding chef Gabe Thompson left Anfora (and the group’s other restaurants) in October 2015.

*

Anfora is a new wine bar from Gabe Thompson and Joey Campanale, the smart fellows behind dell’anima and L’Artusi. I’ve visited about six times in the month they’ve been open. That’s a lot for me, but I like the place, and it’s on my way home.

The layout is clever, with a long bar on the right side of the narrow space, and several large, cushy, semi-circular banquettes on the left, which can accommodate larger parties. The space feels warm and comforting, but it can get loud when full.

According to the pre-opening press, Anfora emphasizes sustainable, organic, and biodynamic wines. Strangely, this is nowhere stated on the wine list itself, so most customers will not be aware of it. I’m not sold on “green” wines as an organizing concept for a restaurant or bar. The terminology is so baroque that most servers cannot even explain it.

Perhaps it is because too much time as been spent on the “green” angle, that the wine list seems unfocused, and lacks the more offbeat selections found at the same team’s dell’Anima, just two doors away. After all, one of the compelling reasons to visit a wine bar is to try funky things you’d never dream of ordering by the bottle. For the most part, Anfora doesn’t have them.

Apparently, the original idea was that Anfora would double as the pre-dinner drinks room for dell’Anima, which is perpetually packed. The staff discovered that many customers were coming in after dinner, so they’ve added a strong list of dessert wines: sherries, ports, and such. It’s the best part of the list. Anfora is one of the few wine bars I know with a hard liquor license, and they’ll mix a cocktail for you too, though that isn’t the reason to visit.

Anfora is located in a former real-estate office, and therein lies some of its limitations. There isn’t a proper kitchen, so the hot menu is limited to what can be prepared in a toaster oven and a panini press. The cook works in a cramped corner behind the bar, and he sometimes falls behind. I loved a simple order of Curry Egg Salad on Sesame Toast ($6), an excellent snack dish, but I was amazed at how long it took to prepare. The menu has been simplified over the last several weeks, as the owners get more realistic about what can be done in such a small space.

Understandably, most of the menu does not require cooking. The cheeses I’ve tried have been great; there are also salumi and salads. But this is not a wine bar that doubles as a full-service restaurant, as some do.

The staff are efficient, and have adapted well to the limitations of the space. Since the food here can never be the equal of dell’Anima, with its full kitchen, I hope that the owners will let Anfora shine with its wine list. The dessert wines that have been added lately are an excellent start.

Anfora (34 Eighth Avenue at Jane Street, West Village)

The Tangled Vine

The Tangled Vine is a cute restaurant and wine bar that opened about two months ago, about a block from the Museum of Natural History.

If the Upper West Side is always a bit risky for a new restaurant, this is the place to be, as the residential community is upscale, subway access is good, and the area has been hospitable to the right kind of destination dining.

The Tangled Vine ought to fit in well here. It’s pretty, without being fancy; intelligent, without being snooty; inexpensive without being cheap.

The focus is on Old World wines that are organic, sustainable, and/or biodynamic. I suspect there are aren’t many customers who can explain the difference between those three terms. They are explained on the menu, and even then I keep forgetting. Do patrons choose their wine bars based on that?

Fortunately, the wine list is very approachable, with dozens of bottles below $75, and plenty below $50. If you order by the glass, as I did, the pours are generous.

The Spanish-themed menu is by David Seigel, who earned one star at Mercat in 2007. Frank Bruni found the space insufferably loud, implying that the food alone might have been closer to two stars. Several dishes Bruni liked, and others resembling them, make their way onto the menu at the Tangled Vine.

The menu is dominated by cheese, crostini, and charcuterie—the kind of snacks you’d expect to order at a wine bar. There are also about a dozen larger plates, ranging from $9–23, with most under $20. Cauliflower Crostini ($6; below left) were a perfect start.

The menu offers several “trios”—generous two-ounce pours of thematically related wines with paired food. An excellent Sherry and Madeira trio ($19) came with the Chickpea crostini (above right), an addictive concoction with morcilla (blood sausage) and apricots.

The Pinot Noir trio ($21) came with a Montadito (left), or pork belly slider, here served in a pita pocket with pickled radish and garlic dijonaise. This was my favorite of the three dishes.

I came here on a publicist’s suggestion, and although I paid fully for my meal, it did seem that I got a bit more attention after I’d introduced myself. For the first half-hour, I felt a bit neglected, even though plenty of staff were on hand, and the room was nowhere near full. As it was early, perhaps they were still setting up.

When you order a single glass, most wine bars first offer a taste before a full pour. That wasn’t done here. I don’t think I have ever declined a wine, and I don’t think many customers do, but it’s a nice touch that the Tangled Vine might want to consider.

I’m not really qualified to write about the wines themselves, but I loved the sherries, and the Pinot Noir trio included a reserve Givry that normally sells for about $20 a glass that was absolutely terrific. After you’ve had that, it’s hard to move on to anything else, but after I gave them the challenge, the server recommended a smooth Montalcino that ended the evening on a strong note.

Great wine bars have sprung up all over town, so it’s hard to recommend the Tangled Vine as a destination. Personally, I think its affordable Old World theme and great Spanish tapas-style cuisine make a more compelling story than the organic spin, which you tend to forget after the first sip of a wonderful Pinot Noir.

The Tangled Vine (434 Amsterdam Avenue at 81st Street, Upper West Side)

First Look: Terroir Tribeca

Terroir Tribeca opened last night, the west side sibling to the East Village wine bar that was an instant classic two years ago, and remains so today. We’ve visited the original Terroir twice (reviews here & here), and would’ve gone more often if it wasn’t on the opposite side of town. With a Terroir three blocks from work, that problem is now solved.

Terroir Tribeca is twice the size of its older sister, a bit nicer looking, and has about quadruple the kitchen space. The concept, however, is the same. If you’re one of the few people who didn’t like Terroir (ahem, Robert Sietsema), you won’t like Terroir Tribeca either.

Much of the credit goes to Paul Grieco, the mad scientist of sommeliers, whose wine lists are as fun to read as a Joseph Heller novel. The man knows his wine, loves to talk about it, and sells it at prices that make you want to try. There are bottles, of course, and everything on the by-the-glass list is available in either half or full pours.

Grieco’s partner, Marco Canora, supervises the food program. The menu is an expanded version of the East Village Terroir. The categories are the same (bar snacks, “fried stuff,” charcuterie, cheese, panini, salads, etc.); there’s just more of everything. I suspect that the larger kitchen will give them the chance to broaden the menu eventually. For the opening, they have hewed to their already proven concept.

My eye drifted first to the “Fried Stuff.” Funky Beef Balls ($7; above left) were heavily seasoned flavor bombs of aged Creekstone Farms beef. Sage Leaves with Lamb Sausage ($7; above right) were even better.

I had brief tastes of a couple other items that I liked a bit less, the “Disc O’ Pig” and the “Bacalla Balls” (there is clearly an obsession with circular and spherical objects here). All are designed for sharing, and that is a wise thing. If there’s any criticism of this food, it’s the lack of variety. After two heavy deep-fried dishes, you might be in danger of falling into a salt coma.

I was ready for a change of pace, which Orangey Beets ($4; above left) supplied. I then went back to the fried stuff, with the Beet Gorgonzola Risotto Balls ($7; above right). They don’t look like much on the outside, but they’re fantastic.

Grieco and Canora have seeded Terroir Tribeca with staff from the East Village, so it’s no surprise that service was much smoother than the typical opening night, even though the bar was packed to the rafters by 7:00 p.m. Actually, I can report only one minor glitch—getting charged for a full glass of wine when I was quite sure I had only half. I ordered about five or six half-glasses, and all the others were billed correctly.

Terroir Tribeca is launched, and I suspect it’ll be one heck of an enjoyable ride.

Terroir Tribeca (24 Harrison Street, east of Greenwich Street, Tribeca)

Absinthe Wine Bar

Absinthe Wine Bar opened in late January in the East Village, on a stretch of First Avenue that has become a dining Mecca over the last few years. It isn’t as splashy as some of its neighborhood peers, but we loved the quiet, civilized atmosphere, and the food is very good indeed, especially given the low price point.

Chef Nelson German’s cuisine is French–Mediterranean, with couscous and chickpeas figuring in several dishes, along with many French bistro standards. Snack plates are $3 apiece, appetizers $7–9 and entrées $11–16. Wines by the glass are $7–15, and most wines by the bottle are between $25–55.

The décor is described as “a synthesis of vintage Paris and contemporary New York, with a stop in Tunisia on the way.” A mural of Toulouse-Lautrec paintings and Tunisian fabrics dominate the small dining room. The space seats 50 between the tables and the bar, and there will be an outdoor garden when the whether gets warmer.

“Absinthe Wine Bar” was probably not the best choice for a name. Although Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec invented an absinthe-based cocktail called the Earthquake (or Tremblement de Terre), neither it, nor indeed any Absinthe at all is served here. It is, at least, a wine bar, though with a more ambitious menu than you’ll find at many places of that description.

Management should try to find a way to make their narrow storefront (a former deli) more conspicuous. If you were not looking for Absinthe Wine Bar, you could easily walk right by without realizing it is is there.

We started with a couple of snacks (both $3). Tomato Basil Croutons (above left) had a bright, lively flavor; I would have called them crostini. Crispy chick peas (above right) could become addictive.

We loved both appetizers. Absinthe Shrimp “Flambée” ($9; above left) was a simple pleasure, with fennel, garlic, white wine, and sweet butter. Here too, perhaps another name would be better. With “flambée” in the title, we expected something flashy, perhaps at tableside, but the flame stayed in the kitchen. Spinach Meatballs ($7; above right) were much heartier, but just as effective.

Both entrées were generous portions at $16. Chargrilled Steak (above left) would have been ample on its own, but it also came with short rib confit. The fries were perfect, but the steak was a bit tough. We didn’t expect dry aged prime, but it occurred to us that perhaps the kitchen would be better off serving hanger or skirt steak at this price.

We found no fault at all with a Trio of Lamb (above right), which came with two juicy chops, shoulder confit, and two spicy merguez sausages. Most restaurants would charge $10 more for this dish, and even then it would be a bargain.

In the interest of full disclosure, we dined here at a publicist’s invitation and did not pay for our meal. I can safely say that we are always happy to enjoy solid, inexpensive comfort food in a quiet, charming atmosphere. And that is exactly what Absinthe Wine Bar has to offer.

Absinthe Wine Bar (111 First Avenue between 6th/7th Streets, East Village)