Cityscene
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Subo
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Subo opened a few months ago as Minneapolis’s first haute Filipino restaurant and quickly gained fame for its island comfort food (the meltingly tender pork ribs make a substantial dinner for $8) and its lighthearted tropical drinks. Try the Bounty Bar cocktail, in which a whole young coconut—full of its own juice and spoon-soft coconut flesh—is simply opened with a knife, spiked with vanilla vodka and served with a straw. There is also an array of sakes, including a rare sparkling example, Hou Hou Shu, which goes with just about anything.
—Dara Moskowitz
Subo, 89 10th Street S., Minneapolis, MN; 612-886-2377,
suboexperience.com (reviewed W&S, 6/10)
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The Tangled Vine
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Imagine this: Open a wine bar on the Upper West Side, historically a land of middle-brow restaurants serving large portions of family-friendly fare. Create a friendly, intimate atmosphere by serving small plates with big flavors in a tiny space. Make sure chef is quality stock, like David Seigal, who’s cooked at Mercat, Café Gray, Bouley and Jean-Georges. Build a wine list dedicated to the most obscure corners of the wine world, to wines cherished by wine geeks and sommeliers but otherwise largely ignored, and offer many by the glass. (Also, extensively annotate the wine list so anyone can get an idea of what they are about to order without having to ask a question.) What happens? You have a bar full of people drinking R. López de Heredia’s nutty, saline Gravonia Rioja Blanco, or a 1992 Saarburger Rausch Spätlese Riesling from Zilliken. A bite of the incredibly juicy pork belly, transported in a crisp thin bread well-slathered with garlic aioli, might inspire a call for a glass of Cheverny Rouge from Domaine du Moulin, one of the many organic wineries on the list; the fideos negros with cuttlefish seems designed for the Señorio de P. Peciña Reserva, a fragrant, old-school Rioja. The small space overflows early, but it’s worth the wait to get in: Just think of the wines to be tasted.
—Tara Q. Thomas
The Tangled Vine, 434 Amsterdam Ave., NYC; 646-863-3896,
tangledvinebar.com (reviewed W&S, 6/10)
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Grüner
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Sure, there’s grüner veltliner on the wine list, but Grüner gets its name from the green swath of Europe that encompasses the Alps. General manager Dana Pickell gathers wine beyond grüner’s homeland in Austria to include high-elevation wines such as Tissot’s Singulier Trousseau from France’s Arbois, Robert Gillard’s Fendant from Switzerland and nebbiolos from Italy’s Valtellina. Chef Christopher Israel cooks classic alpine dishes with locally sourced ingredients, like a choucroute garnie with housemade sausages and cider-braised pork belly, or braised chicken with spä tzle and morels. Stop in between 4:30 and 6 p.m. weekdays for deals like $5 ricotta-nettle dumplings or $4 housemade bratwurst and sauerkraut, washed down with a $5 by-the-glass special—always something interesting, such as Schlossgut Diel’s Grauburgunder.
—Katherine Cole
Grüner, 537 SW 12th Ave., Portland; 503-241-7163,
grunerpdx.com (reviewed W&S, 6/10)
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Diamond Lil
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Diamond Lil is inverting the farm-to-table concept. The 1957 GMC Greyhound bus, retrofitted with a full kitchen and seating for 16, will be transporting the table to the farm this summer. "Our menus change with the scenery," says Diamond Lil’s sommelier and co-owner, Kai Schoenhals. On a typical evening, the six-wheeled restaurant and its guests will forage across Sonoma County for dinner’s ingredients—perhaps fresh oysters from Hog Island in Tamales Bay, meat from Gleason Ranch in Bodega, and fresh herbs, lavender, potatoes and peaches from Ross Halleck Vineyards’ farm. "We leave it up to you—where you want to go," says chef and co-owner Daniel Isberg. Isberg will use the day’s bounty for the evening meal—one previous outing resulted in grilled pork tenderloin with a lavender-pinot noir sauce, grilled peaches and a new potato ragout. That evening, diners looked out onto the very vines that produced the wine they drank, the Halleck Three Sons Cuvée Pinot Noir. "We are providing what I believe [to be a] true terroir pairing," says Schoenhals.
—D. M.
Diamond Lil, 415-755-7552,
impakd.com (reviewed W&S, 6/10)
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Block 7 Wine Company
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One of the newest entries in Texas’s budding category of hybrid wine store/bar/restaurants, Block 7 Wine Company stands out for its far-ranging wine selection— priced barely above what you’d pay at a big box shop. Wine buyer Charles Kirkwood’s tastes skew toward lesser-known names and family-run wineries, making it the place to pick up gems such as Champagnes from André Clouet, Godmé Père et Fils and Camille Savès and still wines like Luneau-Papin’s Clos des Allées Muscadet, Palacio de Fefiñanes Albariño and Weinert’s Gran Vino from Mendoza. Pop in for a glass and grab a quick burger (go for house-style, topped with gruyère, smoked bacon, arugula and aioli), or settle in for a grander meal, like a 21-day dry-aged prime ribeye at an eminently reasonable $29.
—Wes Marshall
Block 7 Wine Company, 720 Shepherd Dr., Houston; 713-572-2565,
block7wineco.com (reviewed W&S, 4/10)
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A Mano
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At A Mano, Adolfo Garcia’s latest culinary contribution to New Orleans' Warehouse Arts district, the dining space offers a view to a salumi aging room. The guanciale that’s used to season bucatini all'Amatriciana hangs there, as well as various other cured meats prepared in-house to Italian tradition. Garcia and his co-chef, Joshua Smith, go hard local and artisanal when possible, sourcing meat from area farmers and hand-rolling pastas. A Mano’s cocktail and wine lists, however, draw straight from Italy itself. The former has a Hemingway-esque sensibility, and the ever-changing array of charcuterie provides ample excuse to sample an Aperol Spritz or a classic Negroni. The latter is like a list of Southern Italy’s greatest hits, with Campanian fianos and Sicilian finds like the Cos Nero di Lupo and Occhipinti’s SP68.
—Sara Roahen
A Mano, 870 Tchoupitoulas St., New Orleans; 504-208-9280,
amanonola.com (reviewed W&S, 6/10)
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