Sneakeater

No, they totally weren't. NOTE TO JESSICA COEN: I don't know if you read this board, but if you do: I was only kidding.

This is a wine called "Helio-something Project" that's on the Ssam Bar glass list. It's REALLY good.

It's the same interview.

A Cascade would've done it.

Actually, they got bumped to Sunday.

Another difference is that you can get IN to Degustation. (Seriously, though, aside from the big difference oakapple noted, isn't the difference that Wesley Genovart cooks at Degustation and Peter Serpico cooks here? I mean, the whole concept doesn't have to be unique. Just the food.)

Nikki, just remember that the bar has ONLY four seats. I was lucky enough to grab one once, but I think that as something you can plan on, they're roughly analogous to getting into Yale: could happen, but be sure to have a safe school.

Frankly, though, it depends on what you want. If you're with friends you want to talk to, or even more to the point a date with whom you'd want to have a private tete-a-tete, you'll have a better experience at a booth (except they mostly don't give booths to couples) even though the cocktails will suffer. When you're at the bar, the bartender is always at least potentially part of your conversation. Sometimes you just don't want that.

Really it depends what the liquid is.

I don't think we should let our cocktail mania distract us from how notable it is that Akhtar Nawab has left the (disappointingly mediocre) EU for this new venture. I'd be even more interested to hear the food news than the cocktail news.

Anyway, I think Grayz is an underrated gem that is perfect for solo dining.

Just to note that when you eat alone at the bar, not only don't you HAVE TO make reservations, but you CAN'T make reservations. (This doesn't apply to Atelier Robuchon or sushi bars.)

FWIW, having eaten there last night and having read the review, I don't think any curve was applied. (Easy to say now, but I would have bet on three stars coming in, from what I'd read in the press and knew of the chef. That's why I made it a point to eat there last night -- I figured that after the three-star review came out, I'd no longer be able to get in for a while.)

Are wine bars NOT part of the "small plates" trend?

I haven't been yet. I think Bar Boulud is the test case.

I think size is relevant but not determinative. It probably becomes more important as a factor to the extent that bar seating doesn't predominate. What I mean is, the Vintage Wine Bar clearly seems to a be wine bar to me, even though there's no actual bar (as best as I recall), because it's small and informal, with fairly unelaborate food. Adour, OTOH, is a big formal restaurant with a tiny bar-and-lounge area attached. The Bar @ Etats-Unis is a wine bar, even though there's also lounge seating, because the bar predominates in the room, and there isn't that MUCH lounge seating. I would think you could have a HUGE bar, seating many people, and it would still be wine bar if the bar dominated the room.

I think you could call Adour a wine bar if ALL it had was the bar and a few booths. (I agree that a "lounge" can be a bar: I don't think there's an actual bar at the Vintage Wine Bar, but that's certainly a wine bar.) What I DON'T think can be called a "wine bar" is a large restaurant with a tiny bar-and-lounge area attached. Maybe if the Adour wine bar had a separate entrance from the restaurant.

The only time I've been able to go to the Cafe Carlyle without ordering dinner was when I got the last possible reservations for a performance, which involved their setting up an extra table for us in the room that wasn't big enough to comfortably dine. (They actually apologized to me when I made the reservation that I wouldn't be able to order dinner. I tried to conceal my glee.)

Vintage (the original Soho location) does in fact have a wine bar next door. It's good.

Adour can't be considered a wine bar, IMO, because the actual bar has only four seats, whereas the formal dining room is capacious.

Actually, between 6 and 7 seems to be pretty safe, if you can swing it.

I'd recommend that you go during a horrific blizzard. Otherwise, all bets are off, unfortunately.

I feel sorry for anyone who didn't have a Tom & Jerry last night.

Not to argue, Al, but to add a further wrinkle to our discussion, I think there's a middle market -- much larger than "serious foodies" -- that consists of people who merely enjoy good food. I think that they -- rather than us -- are the target audience of most "serious" good restaurants (there simply aren't enough of us). I also would have thought those were the people docsconz was talking about when he said that, even if the notion of some pan-African brasserie cuisine was questionable, a restaurant like Merkato 55 could raise awareness of African cuisine. You don't need to raise our awareness of African cuisine: I know a group of people travelling out to Flatbush tonight to try a Ghanian place. And you can't raise the braying drunk halter-top girls' awareness, cuz they don't care. My point is that this middle market I'm talking about are probably very location-sensitive, much more than we are. I don't think they'd go absolutely anywhere for good food, the way we would. And I think they'd find the circus-like atmosphere of the Meatpacking District in full roar enough of a turn-off to prevent them from going to a restaurant there, and certainly from returning for repeat visits once they've been. There are too many good places to go to in other neighborhoods that don't have that problem.

Like Spice Market!