Critics’ choice: Three new hot spots for eating while drinking

St. Vincent San Francisco

Suggesting wine pairings for every dish on a menu of subtle kitchen triumphs is challenge enough for most sommeliers, said Michael Bauer in the San Francisco Chronicle. At this casual, almost beer-hall-style restaurant named after the patron saint of vintners, owner-sommelier David Lynch is building his very livelihood upon his ability to successfully pair wines or beers with “some of the most muscular cuisine around.” Chef Bill Niles doesn’t do subtle: Even his calamari salad is “as hearty as beef stew”—blended with black olives, citrus chunks, and mustard sprouts. His small-plates menu features rabbit meatballs with black figs. But trust the beverage pairings to Lynch or his staff and you’ll be constantly surprised how well a particular wine can match Niles’s singularly robust style. Lynch came to San Francisco from New York’s Babbo a few years ago, and instantly became “one of the Bay Area’s top wine guys.” He and his crew are amenable to offering pairings by the bottle, half-bottle, and even half-glass. So go where they lead; “it’s always an adventure.” 1270 Valencia St., (415) 285-1200

Warehouse Charleston, S.C.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“Yes, Warehouse is just a bar,” but don’t dare dismiss chef Eva Keilty’s menu as mere bar food, said Eric Doksa in the Charleston City Paper. A large open space with plenty of exposed brick, this popular new Charleston hangout is often “loud with boisterous laughter,” and chants even erupt occasionally from the foosball table. But those are craft cocktails that the bartenders are serving, including a shandy that combines a local White Thai beer with St. Germain, Aperol, and fresh lemon juice (“it’s near impossible to drink just one”). Better yet, Keilty has found a knack for creating food that “goes hand in hand with booze” yet is “sophisticated enough to shine on its own.” Start with the house-made charcuterie or a “sinful” salad of fried kale, yellow beans, figs, and pork confit. Turn to the sandwiches and you’ll find beer-braised beef brisket with Jarlsberg and onion or a grilled cheese transformed by fried green tomato and house-made chorizo. If this is bar food, who needs restaurants? 45½ Spring St., (843) 202-0712

Estela New York City

At first blush, this 3-month-old SoHo joint seems like “all the other undersize, overcrowded bar-restaurants that have been multiplying around town like rabbits in this post-gourmet age,” said Adam Platt in New York magazine. Spare but handsome, it occupies “a space the size of a narrow truck garage,” and its best seats are at the bar. But no other rival serves “small, perfectly crisped croquettes stuffed, in the classic Spanish style, with blood sausage.” Nor does any offer seared razor clams so good they “wouldn’t be out of place at one of the better tapas establishments on the Costa Brava.” All the food is the work of chef Ignacio Mattos, late of Brooklyn’s Isa, who may have found a permanent home. One can hope, if only for many chances to return to his ricotta dumplings or his culotte steak with salty anchovies and cabbage gratin. The drinking at Estela is equally good. Clear time for the “knee-weakening” Tuxedo No. 2, a classic cocktail that’s part martini, part absinthe. 47 E. Houston St., (212) 219-7693