NYC Wine Dinner Advice

Hi All,

Wasn’t sure which topic to put this under since it fits in a few places , but I’m trying to plan a Friday dinner this summer for 8 people or so where we would bring 10+ bottles of wine to be served blind. Anyone know of restaurants in Manhattan that would be open to this without murdering us on corkage?

During the summer, when all the rich and beautiful people have fled to their vacation homes, many restaurants remain open
but are quiet, and hence would be willing to negotiate for your business. Have fun.

Signed,
Stuck in the Summer in Noo Yawk.

Thanks, yeah the BYO forum is very helpful. I was planning to call a bunch of restaurants, but wanted to see if people had specific experience and could share that to narrow down my search a bit.

Not sure what kind of cuisine you are looking for, but many of our Berserkers have dinners at the Peking Duck House.

Kind of depends on what you’re looking for from the restaurant. If you’re looking for high-quality, inventive food and superior wine service (the restaurant provides everyone several riedel or similar stems of various shapes to match the wines, handles all the decanting and pouring, etc.), then no, you won’t find anywhere that will do this on a Friday night without murdering you on corkage.

If you don’t care as much about high-end, fancy food, you’re fine with more generic and possibly fewer stems, and you’re willing to handle most of the wine service yourself, you’ll have more options. You may have better luck if you’re willing to agree to a prix-fixe menu or a minimum food spend. A friend of mine organized a similar set up along these lines at Five Points which worked pretty well, you could try Cookshop and Hundred Acres also (same ownership). I think some people on this board have had success at North Square.

You can eat in the bar area (it’s nice) at North Square in Greenwich Village. http://www.northsquareny.com/I believe corkage is $15. Call and ask.
Oh, and they participate in Open Table. http://www.opentable.com I’ve done wine dinners at NS and they’ll come in under $80.

What, no Block Island this year?

August.

I don’t know what AOC in the Village would do for you but its worth a call. French bistro and I find the food quite nice there. Had a better meal there than at Ducasse’ Benoit in midtown which is supposed to be the “standard bearer” for french bistro food. I also second the Peking Duck House idea.

Thanks everyone. This was very helpful. To Victor’s point above, I imagine someone is going to give us a good deal and want the business in August. I’ll re-post when I find a place so everyone has the info. I’m looking to do the dinner at a somewhat nicer restaurant so probably not Peking Duck House or AOC. I’ll try Cookshop and then a bunch of other corkage friendly places like Apiary.

If you want Italian, you may want to try Fabio Piccolo Fiore in midtown east. Ask to speak to Tiziano (maitre d’) or Fabio himself for arrangement. I’ve done a few offlines there and they’ve been friendly accomodating.

http://www.fabiopiccolofiore.com/index.html

Have you considered doing the activity at a residence and bringing in a chef to cook? We do that frequently for wine dinners given that you can pre discuss menus and control the wine experience. My $.02

If you want something really nice, you could talk to the folks at The NoMad–either a private room or ask about a table. They do allow corkage (I think its $35/bottle if memory is correct).

Yes, with four-bottle limit per table. I am going there on Saturday.

Get the roast chicken. You can thank me later.

And I think you can bring more than four bottles, but if you do, they charge a $250 “sommelier fee”. So holding a big wine dinner there is probably not a good value proposition.

Ahhh, so THAT explains the bill! (kidding! sort of)

But…he said he wanted a fairly nice place. Most places above the level of what have been talked about above (e.g. AOC, PDH) aren’t going to be cheap; either on food or wine/corkage. This is NYC!

Not a nyc resident, but had a fun wine dinner at La Sirene last year. It’s a casual bistro, but does some authentic, tasty, and reasonably priced French food. At that time they didn’t charge corkage and were friendly about the whole dinner. I can’t recall whether they provided the good stems or one of the group brought them.
Enjoyed PDH ( with Victor) too.
There’s a page called byonyc with a good list

If you had good stems your group brought them

Just thought I’d update the group on the wine dinner. Had practically a verbal commitment to do the dinner with no corkage at Riverpark, but it turns out we picked a day during restaurant week, so received an email from the GM saying no go – I’m a little surprised because they are ALWAYS empty; the food is great, but the place is in a very inconvenient location. Dovetail said they would do it for like $260 per person – they were trying to charge a bunch of nonsense fees including a polishing fee – so we said no go. Have some traction with a few other places, so we’ll see.

I’ve probably done six or so dinners at Riverpark and never found it to be empty.