Passionfish: Close-To-Retail Wine Price philosophy

WINE TALK
1

Was sitting in the waiting area, perusing the wine list, thinking, wow, what am I going to order?
So many great choices…great spread, great prices…

Next to me a conversation (daughter/mother I think) -

“Mom, this restaurant is really great…people like coming here for the wines, they sell for close to retail, which most restaurants don’t do…”
“Well, I’m not so sure…(glancing around the glass door wine rack)…it looks all uninteresting to me…”

…and then I quickly turned around and back handed the lady in the face and yelled “are you nuts!!!”

Ok, the last part didn’t really happen, but their conversation had the wine nerd in me fantasizing about the heroic gesture…

Anyway, thanks to all of those who suggested this restaurant.
Amazing prices with an excellent representation of wines around the world.
Food was outstanding - heirloom tomato salad, sea scallops, duck confit, all delicious and well made.

The waiter gave a little one minute ‘speech’ on the wine philosophy of the owner claiming there are few restaurants doing this kind of pricing (though I know of no others).

Any chance of other restaurants following suit?
I think it would be a great trend.

2

We’re hoping to stop by on our drive from Paso Robles to Sonoma next week, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

3

Dan, I wish there was some place like that in our neck of the woods! It would be great to go there with 6-8 people so that one could order many selections rather than just a bottle or two.

4

Best meal I had on a 9 day trip to Paso, Monterrey, Sonoma, and Anderson last Summer…a bottle of '01 Kathryn Kennedy Blanc de Blanc and a '10 Rhys San Mateo were my selections that night.

5

Going there in a little over a month. Getting quite excited for it.

6

Glad you made it! Pretty much the only place I go on the Monterrey Peninsula.

7

What’d you drink?

8

Nothing. The wine waiter was too busy tossing on about their philosophy to take Dan’s order.

9

Jeremy, too funny…I did actually have to move him along…politely saying something like yeah yeah I know… [training.gif]

Buzz, I was eyeing Rhys or Ceritas, possibly one of the red Burgs…
and then the wife points at the 2007 Sassicaia…

Hey, I am not one to argue with the wife, so I obeyed. [worship.gif]

10

Larry,
Roadtrip!
Or we can convince them to open one up here and tell them they will be the first!
Honestly, I think the place was packed partly because of the wine list.
Seems like almost every table had a bottle.

…which leads me back to the question - why don’t more restaurants do this?

11

Passionfish is a local gem. Jeninni bar + kitchen, newly opened down the street from them, has a similar philosophy but nowhere near as extensive a list. Passionfish also does a great job pushing sustainable seafood.

12

I also like that when they charge $20 corkage, half of it goes to a bluefin tuna conservation/research fund.

13

Landmarc in NYC does something similar with their wine list. Food is solid, not outstanding.

Sounds like an excellent experience.

14

Not so much the case any more. Markups are still good by NYC standards (around 2x retail), but not the close-to-retail pricing you see at Passionfish.

15

I am so surprised more restaurants aren’t doing this. Most of these lists read like a museum curator’s inventory. A restaurant can make their money on wines by the glass, and do pretty good volume using this retail + markup. I would love to see more restaurants in the Midwest take up this philosophy - I would be drinking much less beer at restaurants…

16

A place here I have enjoyed a lot moved away from this model about a year ago. They had modified the strategy a bit to use a sliding markup; less expensive bottles were a bit over retail, but over $60-70 they were at about retail or sometimes less, encouraging you to choose a nice 1er cru burg or Barolo, win-win for everyone.

I haven’t been back since the change.

17

Vic’s at St. Anthony main does. Their food is acceptable at best. But it’s nice to go there and sit on the patio by the river in the summer. I don’t know of any other restaurant in the twin cities with reasonable wine prices.

18

Houston has a slew of restaurants with great pricing. Brasserie 19 has wines under retail frequently, Ibiza and Coppa have many wines at or just above retail and Underbelly has wines at maybe 50% over retail but they stock a lot of the New California wines that can be hard to find at retail and offer 20% off for wines to-go (and offer $15 corkage which is hard to find in a restaurant of this calibre in Texas).

19

I was disappointed in the food at Passionfish two summers ago. Maybe I will give it another try in 2015 after seeing all the praise. Two of my Monterey Peninsula recommendations are Fandango in Pacific Grove (very old school but they do a nice job with veal and also sand dabs) and The Sand Bar for its sand dabs ( a casual restaurant built right over the water of Monterey Bay). I mostly have had good experiences at John Pisto’s Whaling Station Steakhouse on Cannery Row but think I liked it better before the renovation and change to more of a steakhouse concept. Any trip to the Monterey Peninsula for me includes calamari, artichoke, and sand dabs.