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“Corkbuzz Wine Studio”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Gramercy	Moderate	Good

ant to bring them home with you. (Shame they wouldn’t fit into my MZ Wallace.) It’s the kind of setup that encourages chatting and sharing of thoughts on everything from the crazy classes at Soul Cycle to what Don Draper was really thinking in the final shot of this season’s Mad Men. It’s also a place where all that wine gets to play with food.

Chef Hayan Yi trained at Daniel, and she has a rather whimsical approach to cooking. Take her “fish and chips” for example, which I imagine are a playful riff on Daniel’s signature potato-crusted sea bass. She takes plump rectangles of white fish, wraps them up in thinly sliced potatoes like tiny gift packages, and flash fries them till golden and crisp. They’re paired with potato salad and aioli and make an excellent amuse bouche while perusing the menu that includes snacks, salads, starters, shares, charcuterie, and cheese.

After finishing up a few glasses of excellent rose—the Ameztoi Rubentis ’11 – Getariako Txakolina from Spain ($15)— we went with a bottle of Dönnhoff Estate Riesling Trocken ’10 from Nahe, Germany ($50), the perfect choice for a hot summer night, and a good wife to a plate of shimmering Hamachi crudo dotted with cucumber and micro-radish ($16). To follow up on the crudo, we had the burrata, paired with snappy and plump spring peas and sheets of smoky crisped prosciutto dressed with a fresh pea puree ($13). It was the essence of spring. I loved the balance of sweetness from the peas and the ripe earthiness of the prosciutto played up against the creamy cool burrata.  A salad of shaved raw zucchini with fresh ricotta was fine, though much less interesting ($8). Those in the mood for a dish with a bit more personality should try the grilled calamari with chorizo and green olives ($15) or the lamb falafel with mango chutney and house-made pita ($12).

While almost everything we tried at Corkbuzz was quite good, a tagliatelle ($19) was clunky and overcooked, tossed with a rather lifeless combination of spinach, ramps, and crab meat. But the pork belly made believers of all of us. Crisped up so its skin cracked like a cage of glass under the weight of a fork, its meat a tangle of sweet and smoky, it was paired with a sweet lettuce salad dressed in buttermilk, and a preserved tomato jam. My friend Susie, who has never met a pork belly she has actually liked, was swooning. I was too.

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Posted: June 15, 2012

Other restaurants in Gramercy :
+ Casa Mono/Bar Jamon   + Pure Food & Wine   + Parea   + Gramercy Tavern (Lunch)   + 15 East   + Tocqueville   + Irving Mill   + Bar Milano   + Irving Mill   + Maialino   + Asellina   + Corkbuzz Wine Studio   + Breads, by guest reviewer Tracy Weiss   

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