Restaurant Name: NY Vintners
Location: The TRIangle BElow CAnal
The Scoup: Amazing Wine Store WITH even more amazing Wine/Food Pairing Classes, and you know, you’re typical NYC wine cellar with an additional dining room. Casual.
Classes Attended: Spanish Tapas & Wine | Sexy Wine & Cheese Pairings.
Future Classes Plan To Attend: Every. Single. One. More. Than. Once.
The Recap:
If you like, wine - go to NY Vintners. If you like food - go to NY Vintners. If you like, well, enjoying life - go to NY Vintners. You catching on?
I’ve been to two of the classes and they have both been absolutely amazing. Head Chef, Chef Ryan, does an fabulous job at teaching about the wines, pairing them with food, and also creating an atmosphere where all jokes are on the table. And that is what we all need. Wine, food, friends & jokes.
When you walk into any and all classes, you receive a glass of the bubbly. So there’s that to start off a perfect evening. For the Spanish Wine & Tapas Class, we had two red and two wine Spanish wines. All the wines ranged in flavor and Chef Ryan did a great job at helping us understand why or why not we enjoyed each glass. He also had us recognize which wines were more enjoyable when paired with food than without. It was REALLY interesting. Also, the food was absolutely divine. This class was supposed to be tapas; however, by tapas they mean they feed you more than a typical meal. And it’s amazing. We started off with a chicken dish that was roasted in a broth of vegetables—it was to die for. I didn’t take a picture because the deliciousness wouldn’t picture well – meaning, the photo wouldn’t have served the food’s justice. We then were given the most delicious pork chop I’ve ever had in my life. It was cooked to absolute perfection (fell off the bone) and combined with the sauce and beans - ridiculous. Just, ridiculous. They really, really do an amazing job with the wines, but I was so impressed by the quality of the food and honestly everything about the class. I would go back to the exact same class… several times.
The Sexy Wine & Cheese Class (which pictured very well) was to die for as well. The combination of blindly tasting these five amazing wines and then pairing them with the single best cheeses we’ve ever had was hard to beat. It was really interesting/eye-opening to do a blind tasting. If you like wine, I SERIOUSLY suggest you do it - it enables you drink a good amount of wine (always a plus) and to find out what you really like about wine/which wines are for you. So, here’s what we were poured to start:
Yes, amazing things were happening. Just a straight up, beautiful setup. Chef Ryan walked us through each wine slowly before having the cheese to really have us get a sense of what each wine was made from & its characteristics. Aaaand then we got the cheese:
Absolutely divine.
The cheeses paired so so well with the wine - I mean, naturally… It was such an awesome class and by the end, everyone basically wanted to buy every single wine tasted & see if Chef Ryan will let us take some extra cheese home–it’s THAT good.
I have to say, NY Vintner is a great place for a date - I mean, I didn’t go on a date…but think about it. Chef Ryan talks for a good portion, eliminating those unbearable awkward silences that turn into conversations about the weather. As well, you are forced to basically talk about the food/wine the entire time, which at a typical place would be the most annoying conversation on the planet. And by the end, you’ve had enough wine where you’re confident to take it from there. So… yeah, you are very welcome for the perfect date night suggestion.
DO NOT MISS OUT ON NY VINTNERS.