Spill the Wine

Rating:

When the food here is good, it’s great. You can’t be displeased by the tender, subtly spicy calamari and the cool, nicely plump shrimp cocktail. Salads are excellent, especially a swell Cobb, a tasty spin on the Waldorf and a toss of grilled pears, red onions and rare, tender beef tenderloin. There are nicely grilled lamb chops and a tender pork chop. Some choices feel just a little off-kilter. Hard, flavorless, out-of-season tomatoes stopped a caprese dead in its tracks. Aggressive orange accents didn’t do any favors to a dry, overcooked pan-roasted chicken; ditto a clunky cream sauce on plasticized scallops. $8 is the average by-the-glass charge, and just a quarter of its 90-plus bottles, with something for everyone, are priced at $30 or less. But it’s all about choice and accessibility, with a staggering 41 by-the-glass options and a well-chosen array of thematic three-pour flights, organized around specific grapes, regions or vineyards. The Minneapolis design firm CityDesk Studio deserves a medal for carefully and lovingly restoring a faded 1883 plumbing-supply warehouse to its former glory.