The umi martini ($17, also with vodka and theoretically plum-amplifying umeshu), does not quite assert its titular fruit, while other cocktails are indistinguishable or pronounce little more than sweetness.Īn otherwise wonderful hamachi collar’s ($18) smoked cherry tare’s a bit too sweet, too, the treacly glaze cloaking the marvelously tender yellowtail beneath, each strategic flick of the fork rewarding the modicum of effort with a satisfyingly procured morsel until the bone is approaching bare, ribbons of sauce pushed aside. A glimpse of the kitchen is in-between.Ĭocktails are a brief affair with some even briefer flavors. Tables are the expected no-gossip distance apart, and there’s a peaceful, L-shaped bar daintily draped in a bit of greenery up front. The space is bright and beachy-breezy, if somewhat cramped by what seems like an ad hoc service island at the center of the bustling back dining room. It is open Tuesday-Sunday from 5pm-11pm.Īfter international culinary employ, a tenure at highly-regarded Bessou (which previously had a presence at Time Out Market New York unrelated to this critic or review) and a stop at Saigon Social, chef Emily Yuen opened her permanent location of Lingo on Greenpoint Avenue this past April after a few of pop-up previews. The Drinks: NYC’s drink of summer in a leek-forward gin and tonic, plus more cocktails, wine and beer.īar Vinazo is located at 158 7th Avenue. The Food: Mostly small plates like boquerones, sheep’s milk cheese and a great lomo ibérico. The Vibe: Intimate, casually polished and friendly. It’s a polished operation, professional but still friendly, and a lovely place to wait for that ultimately quite nice albariño to reach its ideal temperature. Its short pasta’s answer to near-relation paella’s rice is winningly prepared to suitable doneness, even as its shrimp and cuttlefish hover around the common fate of being heated all together with the mix, rather than a little later, as the seafoods’ optimal quicker cooking times require.Īround three items per person are recommended, but personnel provide prudent guidance surprisingly absent the upsells I’ve increasingly seen elsewhere around town. And the croquetas de jamón y queso ($15/4) are comforting cylinders filled with a wonderfully melty Manchego. A pile of dime-sized, deeply saline and near-silken octopus medallions ($26) are mellowed by a stack of firmly yielding potato slices beneath in a wonderful pairing of bold and mild flavors. The pros in the minuscule, exposed corner kitchen also make some solid plates from start to finish. Boquerones, sheep’s milk cheese and a tender but textured, fairly portioned to share at around eight slices, delicious lomo ibérico ($14-$18, respectively) are among those twenty snackier, assembled options. Like the season itself, the gardener is elusive, ethereal and, according to the patient, hospitable staff, a little divisive an entry level to acquired tastes.Ī fair number of Vinazo’s menu items are curated, rather than scratch-made. Gardeners aren’t being ordered everywhere, for, as I know, they’re unique to this restaurant, but that is precisely why they better occupy the nebulous drink of summer space than something supposedly ubiquitous. It’s lightly vegetal, pungent and savory but refreshing, and like little else I’ve had in a glass lately. Its gardener variety ($16), aptly made with Isolation Proof’s small-batch, limited-edition, ramp gin, is a knockout. In that brief cooling period, for me and the bottle on deck, I choose from the trio of Vinazo’s gin and tonics. Self-billed as a Spanish wine bar, I aimed to start with one those on a recent visit, but the humidity outside set me toward cocktails while the white I had my heart set on-an apparently popular albariño ($18/glass)-needed to chill. It’s pale and narrow, but efficiently arranged with a few standard tables up front, tiny two tops fixed to the south wall, a long row of pleasanter bar seats an arm’s reach away and a roomy backyard appointed in ivy beyond. But still, it’s A Thing, even if 2023’s race to identify it has prudently smoothed.īar Vinazo opened on Park Slope’s 7th Avenue in May. Other than my enduring belief that frozens, in general, are it, my more practical opinion is that it’s all marketing, as brilliantly demonstrated in this 2018 Times piece about that year’s supposed Aperol spritz blitz. I did not set out to find the drink of summer.
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