Eater: Manhattan’s most exciting new wine bar ‘Demo‘ is in Greenwich Village
Focaccia and caponata at Demo. All photographs in this article by Robert Sietsema.
I was a devotee of Wildair during the pandemic, and sat at its shady outdoor tables many times during the long hot summer of 2021, happily devouring shrimp burgers, beet and nectarine salads, and marinated mushrooms with bacon ancho jam. So when I heard that one of its chefs, Quang “Q” Nguyen, along with beverage director Jacob Nass, had bolted to start a new wine bar (with a brief Cool World detour), I resolved to visit earlier rather than later.
Demo, named after nearby Father Demo Square, a Greenwich Village Italian landmark, is situated at 34 Carmine Street, steps from Bleecker. The restaurant boasts a barbell-shaped space with a pocket bar in front, and a row of tables plunging into its depths along a narrow hallway, ending in a dining room with another bar that encloses a prep area — a boon to solo diners who want to pop in for a glass of wine and a snack. The walls are lined with old photos and muted works of art, and the sound system was playing an Italo-disco hit by Brooklyn-born Natasha King that featured little dog-like whoops — a signal that a friend and I were in for something special.
Demo is typical of a modern class of wine bars that include Claud, Tolo, and Chambers, where as much care is taken with the food as with the wine, though the wine list remains the lure. While the food is not inexpensive, you can eat well and relatively cheaply by stuffing yourself with focaccia, and then selecting an additional dish or two and an intriguing pour.
The menu is divided into six sections, the first occupied solely by a generous portion of focaccia with olive oil ($6), served in two warm wedges studded with sliced olives and frizzled onions. Add-ons ($3 to $8) include cultured butter, marinated peppers, caponata, and anchovies. The caponata was not too sweet, and seemingly raisin-free.
My dining companion and I sampled two dishes from the second section, including a lemony crudo of scallops ($26) so fresh they tasted just pried from their shells. They were not served in the usual penurious thin slices but in amorphous chunks, each one surmounted by a heap of herby green gremolata. Even for someone who is not a scallop fan, this dish rocks.
Equally good was a riff on veal tonnato featuring beef tongue instead of calf. The tonnato was replete with aioli while the tongue was soft and layered in a heap. From the next section came a dish of grilled squid that we didn’t like as much, as it was swimming in a sauce Americaine that tasted of olive oil and soy and not much else.
Things looked up with a dish of skate. It competed for our attention with a half chicken and Tokyo turnips, lobster au poivre with fries, and cavatelli with ‘nduja, along with two other dishes. The skate had been seared to smokiness and deposited on a bed of tiny lentils studded with little Manila clams, a dish made even more wonderful by a crunchy scatter of toasted grain.
A skate wing on a bed of lentils.
Thankfully, there were only two dishes offered in the final dessert section, and it was no contest, at least for me. I always run when I read pavlova, because there’s too much meringue involved, in this case flavored with chamomile. (Okay, I’ll try it next time.) The chef stood behind the bar in the back room with a torch and bruleed the banana slices that went into our banana pudding ($14). And no, there weren’t any vanillas wafers, but it was based on a coconut pudding far creamier than dairy would be.
Kumpf & Meyer Y’a Plus Qu’a.
The 16-item by-the-glass wine list ($16 to $28) is a pleasure to read, and we checked out three glasses. If it’s a light-on-the-alcohol beverage you’re after, pick the seltzer and red vermouth ($11). Otherwise zoom over to Kumpf et Meyer’s Y’a Plus Qu’a, a non-vintage Alsatian white that has a lovely orange color, with a stipple of light bubbles and a fruity finish, a rustic wine to say the least. For a little less quirkiness, head to the Montesissa Emilio — a straw-colored, full-bodied white that went with everything we tried except maybe the pudding. For reds, there’s a nice Barbera d’Asti that tastes better if you let it sit for 10 minutes or so before drinking, by which time its brash elements will have slipped off.