Wine After Wine After Wine… We’re Cool With That
Tucked under 14th Street, Mulino A Vino is like a sexy, sommelier dungeon. Less sceney than its flashy neighbors, it feels more like a secret, and the menu, too, can seem a little mysterious. The menu is vino-centric. You’re encouraged to pick your wine first, and let your server determine your dishes. Short and sweet, the menu has only twelve options, but, as our waiter said, “We only do twelve items, but we do them well.” His confidence, it turned out, was warranted.
The cuisine is dubbed “Scientific Italian” by its Michelin-starred chef, Davide Scabin, but we chose to ignore that because science is boring. It does mean that some of the menu items are twists on Italian standards, like the Cacio & Pepe Bombolone (that’s a Cacio & Pepe Doughnut) or strangely described (like the “secret squeezed” sauces or the shrimp that is served with a “scent of lemon”). But don’t be blinded by the science. The food tasted a lot like food. Good food.
Each dish is sharable and comes in three sizes – the smallest being enough for two people – and suggested wine pairings are provided. But don’t fret if you’re not a wine-o, our waiter was perfectly friendly when he asked what kind of wine we liked and we said, “The, um, wine kind.”
We ended up trying two dry whites and a red, which complemented our octopus, chickpea pancake, and giant meatball perfectly. If you’re worried that the food at Mulino A Vino is just an excuse to drink wine, it is, but it doesn’t mean it’s not some of the best we’ve had. The chickpea pancake was like latke meets biscuit meets hashbrown meets true love and it was covered with a basil and mozzarella foam, which, though we were originally skeptical of it, now holds the current title for our favorite foam in New York. The octopus was perfectly crispy, the fist-sized meatball was, as the Italians say, yum-o-lino.
Other reasons we loved Mulino A Vino? The pretty bar. The private room for larger groups. And the secret library for people who “just don’t want to leave.” Oh yeah, and the couples to either side of us were Italian – the real kind – which, you know, made us feel legit.