THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER16, 2019 15
PHOTOGRAPH BY VANESSA GRANDA FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
1
TABLESFORTWO
The Riddler
51 Bank St.
There’s a strong argument to be made
that the types of glassware in which
champagne is most often served—the
flute and the coupe—are exactly the
wrong ones. The tall, narrow shape of a
flute constricts the wine, keeping it
super carbonated but preventing it from
swirling around and fully releasing its
aroma and flavor. You could swirl cham-
pagne in the wide, shallow bowl of a
coupe, but you’d almost certainly slosh
it, too; plus, it’s more likely to over-
aerate and lose a significant amount of
its fizz. Flutes and coupes are, like
champagne itself, instantly recognizable
as celebratory. But what if champagne
were treated more like other wines, as
appropriate for an ordinary week night
as for a special occasion, as perfect with
a meal as for a toast?
This is the question posed by the Rid-
dler, a new champagne bar and restaurant
in the West Village. It’s an outpost of a
popular place in San Francisco, opened
by Jen Pelka, who also runs a food-and-
drink marketing agency. It’s an interesting
concept, and there’s a lot to admire about
its execution, starting with the fact that
all of Pelka’s investors are women, and,
on the by-the-glass menu, she spotlights
female winemakers, who are still a rar-
ity—as is the practice of heralding them.
Her delicious champagnes are served in
carefully chosen white-wine glasses, and
there’s a small but complete food menu
that’s designed to be paired with them.
But, if part of the goal is to make
champagne more accessible, the staff
could do with some training in how to
talk about it. One night, a server helpfully
told me that a blanc de blancs was tart,
like a green apple; he was absolutely right,
and I loved it. But then he described a
brut rosé as “focussed.” Focussed on
what? Was it studying for a test? On
another night, a different server leaned
heavily on the term “precision-driven,”
and, as I sipped the taste he’d poured
me, he said, “So, did I nail the notes? A
little bit of precision?” Perhaps a som-
melier would understand what this was
supposed to mean; I still have no idea.
There are no tasting notes on the
wine list. I guess you already know—
or don’t care—what a forty-five-hun-
dred-dollar bottle of 2000 Krug Clos
d’Ambonnay tastes like if you have
forty-five hundred dollars to spend on
a bottle of 2000 Krug Clos d’Ambonnay.
The rest of us are welcome to sample
by-the-glass offerings until we land on
something we like, but, personally, I’d
appreciate the opportunity to actually
learn something about champagne, be-
yond the claim that one of the female
winemakers is “a total doll” or that one
of the male winemakers plows his fields
with horse-drawn wagons.
I’d also appreciate a food menu that
took bigger risks, at a lower cost. If you
can afford the splurge, the seventy-
eight-dollar kaluga caviar, which comes
with Lay’s potato chips and crème
fraîche, is lovely. Pretty much every-
thing else is just O.K. It’s hard to argue
with fresh oysters, or a straightforward
shrimp cocktail. But I ordered a dish of
scallop and cucumber—diced and tossed
with a bit too much black pepper—twice
because I had no memory of trying it the
first time. A bowl of crudités, featuring
a few sad sticks of bell pepper and car-
rot and a couple of radishes on a bed
of crushed ice, was frankly insulting,
especially at thirteen dollars.
A cheeseburger with raclette and
rosemary fries, a decadently rich risotto
with brown butter and shaved truffles,
and a pot de crème that comes in a cav-
iar tin round out the litany of luxury
clichés. Those in the know can order
their extra brut in an off-menu “Cham-
bong,” which is “like a beer bong, but for
Champagne,” according to the Riddler’s
Web site, where you can also buy the
wretched vessel, plus a mug that reads
“Of course, Champagne ... but first,
coffee.” Any regular who has ordered a
hundred bottles will be presented with
a bomber jacket with her name embroi-
dered in gold. Some people will find all
of this charming and fun. It leaves me a
little flat, like bubbly in a coupe. (Dishes
$13-$78.)
—Hannah Goldfield
