Terrific Takeout: Vino Levantino Our Coverage Sponsored by Fresh Origins
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Open since December 2013, Vino Levantino is a newcomer to the Upper West Side located at 210 West 94th Street. It's the third wine/cocktail bar opened by Osman Cakir, who also owns Turks and Frogs and Orient Express (opened in that order) which were previously highly recommended by Whom You Know in Peachy's Picks, and Vino Levantino upholds the extremely high standards of both wine and cuisine established at those venues. We began with the half roasted eggplant accentuated with ricotta cheese, punctuated with pomegranate and dusted with za'atar. If you didn't know what that last one was either, let us educate you: za'atar is a terrific mixture of spices and herbs and it's from the Oregano family we understand.
As you know we love potatoes and these were amazing: roasted fingerling potatoes with garlic aioli were prepared to perfection and the sauce had the right amount of kick.
For our salad, we tried the Fattoush salad; this is the name in Israel for salad we were told. It's composed of tomato, radish, cucumber and lemon garlic vinaigrette and was amazingly fresh and zesty for summer.
For an entree, we found the chicken kebab most convincing and would definitely order it again. Grilled chicken cubes on skewers served with a scallion and black currant rice were standout and we're not sure if this was on purpose or not, but we like how it's arranged in a kind of monogrammed V. We look forward to visiting this gem again more comprehensively in Peachy's Picks where we will then discuss the real matter at hand: the wine. It's derived from the Eastern Mediterranean and Osman's business partner is from Israel we believe, so there are wines from that region as well. (Click here to see more about the word Levantino/Levant; we had a little geography lesson as well.) You know the wine is going to be superior based on the other two cocktail bars, and we had a tiny sip on our way to a review in another discipline when we stopped by.
Vino Levantino is Terrific Takeout!
