The cursed space at 142 W. 10th St keeps churning out restaurants and we hold out little hope for the latest hare brained incarnation - Lowcountry - some sort of southern fried food outlet with a bar of bourbon to entice boozers. While the Times liked the joint, we think NY Barfly had a more accurate assessment, at least with regards to cocktails, which he termed "unacceptably bad". The bourbons were fine even if our glass was inexplicably salty and needed replacing. Much less successful was the terrible Middy, a promising sounding mix of Old Forrester Bourbon, muddled blood orange, brandied cherry and soda ($11). Definitely a candidate for worst drink of the year. We didn't eat anything more than the crab dip, but let's just say that one dish didn't give us any confidence in the abilities of the kitchen. Certainly not a reason to go back, not with Highlands (review coming soon) on the same block.
A few nights later we wandered into Aria (117 Perry Street), a relatively new winebar with the theme of an all-women winelist. A promising adventure quickly went south when we began tasting the wines. Turns out, none of the wines are all that good. Instead of omplex, interesting wines, the list leaned heavily on the simple and cheap. Now we like cheap as much as the next boozehound, but with wine you often - but not always - get what you pay for. A winelist in this day and age that tops out $10 for a glass is just not right. Hello, has anyone see the Euro recently? The winelist also skews heavily towards Italy and South Africa, while basically ignoring the US. The lone stateside selection - a Riesling from Snoqualmie in WA - was predictably basic at $6 per glass. The owners need to visit Walla Walla to see what women winemakers can do in Washington. And it wouldn't hurt to go higher end with some of the best wines from women like Domaine Weinbach in Alsace. A showcase for women winemakers really should be that, as opposed to a list of inexpensive, dull wines.
The winelist was so bad, we actually had to settle for cocktails. Thankfully they were out of what they usually mix drinks with - Wild Turkey for the Sazerac, Dewars for a Manhattan. Instead, the drinks made with single malt scotch and they actually worked well.
The space is really welcoming and the staff tried hard, but we can't recommend Aria. Not with the other options in the area. Heck, go to Anfora, which is slowly growing on us.
