W. And "21"

I don't know what it is about the "21" Club, but I love writing about the joint. Maybe it's the rich history, the clubby decor, the ghosts of it famous patrons of yesteryear (Welles, Bogart, Hemingway, etc.), the storied wine cellar, the fact that it's the only restaurant left in New York to require a coat and tie—or all of these. But the place is rich in material. I've penned features on it four times in the past three years. The angle this time is that George W. Bush has yet to visit the place, and is threatening to break "21"'s streak of hosting Presidents. It ran on the front page of the New York Sun today. As loath as I am to giving W. any kind of publicity, here it is:

White House Says There's Still Time for '21'

By ROBERT SIMONSON

American presidents have little in common aside from the address 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., an oddly shaped office, and a tendency to inspire midterm election losses. But, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they've shared at least one other experience: They've all visited the "21"Club, the jacket-required restaurant and former speakeasy on West 52nd Street.

John Kennedy dined at "21" the day before he was inaugurated. Richard M. Nixon frequented table 14 so often the management affixed a gold plaque with his name on it to the ceiling above it. Jimmy Carter held a luncheon there before the commencement of the 1976 Democratic Convention. Indeed, every president from Franklin Delano Roosevelt on has paid a call while occupying the White House, according to general manager Bryan McGuire.

But nerves are a little raw and feelings are a trifle hurt at "21" these days. Since taking office nearly seven years ago, President George W. Bush has made himself a stranger. Not one lunch. Not one dinner. And now time is running out. "We'd really like it if he comes while he's still president," Mr. McGuire said.

A spokeswoman for the restaurant, Diana Biederman, added: "He's going to break our streak. He's got a cook at home and I understand that, but we just take it so personally."

There's clearly no Bush family bias against the old saloon at work here. The first lady has been to eat many times. In fact, during the 2004 Republican convention in New York City, she was quoted by the New York Post as saying "21" was her favorite restaurant. The Bush twins, Barbara and Jenna, have been seated there, both with and without their mother. The canteen has also enjoyed the patronage of President George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara.

The current president's administration is likewise fond of the eatery, with its checked tablecloths and $30 hamburgers. "Condi's been here," Ms. Biederman said. "Cheney's been here. Everyone's been here but him." What's more, the place is catnip to would-be Presidents. Senators Kerry, Biden, and Clinton, as well as Mayor Giuliani — they've all passed through the establishment's famous wrought-iron gates.

When this reporter called the White House to see if the president himself had any plans to visit "21," a press office spokesman, who asked not to be named, replied: "There are no updates in his schedule at this time. Obviously there's a lot of time left in his term."

"21" has never been forced to extend formal invitations to the White House before; presidential visits just seemed to happen as a matter of course. "How do you do it?" Ms. Biederman said. "I could send a letter to the White House, but it would be like 'Who's this stalking girl?'"

However, personal inquiries have been made. "I mentioned it to Mrs. Bush and I mentioned it to the daughters several times," a former manager and host at "21," Bruce Snyder, who retired in 2005 after 36 years on the job, said.

The reply: "He doesn't like to go out to dinner," Mr. Snyder said.

So if the president is a homebody, and won't come to "21," why not bring "21" to the president? Perhaps, during his next visit to Manhattan, the restaurant could deliver food to his doorstep — the way Grace Kelly served Jimmy Stewart a "21" dinner in his Greenwich Village apartment in the 1954 film "Rear Window." The restaurant has thought of it, and ruled it out, Ms. Biederman said. "The problem with sending food to him is the Secret Service would be all over that," she said. "When Dick Cheney was here, they had tasters."

Moreover, Ms. Biederman added, the point is that "we want him here."

Past presidents have seemed less averse to eating out, according to Mr. Snyder. "I remember President Nixon the most," he said. "He came before he was president, while he was president, and after he was president." During one of Reagan's visits, Mr. Snyder, just to be on the safe side, escorted him to the bathroom. "I wanted to see that thick hair in the light." President and Mrs. Clinton celebrated daughter Chelsea's 17th birthday at "21" — staying so late that the family was given a tour of the saloon's famous wine cellar at 2 a.m., with Hillary herself pushing open the 4,000-pound cement door.

But if President George W. Bush doesn't make it to the "21" Club during his time in office, will the storied restaurant be diminished — just a little bit? Mr. Snyder laughs at the idea: "Guess what?" he said. " '21' is stronger than he is."

Treasure in Plain Sight

I really shouldn't give away my secrets, but...

Sometimes great wine treasures are sitting right there in plain sight, cheap, accessible, waiting to be purchased. Francois Cazin's Cour-Cheverny Loire Vally white is one such undeserved wallflower.

Cheverny is a fairly recent appellation in the Loire Valley. It was formed in 1991. It's in the Touraine area, due east of Vouvray. They plant a lot of stuff there, but this wine is made from the rare Romorantin grape. One of the only wines you'll find made from this grape.

The first time I had this wine—either a recommendation from Smith and Vine or an industry tasting—I thought, "Well, that's a very nice, well-made wine, very nice indeed, for $15," not realizing I was condescending to the wine. Last weekend, I bought a bottle of the new vintage and opened it with a friend. His eyes lit up. And I thought, "Damn! This is a great wine! And at $15? What am I doing? Why don't I have a case of this? It's perfect for everything."

The Cour-Cheverny is a light to medium-bodied wine, with great acidity and minerality. A clear, steely yet welcoming wine that knows its mind and doesn't try to impress, yet does impress with its quiet greatness. There are vegetal and eucalyptus notes, with citrus and grape tastes up front. It's an unshowy, suberb piece of work. And it's right there. I see it on the shelf of more fine wine stores in NYC. Easy to get. $15! But it has an unfamiliar name and no varietal on the label, so people pass it by. Don't. Get it.

East Village Tikis

One of the most high profile (and only) tiki drink places in Manhattan is a small space called Waikiki Wally's on E. 1st Street near First Avenue in the East Village. Learning that tiki expert Jeff "Beachbum" Berry was coming to town, I made a date for us to check out the place. Alas, scheduling did not allow our paths to cross. But I still had a curiosity about Wally's. So, a couple nights afterwards, being in the area with an hour to spare, I stopped by.

Having been to the superior Forbidden Island in Alameda, California, just last month, I was in a spoiled frame of mind, I admit. So the decor inside Wally's seemed a little cheap. The thatch roof about the bar was a bit rote, the waterfall too kitschy. But, overall, it was a pleasing enough attempt at tropical design.

I sat at the bar. The bartender admitted to being a newbie, having only worked a handful of shifts and not yet used to the menu. But he was friendly and companionable. I scanned the menu. There were "Frozen Grogs" and "Maui Martikis," a couple of which called for vodka. I didn't approve of this at all. When I go to a tiki joint, I want rum. I ordered a Blue Hawaii, which, according to the menu, contained dark rum, coconut rum (specific brands were not named), blue curacao, pineapple juice, peach juice and peach schnapps. (This diverges notably from Berry's recipe in "Surfin' Safari," which asks for sweet & sour and vodka and has no peach juice or schnapps or coconut rum.) It was served in a simple tumbler, the kind you might get your tap water in, with a wedge of pineapple. It was perfectly pleasant, if not exactly exciting, and the coconut rum dominated too much.

From there I went to a Hibiscus Heaven, which is a signature drink for Wally's. It contains vanilla rum, creme di cassis, red passion Alize, mango juice and peach juice. Same glass, same pineapple wedge. It began to feel like musical cocktails. I remembered how distinctive each drink at Forbidden Island had been, each in its own glass with its own garnish, each possessed of a singular look. This was another placidly pleasant drink, but devoid of zip.

I was sort of glad I hadn't dragged Berry there, though I would have loved to have heard his opinions on the drinks. Perhaps I'll take him to Otto's Shrunken Head on 14th Street.

In Praise of Movia

I just polished off a bottle of Movia's Lunar 2005 and was reminded how much I like this maker's wines. They are pungent, mineral-laden, rich and full of character. Oh, and did I mention I'm talking about the whites?

Movia is a Slovenian winemaker that has been in business since 1820, but which in the past 10 or 20 years has raced to the forefront of the winemaking revolution in and around the Friuli region in northeast Italy. (Yes, Movia is strictly speaking across the border in neighboring Italy, but it possesses vineyards in Italy and is almost always grouped with the Italian makers of Collio. The wines are even carried at Italian Wine Merchants.) Winemaker Ales Kristancic keeps it natural and biodynamic. He leaves his whites on the lees for two years inside small Slovenian oak casks, and never racks the wines. The result is wines so dark and rangy and of the soil that casual wine drinkers don't even recognize them as white wines.

But they are wonderful wines. The Ribolla Gialla has a superb minerality and chalkiness. The Lunar, which is also made from Ribolla and is not filtered or tainted with chemicals, was so potent it shared characteristics with cider (the color) and beer (more than a hint of hops on the nose and palate). It is a ripe wine is ways other the fruity, which is what we tend to think of when we hear the word ripe.

I wonder sometimes why Movia wines are not more popular than they are. They're easy enough to find, at least in New York. It could be the price. They start around $25 or so. Perhaps the unusual grape varietals put people off. Or the fact that it comes from Slovenia, which must sound like a joke to some folks. Then again, the wines are so unusual there's no telling if the masses would take to them if they did try them. Americans have progressed a lot over the past 10 years, but they still don't seem ready for the the steely, mineral Friuli wines. Ah well. More for me.

"Nick and Nora on That Prince of Wales"

That's what I heard a bartender say to another on my recent visit to PDT in the East Village. And a choicer bit of counter lingo you won't find outside the oldest greasy spoon truck stop on Route 66.

Translation: The Prince of Wales is a cocktail, the Nick and Nora a specialized Martini glass that PDT employes. The bartender wanted the drink in the compact Nick and Nora glass, which is smaller and rounder than a typical Martini glass, because otherwise the champagne in a Prince of Wales overwhelmed the cocktail. Thus, "Nick and Nora on That Prince of Wales."

Two With Champagne

The East Village near Tompkins Square is turning into a little warren of boutique cocktail havens. In addition to Death & Co. on E. 6th between First and A, and PDT on St. Mark's between First and A, there is The Bourgeois Pig on E. 7th between the same blocks.

The Bourgeois Pig is owned by one of the same people who run Death & Co. It was for some years in a small space on the south side of the street, but very recently moved to a larger space on the north side. My heart received a jolt when I first approached it as I saw the address was precisely that of the bygone Tompkins Square Books, a beloved used book store of my youth. To see a bar installed where stacks once stood was disorienting.

The interior in on the louche side: red light, silvery tin ceiling, an ornate chandelier of blown glass pieces which look like something between deer antlers and exploded champagne flutes. A curving bar dominated the left side of the room. At present, BP is more a wine bar than a cocktail joint, with an emphasis on French vino. There were, however, sections for champagne cocktails, wine cocktail and, uh, beer cocktails, as well as a couple champagne punches.

While the wine cocktails intrigued me, I was in the mood for something light and refreshing, so I chose the Violetta, a combination of 3/4 ounce each of Creme de Violette, lemon juice and Maraschino liqueur, topped with Champagne (they used Pol Roger). It was piquant, mildly tart, refreshing, a romantic drink. Wish I could have seen the color, but it was dark.



From there I walked a block to PDT, which is hidden behind a fake telephone booth door in a hot dog joint called Crif Dogs. (A telephone booth in an East Village hot dog place! You can't find a telephone booth at even the high-end places anymore.) Like Death & Co., like PG, it's a small, intimate place dominated by a beautifully lit bar and ringed by booths. The novelty of the bar is that imbibers can order franks from the low-rent Crif Dogs and eat them with their cocktails. (Hey—salty food and beer have always been a drinker's staple.)

I was hungry and ordered one such dog, wrapped in bacon and topped with kimche. (I kid you not. And it was good.) I then asked my extremely helpful and friendly bartender to point me in the right drink direction. He suggested an off-menu concoction called a Jimmy Rutledge, which was a riff on an old drink I'd never heard of called a Jimmy Roosevelt, and was named after the master distiller at Four Roses Bourbon, who is celebrating 40 years on the job this year.

The drink was a fairly complex little ditty. The champagne glass was coated with syrup. Then in went a sugar cube dotted with bitters, Four Roses, champagne and a thin layer of Chartreuse on top. I find champagne-brown liquor mixtures hit my palate in an odd way. Still, the brisk, mature cocktail stood up nicely to the dog. The man knew his cocktail-food pairings.

I must have passed the bartender's test as a curious and learned gentlemen, because after that he asked me to test a bourbon they had been working on. It was infused with bacon! They planned to use it in a version of an Old Fashioned. I was hesitant, but it was delicious, the bacon very subtle and marrying well with the meatiness of the bourbon. Can't wait to taste the drink.

Three's a Charm

I visited the Silverleaf Tavern at 38th and Park the other day. Dale DeGroff had a hand in the cocktail list, so I thought it was worth a try.

I was having a hard time choosing my cocktail. The Silver Leaf Manhattan intrigued me, even if it was made with bourbon and not rye. And the traditionalist in me cried out for the Stork Club Cocktail. I mean, at how many bars can I order that? And then I saw the answer to all my problems: a flight of three cocktails for just $18. Just like flights of wines. Why hadn't I heard of this before?

One problem: the choice of the three was up to the discretion of the bartender, not me, and I still wanted my Stork Club and my Manhattan. But I was in luck, because my bartender was a mindreader. He selected just those two drinks. The third was a tequila based thing which he called Formula No. 4, or something like that, and insisted was on the menu. (It wasn't.) Each was served in a miniature glass.

Funny—I liked the wild card best. Wish I had paid attention when he told me the ingredients. Lime juice, Cointreau and something else, along with the tequila. Piquant and refreshing. The Stork Club and Silver Leaf Manhattan both had something going for them. But the Stork I found a tad too tart and strident, with it mix of gin, orange bitters, Cointreau and fresh Orange juice. I have a feeling that the oranges were underripe. As for the Manhattan, DeGroff had been infusion crazy on this one. The Woodford Reserve Bourbon was infused with vanilla beans and the sweet vermouth infused with chai and brandied cherries. (No really cherries were employed.) The result was interesting, but too much on the woodsy side, like the mix had been aged in root-infested soil before arriving in my glass.

The flight in and of itself, however, was undeniable fun.