Slip into a Purple Haze at HAYES AND VINE.
Written: Jun 05 '03 (Updated Sep 18 '04)
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Pros: Superb wines, cheeses, and accompaniments. Elegant room. Gracious, helpful waitstaff. Great cellar.
Cons: Not a conventional dinner spot. Rather Expensive.
The Bottom Line: THE HAYES AND VINE WINE BAR offers a sophisticated spot for an unconventional supper or snack, with wine from one of the best affordable restaurant cellars in San Francisco.
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| macresarf1's Full Review: Hayes and Vine |
UPDATE: September 18, 2004 -- Alas, in the uncertain recovery of the Bay Area (and rising rents in the increasingly gentrified Hayes Valley), HAYES AND VINE has become a casualty. I am sorry it took me so long to get around to reviewing it. The following piece is offered only for its historical value.]
In the years since I recommended *ABSINTHE to Epinions readers, Hayes Valley, near the San Francisco Civic Center, has become a mecca for residents and tourists looking for boutiques, specialty shops, little cafes and restaurants. Once a ghetto in the shadow of a freeway off-ramp, now torn down, the area has blossomed. *POWELL'S PLACE, MOISHE'S, *CAFFE STELLE DELLE, and CITIZEN CAKE are a few of the places here. People going to the Opera, the Symphony, and various other special events in the area, cull a variety of possibilities for a place to have dinner, at least a light snack, before an event -- or coffee and dessert afterward. Just such a spot is the sophisticated, one might almost say literate, HAYES AND VINE WINE BAR.
Lying between Gough and Franklin at 377 Hayes Street (415-626-5301), in easy walking distance of Davies Hall, the Opera House, Herbst Theater, or City Hall, this wine bar is often compared to the City's pioneer in the field, The London Wine Bar. Although its collection is more modest, between 500 and 600 different vintages at a given time, the quality of the selections is of the highest; personal and off the beaten track, products owing their distinction to the taste of owners Tony Poer and Mark Dirsia.
Take a recent featured bottle, a house wine: the Purple Hayes 2000. The Wine Bar's menu tells us it comes from Mendocino County, produced by Doug Nalle, known for his Dry Creek Zinfandels and Russian River Pinots (also to be found in the Bar's Cellar. The wine is featured at Pangaea Restaurant, in Point Arena, near Sea Ranch, where it is matched with Chefs Rob and Jill Hunter's Mushrooms du bois. Here, at the Wine Bar, the writer of the notes records that he/she will "settle for a nice piece of stinky cheese" as an accompaniment. I had a generous taste of the wine ($5.00) that way, and can attest to its young, blue-blooded vigor, matched rather sinfully with a slice of ripe, veined Colston Basset Shropshire. Purple Hayes 2000 sells in the Bar at $38 a bottle, or $10 the glass.
You may take a bottle home for $25.00.
Only 599 to go.
That sums up, in a number of ways, the Hayes and Vine experience. Not cheap but very satisfying.
You enter its golden trimmed, purple doors to find a long, narrow oval of a room. Booths in the front, and tables down the right side into the back. Very Modern French. The walls are oyster, the ceiling the matte color of Beaujolais, and the bar, at which people may eat, and which defines the shape of the room, is festooned above with glittering glasses, and has a radiant white onyx bar surface.
On another recent visit, early in the evening of the authentic Hayes Valley Street Fair, I was seated at an empty table. Presently, as I was reading the menu, and the room filling up around me, a young woman came along and asked if she might sit with her party at the other end of the table.
"Why, of course."
Before I could order, or her friends arrive, it developed that she grew up for a time in a small town, along the Ohio Lakeshore, not far from where I was born -- not a terribly uncommon coincidence, I've learned, in San Francisco.
The Menu of the Hayes and Vine Wine Bar changes on a regular basis, every day or two, as the wines, cheeses, etc., mature.
On this Spring evening, the list offered seven cheeses:
1) Sareanah -- An Italian grana-type cow's milk cheese, aged sixty days, by a young cheese maker, Marisa Hiarides, in Tulare County. Recommended with a Madeira or a sherry.
2) Triple Creme du Village de Warwick -- Another cow's milk cheese, with 70% butter fat, this one from Quebec, is a bit savory. It is often paired here with sparkling wines and West Coast dry whites.
3) Quejo Serra da Estrella -- Portuguese, as you will have gathered from its name, made in the Estula de Senas Mountains, the Quejo is a rustic sheep's milk cheese. It is quite runny, so served in a ramekin, often with simple baguette, accompanied by a Portuguese red.
4) Jean Faup Chevre -- From the Pyrenees, this French goat cheese tomme is both grassy and sharp. A good match for either red or white Rhone's, or the wines of Languedoc.
5) Pecorino Toscano -- An excellent example of the little more familiar Italian dense, Jack-like textured sheep's milk cheese. A tangy sangiovese or a Cotes-du-Rhone goes well with it.
6) Vacherin Mont D'Or -- Cow's milk again, banded with spruce bark, packed in wooden boxes to keep its shape, as Poer and Dirsia tell us, the cheese's "fruity, woodsy flavor complements light reds," but it "is brilliant with Champagne.
7) And finally the previously noted Colston, a Cheshire cheese: creamy, nut-like, and blue against its light orange shading. It is advised with "robust" Zinfindels and any variety of sweet wine.
These cheeses, on the evening in question, made up the cheese plates, which form the core of the Hayes and Vine Wine Bar Menu: One-Cheese Plate ($6.50), Two-Cheese Plate ($12.00), and Three-Cheese Plate ($15.00).
The waiter set the table with some complimentary olives, a basket of warm French bread from the nearby Citizen Cake Bakery-Restaurant, and a dish of olive oil.
I chose the Three-Cheese Plate, and the knowledgeable, helpful waiter assisted me in filling it up, with a flight of three wines (tastes) on the side. I had the Triple Creme with a Pinot Grigio, the Chevre with a Grenache, and the Sareanah to finish, along with a glass of Port. The waiter brought the wines in a trio of glasses, and then, the cheeses on an oval server, scattered with Cranberries. Each cheese came in a quite large, satisfying slab or portion, and the whole combination, plus a double espresso, amounted to $34.
At any specific time, there are forty to fifty wines, from Champagnes to Ports, available by the glass. On this night, the featured aperitifs were a Kir "Royale" at $10.50 the glass; Sergio Mionetto Sparkling Wine, by the glass or taste ($9.50/$4.75); Premier Cru Ruelle-Pertois Champagne Brut ($11.00/5.50); Serge Mathieu Aviery Champagne Brut ($13.00/6.50); Mas Grand Plagniol 2001 Rose, Niemes ($5.00/2.50); Emilio Lustau Jerez Light Fino, Jarana ($4.00); Emilio Lautau Jerez Oloroso, Del Tonel ($7.50).
The Special White Wine Flight, from which I sampled the Teuta Beltrame, included that Italian 2000 Tenuta Beltrame Pinot Grigio ($6.00/3.00/$14.00 the bottle to go); a Californian 2000 Lorca Monterey County Pinot Gris ($7.00'3.50/$17.00 the bottle to go); another Californian, an Etude 2001 Carneros Pinot Gris ($8.00/4.00/$19.00 the bottle to go; and an Alsatian 2001 Kuentz-Bas (Gyssereb-kes-Chateau) Tokay Pinot Gris ($9.00/4.50/$21.00 the bottle to go). The entire flight was offered at $27.00/$13.50.
The Special Red Wine Flight, from which my choice was the Australian Fox Creek Grenache, fielded a La Crau de Ma Mere 1999 Chateauneuf-du-Pape ($11.00/5.50/$26.00 the bottle to go); an Australian Lengs & Cotter "The Victor" 1999 Grenache/Shiraz ($7.50/3.75/na); the 2000 Fox Creek McLaren Vale Grenache/Shiraz ($8.50/4.25/na); and a 1997 Domaine Grand Veneur "Les Origines" Chateau-du-Pape ($15.50/7.75/$37.00 the bottle to go). The entire flight was $39.00 and $19.50, respectively.
I found the matches from these flights with the food most complementary.
Other "Light Fare" that evening: Jimtown Store (Healdsburg, Ca) Chopped Olive Tapenade or Fig and Olive Spread. Either, with baguette crostini, $4.50.
An Artisinal Bread Basket (from Citizen Cake) with Stephen Singer's Extra Virgin Tuscan Olive Oil, McEvoy Marin Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Long Meadow Ranch Napa Extra Virgin Olive Oil, or Sorelle Paradiso Tulare County Extra Virgin Olive Oil --$4.95 a dish; or Hirschmann Family (Styria) Austrian Pumpkin Seed Oil for $5.95.
One ounce of "Methode" Sterling Caviar from Stolt Sea Farm (California), with Creme Fraiche: $34.00.
Seasonal Smoked Fish from Captain Mike's and Sally Hiebert's of Coati, California (featured at San Francisco Farmer's Market): Either "Holy Smoke" Sturgeon or "Holy Smoke" Albacore Tuna, with sweet pepper and tomato sauce ($9.75 each); or "Holy Smoke" Salmon Lox, with creme fraiche (also $9.75).
Tu Mismo Boquerones, marinated Spanish Anchovies ($5.00).
Duck Foie Gras Torchon with Armanac, matched to Baguette crostini & quince paste ($11.00).
The Charcuterie Plate -- Pate du Jour, duck rillettes, smoked & cured meats, served with mustard and cornichons ($13.95).
An Antipasto Plate -- Marinated vegetables, caperberries, mozzarela, sun-dried tomatoes and salami ($14.95); and a Vegetarian Plate at $13.95.
I have not gotten around to looking at the dessert plate, but I believe it favors fresh fruits.
The evening developed pleasantly because the couple who joined my fellow Ohioan were moving in three weeks to Seattle, and this was a kind of farewell occasion. They invited me around the corner with them to the new *STELLINE's location, where we danced, drank more wine, and I was pressed to eat a small bowl of excellent Sicillian White Bean Soup. [They insisted that I had not had enough to eat!]
THE HAYES AND VINE WINE BAR is open from 5 p.m. to Midnight, Tuesdays through Thursdays; from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
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Below are listed the URL's of reviews of other restaurants in Hayes Valley, some of which are mentioned in the above piece:
*ABSINTHE --
http://www.epinions.com/rest-review-20B8-4A3549-388DE5C9-bd3
*CAFFE STELLE DELLE --
http://www.epinions.com/rest-review-476B-A43BB57-38AB8B00-prod6
*POWELL'S PLACE --
http://www.epinions.com/rest-review-5B2E-5F61C52-38A08035-prod2
*STELLINE's --
http://www.epinions.com/content_59324075652
SUPPENKUCHE --
http://www.epinions.com/content_82003398276
----------------------------------If you wish to explore all of Macresarf1's reviews, indexed by title and category, many with URL's, go to the following hyperlink --
http://www.epinions.com/content_2514526340
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations If you are not familiar with the wines and cheeses, trust your waiter, who is experienced, to suggest matches of wines with food. Flights of "tastes" rather than glasses will keep your bill down.
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Epinions.com ID:
macresarf1
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Location: San Francisco, Ca.
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