Vinoteca: A New Place To Glug Wine In The City
Last Updated 22 December 2017
Fresh from another City wine bar, the Old Shades, we arrive at Vinoteca. They might both trade in vino, but they're disparate; Vinoteca's Mad Men 1960s decor, ensconced in the mint condition Bloomberg complex, is a world away from the swarthy Dickensian atmosphere of its aged counterpart. Good news: there's room for both — estimable drinking establishments that they are.
Off the bat, an attentive Vinoteca sommelier fixes us with a bottle of exactly what we're after — a dry Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato from Piedmont — to blow the icicles away. Elsewhere on the list there's everything from dry Manzanilla aperitifs to a sparkling red from Cornwall. We can picture ourselves propping up the bar all evening, with a bottle and some salted Catalan olives. An upstairs snug, hugged in thick curtains looks a cosy spot for sipping, too.
But we're at Vinoteca for the food as much as the wine, and that transpires to be a mixed bag. The rich, fattiness of the Gressingham duck salad starter is offset by sharp orange and fennel — a promising start — yet the Cornish squid (though with the right meaty-but-not-too-chewy texture), has been grilled until bitter.
There's a similar theme with the mains; a fine slab of halibut is done no favours by its leek and mushroom sauce, which cries out for more lemon juice, white wine, black pepper — anything — to lift it. The pheasant — again, a worthy cut of meat — is underrepresented by its seasoning. Be more ballsy, and you've got fine food that deserves the fine wine accompanying it.
To compound this, it's the booze again — this time a flight of three dessert wines, including one elixir from Samos, which tastes like liquid gold — that proves Vinoteca a worthy place to pitch up of an evening.
Vinoteca City, 21 Bloomberg Arcade, EC4N 8AR