5 Latest and Greatest Wine Restaurants for 2023

All across the U.S., dining, and hospitality are returning to their fullest, and new restaurants are that are opening across the nation, serving delicious food with excellent wine selections to go with it. Where do you begin investigating? Begin by looking at these ten recent restaurants that have caught our attention. They all won their first Wine Spectator Restaurant Award in 2023, the year the winners were announced on Wednesday.

Particular are run by established name brands in the field of hospitality. Others are more modest operations of promising newcomers. For instance, certain restaurants mix influences (Spanish classics and steakhouse gems). Others focus on tasting menus, and some offer exciting new approaches to traditional cuisine, ranging from French to Mexican, American, and beyond. The common thread between these restaurants is attractive wine programs that cover many styles and regions.

To find more fantastic wine and dining places around the globe, look into the numerous Wine Spectator Restaurant Award-winning establishments in 2023, which includes over 90 Grand Award recipients.

1856–Culinary Residence, A Teaching Restaurant

In the summer of 2022, it was announced that the Tony and Libba Rane Culinary Science Center located at Auburn University opened its teaching restaurant, 1856-Culinary Residence, in honor of the year the university was established. The restaurant is upscale and would only be with wine Director and Instructor Thomas Price’s 650-label Best of Award of Excellence program focusing on France, Spain, Italy, California, and Oregon. Students from the Academy staff the restaurant under the direction of at least one chef who is resident chef, a position which rotates annually and is currently held by the chefs Tyler Lyne and Jennifer Lyne. The restaurant serves the option of a buffet lunch menu, as well as the six-course tasting menu available for dinner, which both are frequently changed. The menu includes foie gras churros with apples, black truffles, and King crab ravioli topped with olive grommets. Wine is, naturally, an integral part of dinner, and there are specially selected wine pairings available as an option.

Andiron

Warmly welcome Texas warm welcome and a warm Texas welcome to Andiron, an open-fire steakhouse in Houston’s Hyde Park neighborhood, headed by chef Louis Maldonado, an alum of Thomas Keller’s Grand Award-winning French Laundry. More than a dozen wood-fired meats are available, including Brazilian-style meats like beef picanha and aged Rohan duck. The menu is always delicious and fresh. Although Maldonado’s flaming food may look tempting, you should take advantage of the raw bar with stone crabs dressed with yuzu-infused hollandaise and kanpachi, a dish with daikon radishes. Director of Wine Renato Bringas’ 550-label selection includes strengths from France (especially Burgundy) and Spain and includes producers who need to be more well-known and verticals of renowned wineries. In addition to the more prominent names, you can take advantage of wines such as those Burgundy’s Comte Armand, Bordeaux’s Chateau Leoville Las Cases, and Rioja’s La Rioja Alta.

Auro

It was opened in the latter half of 2022, late 2022, at The Four Seasons Resort in Calistoga; Auro is one of the most recent establishments for fine dining to come to Napa Valley. The restaurant features five courses of a tasting menu that showcases locally-driven, seasonally, and regionally inspired American cuisine by Chef Rogelio Garcia. The result is dishes like California white duck paired with beets and a chocolate-hazelnut tart reminiscent of Italian Giudija. The Sommelier Derek Stevenson highlights California, specifically Napa, and France, on his Best of Award of Excellence list of 440 wines. Many of these are displayed in a glass wine cellar at the restaurant’s entry point. You can expect to find wines from the most prestigious wineries like Harlan Estate and rare gems like an ounce from Screaming the Eagle Cab Wines Oakville 2002. Auro is a tribute to the region of wine surrounding it. Four Seasons guests can even visit the Elusa Winery on the resort’s property in addition to their wine country excursions.

Juliet

With a relaxed, bistro-style menu, Juliet has been able to bring France into Los Angeles since opening in February 2023. Chef Mike Williams offers seasonal, seafood-centric cuisine that reflects the newest restaurant chains in Paris. The culinary traditions outside France, like Italy or Italy and the Middle East, for instance, are displayed in dishes like roasting eggplant and white Soy amberjack sliced with Meyer lemon ponzu and made-to-order cord trauma. The wine director, Geno Tomko, and Sommelier Lauren Caro pair this menu with the Best of Award of Excellence list of around 800 wines and a wine cellar that contains about 6,600 bottles. France is the focus of this menu, with selections made from Burgundy, Beaujolais, the Loire Valley, Savoie, Jura, and beyond, as well as the best wines from leading estates like Champagne’s Chartogne-Taillet and Alsace’s Marcel Deiss. There are also horizontal and vertical depths throughout the selection.

L’abeille

Best of Award of Excellence winner L’abeille arrived in NYC’s Tribeca neighborhood in the spring of 2022. The restaurant will feature an original blend of French and Japanese food styles. The fine-dining restaurant has 48 seats and has a menu of seasonal dishes by chef Mitsunobu Nagae, as well as additional prix-fixe and a la menu options. You can expect words like spot prawn tartare paired with strawberries, mackerel grilled with smoking clams, and charcoal-grilled Wagyu beef. Despite the smaller size of L’abeille and director of wines, David Berube offers more than 500 labels from a 22,000-bottle wine cellar. The selection aligns with Nagai’s cuisine and focuses specifically on France. Berube recently introduced short verticals from the most prestigious Burgundy domaines, like Marc Morey, David Duband, and Chandon de Brialles, further enhancing the eating experience.

Asador Bastian

Basque Country comes to Chicago at Award of Excellence winner Asador Bastian. The restaurant is situated in a quaint historic townhouse in the River North neighborhood; this steakhouse has a wide selection of premium meats that are aged on the hoof according to Spanish tradition, along with an array of small Iberian-inspired plates like Anchovy pintxos as well as salted-cured mojama of bluefin tuna, and the classic Spanish tortilla (caviar topping available). Enjoy the dishes with the sommelier Jona’s wine selection of 130. Spain is the most prominent theme, including regions such as Rias Baixas and the Canary Islands. Visitors will see well-known brands’ verticals in all areas, including Bodegas Vega Sicilia and R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia. After dinner, you should look at Bittencourt’s carefully curated list of Sherries and an impressive selection from Bodegas Toro Albala that date back to 1910.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *