Brooklyn

The River Café earns its Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence the hard way — with a list that's genuinely deep, a sommelier team that knows what they're selling, and a Madeira section that puts most wine bars to shame. Prices are steep across the board, but you're sitting under the Brooklyn Bridge with Manhattan lighting up the river, so you already knew this wasn't going to be cheap.

Ilis is the rare Brooklyn restaurant where the wine list earns as much attention as the kitchen, and the sommeliers clearly know what they're sitting on. If you're going to spend real money on wine in Greenpoint, this is exactly where to do it.