Fine French dining with a second-chance soul
Shaker Square · Cleveland · French · Visit Website ↗
Updated June 2026
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · April 21, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Edwins Restaurant’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
Walking into Edwins, the wine list feels like it was curated by someone who actually gives a damn — classic French anchors, California muscle, and a price range that doesn't make you do math anxiety at the table. There's a quiet confidence here that matches the room: elegant, purposeful, no showing off. It earns its Wine Spectator Award of Excellence without waving it in your face.
The list runs 150-250 bottles deep and stays in its lane — France first, California second, and that's not a criticism. Burgundy gets serious real estate, leaning into the Côte d'Or heartland near Domaine de la Romanée-Conti territory, which signals someone on staff knows exactly what they're doing. Bordeaux classified growths round out the Old World side, while Napa Cabernet handles the crowd-pleasing American column with Rhône Valley selections quietly filling in the gaps for guests who know to look. There are no obvious attempts to pad the list with bulk-brand fillers, which at this price point matters.
Ten to twenty options by the glass is a respectable spread for a fine-dining French bistro of this size, and with Jon Khanna steering the program, the pours aren't an afterthought. We'd expect the glass list to mirror the bottle strengths — France and California — giving you a solid runway to explore before committing to a full bottle. Rotation details weren't available, but the program's overall intentionality suggests these aren't just the cheapest bottles cracked open.
Rhône Valley Selection — $40
Entry-level pricing on French wine in a room this good is genuinely rare. The Rhône selections anchor the lower end of the list and represent serious QPR for guests who want Old World character without climbing into Burgundy money.
Rhône Valley Red
Most people at Edwins are eyeing the Burgundy or the Bordeaux classified growths — and rightfully so — but the Rhône selections are the sleeper pick. Grenache-based reds from the Rhône punch above their price class and are a natural fit for this French bistro menu.
Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
The California Cab isn't a bad choice, but in a room built around French cuisine with a list that clearly favors France, ordering Napa Cab at Edwins is like going to a great ramen shop and ordering the fried rice. The markups on Napa tend to be steeper industry-wide, and the food simply sings louder with a French bottle.
Burgundy Red (Côte d'Or) + Duck Confit
Duck confit and a proper Pinot Noir from the Côte d'Or is one of the great unbroken laws of French dining. The earthiness of the wine locks into the richness of the duck, the fat cuts through the tannin, and you remember why French cuisine and French wine evolved together in the first place.
The Bottom Line
Edwins is one of the most genuinely interesting restaurant stories in Cleveland — a fine-dining French program run by people earning their place in the industry — and the wine list is good enough to stand on its own merits, mission aside. Send a friend here and tell them to order French across the board, from the escargot to the bottle.
University Circle · Cleveland · Regional
Table 45 is a dependable hotel wine list that punches above its Cleveland zip code — it's not adventurous, but it's not embarrassing either. Send a friend here if they want recognizable, quality bottles in a proper setting; steer them toward Jordan and Drouhin and away from the obvious crowd-pleasers.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Proper
Flats East Bank · Cleveland · Italian
Lago East Bank is a legitimately strong Italian wine program in a city that doesn't always get credit for having them — the WS Award of Excellence since 2023 is earned. Markups keep it from being a great value play, but if you're going to drop money on a bottle of Barolo anywhere in Cleveland, this is the room to do it.
Solid Range
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Proper
Woodmere · Cleveland · American Steakhouse
J. Gilbert's is a reliable, well-stocked steakhouse list that plays it safe with California heavyweights and charges accordingly — nothing groundbreaking, but the Sunday wine deal is one of the better recurring specials in Cleveland and reason enough to plan around it. Come for the filet, drink better than you expected to.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Seasonal Rotation
Acceptable
Gateway District · Cleveland · Italian, American, Steakhouse
The Centro is a reliable pour for downtown Cleveland — the list won't surprise you, the prices will sting a little, but it's a competent wine program for a hotel steakhouse anchored in a beautiful room. Send a friend here if they want familiar bottles and a good steak; steer them elsewhere if they're looking for anything off the beaten path.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Unknown · Cleveland · American Grill
J. Alexander's has no business having this good of a markup on their wine list, but here we are. It's a chain, it's comfortable, and it's offering pours like Austin Hope Cabernet at prices that would embarrass half the independent restaurants in Cleveland — send a friend here without hesitation.
Crowd Pleasers
Steal
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Near West Side / Hopkins Airport · Cleveland · American
Amp 150 is exactly what a good hotel restaurant wine program should be: fair prices, enough options to keep most people happy, and no disasters hiding in the list. We wouldn't drive across Cleveland for it, but if you're already here, you're in decent hands.
Crowd Pleasers
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· Topeka · French
Chez Yasu clearly puts its energy into the kitchen, not the cellar — but two grocery-store wines at a notable markup is not a wine program, it's an oversight. Order water, order a cocktail, or call ahead and ask about corkage.
Grocery Store
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Downtown Telluride / San Juan Avenue · Telluride · French
La Marmotte isn't trying to be a wine bar — it's a cozy French bistro that happens to have a genuinely thoughtful, all-French, all-glass list that punches well above the Telluride baseline. If you're eating duck confit in the mountains and someone hands you JL Chave Syrah for $26, you say yes.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Downtown Napa · Napa · French
Angele is a genuinely good neighborhood anchor in one of the world's most wine-saturated zip codes — fair pricing, familiar producers, and a waterfront setting that earns its keep. It won't challenge you, but it won't disappoint you either, and that's not nothing.
Solid Range
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
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