Peoria's Upscale Sleeper With Old World Leanings
Peoria Heights · Peoria · New American · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · September 5, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Fusion 45’s wine list and gave it The Reliable — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
Walking into Fusion 45, the white tablecloths and moody lighting immediately signal that someone here is taking dinner seriously — and the wine list follows that same energy, if not quite matching it. The list leans toward familiar comfort: French and Greek bottles anchoring a program that feels curated for a Peoria Heights crowd that wants something better than chain-restaurant pours without veering into intimidating territory. It's refined without being adventurous.
The regional focus on Greece and France is genuinely interesting for central Illinois, and it gives the list more personality than your average upscale New American spot in a mid-size market. Greek wine in particular is underrepresented at this price point across the country, so if the selection follows through on that promise, it's a real differentiator. That said, we don't have enough granular data to know how deep the bench goes — whether this is a thoughtful curated list or just a few token Old World bottles surrounded by the usual suspects. The cuisine (truffle ribeye, uni carbonara, walleye) is ambitious enough that the wine list deserves to match it, and whether it fully does remains the open question.
By-the-glass specifics aren't confirmed from available sources, so we can't tell you how many pours are on offer or how frequently they rotate. For a white-tablecloth spot doing food this creative, we'd hope to see at least eight to ten thoughtful glass options — including something Greek, since that's a declared strength. If the BTG program is just a handful of safe California pours, that's a missed opportunity given what the kitchen is doing.
The Bottom Line
Fusion 45 is doing something genuinely ambitious for Peoria — a creative kitchen with Old World wine ambitions is not nothing — but until we can get eyes on the actual list with prices, we're cautiously optimistic rather than fully sold. Worth a visit, worth asking your server what's good to drink.
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