Okatshe

Walking into Okatshe, the last thing you expect inside a Moxy Hotel izakaya in downtown Allentown is a Myburgh Bros orange Chenin Blanc from South Africa sitting next to a Hermann J. Wiemer Riesling from the Finger Lakes. The list is short — 13 by the glass, a handful of bottles — but whoever built it was paying attention. This is not the wine list of a restaurant that phoned it in.

For a 17-wine list, the geographic range is genuinely impressive: Germany, Santa Barbara, the Finger Lakes, South Africa, Beaujolais, Santa Barbara's Lieu Dit, and a Stolpman rosé that belongs on lists twice this size. The Domaine de Bel Air 'Les Granits Blues' Moulin-à-Vent and the Laurent Perrachon et Fils Moulin-à-Vent both signal someone here actually likes wine. There are gaps — no sparkling beyond Korbel and a Cava Conquilla, nothing from Italy or the Pacific Northwest — but the selections that made the cut are more interesting than the misses suggest. The Shannon Ridge Cab and the Napa Cut Cabernet are crowd-pleasers that feel like concessions to the room, but they don't define the list.

Thirteen options by the glass is a strong showing for a restaurant this size, and the range covers everything from the Selbach 'Incline' Riesling to the Myburgh Bros orange Chenin Blanc — so you're not stuck choosing between Chardonnay and Cab. Rotation appears limited based on the current menu snapshot, with the list feeling more set than frequently refreshed. The $9–$15 glass price range is accessible, but the markups underneath those prices are doing a lot of work.