Stars

A 50-page wine list lands on your table and it's immediately clear this place isn't playing around. The East Village doesn't exactly scream serious wine program, which is exactly what makes Stars so disarming. This is a list built by someone who actually loves wine, not someone who outsourced it to a distributor rep.

The real action is in France and Italy — Dard & Ribo and Thierry Allemand anchoring the Rhône side while Mascarellos and the Rinaldis hold down Piedmont with the kind of depth you'd expect from a dedicated wine bar. The 88-bottles-at-$88-or-less program is a genuine commitment, not a marketing gimmick — it signals that access to good wine here isn't reserved for expense accounts. That said, the top of the list climbs fast: a Dujac Clos de la Roche 2005 sitting at $2,550 is a legitimate trophy bottle, but at roughly 112% over retail, it's priced for people who aren't doing the math. California makes an appearance too, rounding out what is otherwise a firmly Old World-focused perspective.

More than 20 pours by the glass at $11–$19 is a genuinely impressive spread for New York, where most restaurants treat BTG as an afterthought. That price ceiling keeps things accessible without dumbing down the selection. We'd expect the pours to rotate with the same curatorial intent as the bottle list — if they're pulling from producers like Allemand and Dard & Ribo for the glass program, this is one of the better by-the-glass setups in the neighborhood.