Six restaurant openings over the span of two years are daunting for even the most seasoned of sommeliers, but for Catch Hospitality Group (CHG) wine director Emily Buse, it’s been a welcome challenge. This week, CHG opened Cafe Charmant, its fourth restaurant in New York City’s SoHo and West Village. The brasserie continues a string of buzzy, line-inducing openings after the Corner Store , the Eighty Six and Or’esh .
“I’m born and raised in Manhattan. This is where my heart lies,” says Buse, who has served as Catch Hospitality Group’s wine director for seven years. Her role covers Catch’s nine Wine Spectator Restaurant Award winners across the country.
Cafe Charmant opened on Sept. 15 with a kitchen headed by chef Jake Tyler Brodsky, an alum of Grand Award winner Eleven Madison Park . The restaurant took over the space that was formerly home to Saint Theo’s on Bleeker Street, in the heart of the ever-changing West Village.
At Cafe Charmant, Brodsky’s dishes are primarily drawn from the south of France and coastal Italy—think shrimp hidden inside a craggly fried squash blossom or razor clam spaghetti brightened with Vinho Verde and a green chili sauce. Look out for other items such as curry duck pastels with tamarind chutney and madai crudo dressed with a citron and kombu marmalade. (Brodsky spent seven years as a chef in the Cayman Islands, and Caribbean flavors pop up often.) While seafood dominates the menu, there are plenty of brasserie standbys such as classic steak frites in peppercorn sauce and chicken paillard with sauce vert .
The wine list at Cafe Charmant embraces a lesson learned from CHG’s other New York restaurants: Burgundy is king. “Especially this being a French concept, I thought, ‘Oh no, I’ve got to make sure I get those allocations,’” says Buse. “I feel like we’re at a good starting point and I have a couple of empty shelves, which is a very rare luxury. We can grow from here.”
From the list, expect to find marquee names such as Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier, Méo-Camuzet , Bouchard Père & Fils and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti as well as plenty of approachable Burgundies— Jean-Marc Boillot , Dominique Guyon , Thibault Liger Belair and among others. Beyond the Côte d’Or, Buse describes the list as French, with a coastal influence. (“It was so tempting to make an entirely French list,” she says.) Filling out the rest of the 300-bottle wine list with emphasis on diversity and value are regions such as the Rhône, Provence, Spain and Sonoma.
“People come into a restaurant excited about trying new foods, but tend to be more idiosyncratic about their wines,” says Buse. “I will see someone drinking Brunello di Montalcino with oysters and I’m never the one to stand in their way … when someone comes in and orders wine, we try to make it special. We want them to tell all their other friends that wine is the move here.”
Buse shared with Wine Spectator insider tips for navigating the Cafe Charmant list, the wine and food pairing that surprised her, the bottle she’d order herself and more.
We’re doing all the right things: People are eating their raw seafood and oysters with Chablis . Check. People are having steak with Bordeaux. Check. But a great moment I had was with the Ibérico pork schnitzel with caramelized onions and shaved fennel on the menu. It’s a beautiful dish—I wish more people ordered it. The table who ordered it said, “I’m in your hands. I’m having this. I’m really open-minded.” So we served the Domaine du Pélican Savagnin ‘Sous Voile’ Arbois 2019. This Savagnin goes in a tank and has flor growing over it, so the wine becomes naturally and deliberately oxidative. It still has a lot of tension, life, acidity and power in it. The brightness of the wine, with that touch of age alongside the fried pork, was like magic. Got me really excited.
Maybe we’ll see more interest in Provence , Bandol, Corsica and the Rhône —more Mediterranean French wines. I build my list depending on what the guests offer me. What is it that people want? Is it female winemakers? What is making people tick? That’s where I’m going to grow—I’m not an artist with a vision. I’m really a people pleaser by nature.
Something I actually have not tried—that I put on the list because I know that it will be stunning—is the Vignoble de Château-Grillet Côtes du Rhône white. I didn’t even know they made a Côtes du Rhône—I bought it so I could try it. It’s still pricey [$405], but it’s definitely more approachable. Given the body, the florality and the intense mineral astringency of this Viognier, it’s going to pair well with like half of our menu.
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