Immaculate Infatuation

On a recent trip to the West Village we were stopped dead in our tracks. Whoa. What on God’s green earth do we have here? The bar standing in front of us was truly immaculate. We couldn’t look away. There was some kind of Daniel Faraday/Lost island style frequency sucking us inside even though our lives were supposed to go down a different path that night. We couldn’t resist it. We bailed on our plans and hit the Highlands.

As we suspected, Highlands is an Infatuation kind of joint. Rows of whiskey and bourbon line the exposed brick walls behind the bar. A packed house of put together, good looking locals sip on dark drinks, specialty cocktails and international beers with high alcohol content. Everyone is feelin’ it and having a grand ol’ time. Although we haven’t been on the weekend, we hear it’s slammed shoulder to shoulder, Spotted Pig style.

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Good bar food is not such an easy find in Manhattan. Generally speaking, the wings in NYC are a joke and usually wind up costing way more than they should. Not at Reservoir. Looking for a good place to post up for a night of grubbing, game watching, and beer drinking? This is your spot. On a good day, Reservoir boasts some of the city’s best Buffalo wings (sometimes the wings can be too small) plus I have serious love for their perfectly done waffle fry. Yes, the crowd is very NYU bro-dawg heavy but it’s a great sleeper spot to kick it with your friends and not break the bank (burger + fries $8.50, 20 wings $8.50). Oh, and two tips. If you’re getting a burger make sure you order a ‘Buffalo burger’ – it’s better than their normal burger and not on the menu. Also, Sunday night is wing night, thirty cents apiece.

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Here at immaculateinfatuation.com, we put a lot of effort into marrying our passions for both music and food, and we love it when we find examples of other people doing the same. If you have ever been to Pianos to see a band in the back room, you probably didn’t expect that it’s the kind of place that would turn out some damn good bar food. It’s usually crowded as hell with a mix of indie music nerds and girls that just moved to the city who loooove the Lower East Side. Also, it smells like a dirty basement. Regardless, they have a great selection of bar fare that you wouldn’t expect to see on a menu in a place like this, and it’s obvious that they care about quality. The only downside is that tables can be hard to come by if you’re there during the Lower East Side high tide of humans and if you sit upstairs, there is a good chance you’ll be eating to the special sounds of an amateur musician on a borrowed guitar. Either way, next time you’re at Pianos, sit down at a table and grab some chow to soak up the booze. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

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Wilfie & Nell is a cozy little bar situated right on the edge of that part of the West Village that you might also know as “the vortex”. We’ve lived in New York City for almost eight years and even with Google Maps, Hopstop and a few orienteering courses, we still get turned around down here. Luckily, there are plenty of good reasons to find yourself lost in the neighborhood, and this place is one of them.

Seeing as how we’re writing about it on this site, you would be right to assume that Wilfie & Nell is a restaurant – they serve not only dinner but now brunch, and the menu was originally curated by Momofuku alumni and Brooklyn Star owner Joaquin Baca. But it is first and foremost a place you come to drink, rather than a place you come to eat. Consider it an added bonus that the bar food you’ll likely be eating while standing near a tiny ledge is pretty good. Tables fill up quickly, as do the bar seats, and thirty people can make the place feel crowded thanks to low cielings and strange layout. Nonetheless, it’s a vibey bar that will get you cool points on a date, or maybe even land you one for later in the week. Just try not to spill mustard on your pants while you eat in the corner.

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While the East Village currently thrives on next level pork and ramen noodles, the West Village has become the epicenter for downtown NYC’s New American explosion. It feels like every week a new spot opens to rave reviews and an immediately packed house. 10 Downing is the latest of well received restaurants in this hood, and is conveniently situated on a diagonal corner just south of the melting pot that is West 4th St. The space that houses 10 Downing is fantastic, and features an open, triangular dining room with a separate bar area, plus a solid fifteen tables for outdoor seating. The walls are completely covered in fun, colorful artwork and lined with black and white PR shots of random celebrities, including some well known fictional characters (shout to Paddington Bear). Overall, the vibe is great and the restaurant has a nice downtown feel to it. In addition to dinner, it’s the kind of place I’d come to just hang out and have a drink. We rolled in on a Thursday evening without a reservation and were seated within 10 minutes, even with people lined up two deep at the bar. I feel that. The service was great, but overall, the food was a little underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my meal very much, I just didn’t think the food we ordered met the great expectations I had going in. That being said, I really liked the space, the scene, and the vibe at 10 Downing, and will definitely be going back again. Hopefully they have the short rib on the menu next time because I’ve heard it’s RIDICULOUS.

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