“Friday Night Flights”: Campanile outdoes most so-called wine bars in LA

2006 Didier Dageuneau Silex, Campanile, LA Restaurants, Wine bars

Campanile is a restaurant that has been a fixture of the LA dining scene for years, showcasing the inspired Cal-Mediterranean cooking of Mark Peel. The restaurant has drawn praise for its extensive wine list, one of the more interesting, inclusive and, one might say, accessible — pricewise — in the city. Alums of the wine program include Manfred Krankl of cult winery Sine Qua Non, as well as the proprietors of Silverlake Wine in Los Angeles; it’s wine program is currently overseen by Jay Perrin.

When we heard about Campanile’s “Friday Night Fights” concept just last week (though it has been in existence for some time), a theme night combining small plates of food with flights of wines from the restaurant’s list, we wondered if Campanile was trying to make itself over as a wine bar, even if for just one night a week. We decided to give it a go. And here’s what we found.

“Friday Night Flights” could be the single best wine-centric dining experience we’ve had in Los Angeles for some time. Three wine flights are offered, each costing $38. Each flight includes three decently sized pours of wine (2 to 3 ounces each) along with a food pairing for each wine. The two flights we selected were a Montefalco Rosso flight, and one called “Odds and Ends,” a mix of reds and whites from different parts of the world.

Regarding the food: though the plates were physically small, the portions were far from insubstantial. The quality of the food and its preparation were as high as any other time we’ve dined at Campanile. Whether a rustic fennel sausage paired with the Moraga Cabernet Sauvignon, or Peking-style crisp duck breast paired with the Milziade Antano ‘04 Montefalco Rosso, the flavors and presentation were outstanding. Overall, the offerings were rich, so having an un-super-sized portion was appropriate and appreciated.

Regarding the wine: Ummm, excuse us while we go teenage girl on you for a moment: OMG! OMG! OMG!

We felt all the wines were well-matched to their food pairings. The Montefalco Rossos included two pours from the same producer but different vintages, providing insight into the wine that many wine bars just don’t offer. The “Odds and Ends” flight contained a wine we carry in the store, but couldn’t taste before bringing in due to its scarcity and expense, the 2006 Didier Dageuneau Pouilly-Fumé Silex. This was easily the favorite of the night, and a wine that solidifed our feeling that though we may tend to gravitate more toward red wines, when we fall for a white, we fall hard.

As happy as we were drinking these wines, even more exciting to us were the economics of it all. As a retailer, one can easily be annoyed, discouraged, and even angered by restaurant mark-ups. This time, the opposite was true. We felt as if we’d been given a gift. The Silex retails for $105 a bottle on the low end (we charge a tad more…sorry!), and on a restaurant list could go for more than twice that (oddly, we couldn’t find the Silex on Campanile’s wine list, so we’re not sure what they’d be charging; it seemed to be special to the prix-fixe menu).

Suffice it to say, it’s mind-boggling to us that Campanile was willing to open up a bottle of wine they could easily charge $250 for, and pour it within a $38 prix-fixe menu that included two other wines and three plates of food. This would be a $50 by-the-glass wine, making our mere two ounces worth about $20. Plus, we also got to try a Lioco red blend we’d been meaning to check out, and the aforementioned Moraga Cab.

You’d be hard-pressed to find this kind of value, breadth and quality for $38 at any of the other wine bars around town — we’re thinking of Lou, Bottle Rock, Vinum Populi, to name a few — which tend to emphasize wine over food, and are fairly focused on their bottom line, for better or for worse (stemware can be sub-par, service can be spotty, and wines tend to be marked up slightly beyond what we consider to be fair).

We’d say the one place that is Campanile’s “Friday Night Flights” equal in every regard but price is AOC - we’ve simply never been able to leave AOC for less than $50 a head. Like Campanile, though, AOC falls more in the realm of a restaurant focused on wine than in the wine bar category. And this leads us to the following conclusion: having an entire restaurant’s wine list to draw from, proper stemware and a full-sized, top-notch kitchen, are all clearly advantages that leave LA’s smaller wine bars handicapped against wine-focused restaurants like AOC and Campanile.

Ultimately, we don’t think Campanile is trying to compete with or masquerade as something its not. We should note, the entire menu is also available to diners in addition to the prix-fixe options, and there seemed to be an equal mix of people drawing from both sections of the menu. But with the “Friday Night Lights” program, Campanile is creating a space that will be far more enduring than the current wine bar trend: an accessible dining experience for the wine-curious that includes top notch food, wine and service.

This may be a trend that hasn’t quite caught on yet, as the restaurant wasn’t filled to the brim with people. It was all very civilized, and certainly populated enough so as not to be depressing. But it would be nice to see a little more buzz and energy about the place. We hope that this concept picks up steam and gets the attention it deserves. We’ll certainly be going back, perhaps as soon as this Friday!

BTW, here are some pics from dinner:

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