Can there be such a thing as too many wine bars? The West Village will one day find out, but until then, its residents welcome Entwine, a neighborhoody nook at 765 Washington Street (near 12th St.) that has been open for a couple of weeks but is now officially open. Entwine occupies the previously fallow ICU space (and before it was fallow it was just sort of smelly), and you can see the work the new tenants put into the space. Tin ceilings and charmingly distressed (as opposed to disgustingly distressed) furnishings fit right in with the curated, but not overly fussy cocktail list.
Which brings us to one of the things about Entwine. Despite having a play on wine in it's name (a la Brooklyn's Donna De Vine and so many others) it is not strictly a wine bar. In fact it might be better suited for the beer and drinks it pours. The by-the-glass wine list is nearly 20 strong, but not extraordinary. You know what is? A drink called the Monkey Gland (a mixture of gin, absinthe, orange juice and grenadine) that's on the menu. There is also a fully serviceable take on the Old Fashioned with the less exciting name of Rustic Elegance (but after the moniker Monkey Gland, everything sort of pales by comparison) an classic Gosling's Black Seal Dark & Stormy and a mojito with proseco fizzing up the rum instead of soda.
But it's in wine bar territory, that's for sure. The Mediterranean small plates make it so. Then there's the cheese, prompting one woman at the bar to say, and perhaps this was meant philosophically, "There's only so much cheese you can eat." It was a nice way of pointing out that the West Village is lousy with cheese plates. But then she conceded, "It's just nice to have a quiet place to sit and have a glass of wine in my neighborhood." This is right next to Tortilla Flats mind you, so quiet is relative here.
