Flute Gramercy

Flute Gramercy
40 E 20th St
New York, NY 10003

1/13/2011

There are several classic parings with Champagne: Champagne and caviar. Champagne and eggs. Champagne and smoked salmon.

Champagne and a loud, obnoxious DJ set isn't one of them.

To start out optimistically, the high point of the evening was the NV Piper-Heidseck Monopole Brut, one of my favorite champagnes for under $30, retailing here at the bargain price of $15/glass.

However, I will freely admit that I probably chose the wrong day and time to stop by Flute Gramercy, but it's hard to enjoy sipping something delicate and bubbly when you have to sign like Helen Keller to communicate with the person sitting five feet from you.

On a city block with wine-centric Veritas, cosmopolitan Mari Vanna, and perennial classic Gramercy Tavern, Flute Gramercy sticks out like that kid in your freshman year dorm that tries to hard to be cool. The decor did not strike me as sheik, but as delightfully tacky. Red, plush couches evoked swanky strip club rather than sophisticated boite. Old bottles of champagne lined the ceiling shelves like empty forties in a frat house living room. And reproductions of French travel posters plaster the walls like your old dorm room college poster "Beer: Helping White Guys Dance Since 1842." (Although to Flute Gramercy's credit, the display case with the empty magnums, jeroboams, and methuselahs.

Would I take a date here? Absolutely not. There are swankier and more sophisticated joints in this neighborhood.