Matchmaker
Pair The Ten Bells’s $1.25 oysters with a crisp Muscadet
With the “r”-less months (May-August) behind us, oysters are now in season. Our favorite new place to load up on bivalves is The Ten Bells, a Lower East Side wine bar opened by the French folks behind nearby Le Père Pinard and Les Enfants Terribles.
The Ten Bells is named after the London pub where Jack the Ripper supposedly stalked his victims, but the only slashing happening here is on price: Every day from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., oysters are $1.25 a slurp and represent the best the Atlantic waters have to offer (Oyster Creek, Salutation Cove and Peconic Bay oysters are currently on the menu). Order a dozen with a bottle from the bar′s chalkboard list of all-organic wines; add a jar of eggplant caviar ($5)—an addictive crostini spread made from roasted eggplant—and you're set.
The staff prides itself on its wine-pairing abilities, and our favorite oyster-friendly bottle is the Domaine de la Louvetrie Muscadet Amphibolite 2007 ($8 a glass, $40 a bottle), a crackling-crisp Loire Valley white. Made from grapes grown near France′s Atlantic Coast, this citrusy, mineral-laden wine smells just enough like the ocean (really, it does) to remind us that although fall and oysters are here, our summer memories haven′t faded yet.
The Ten Bells, 247 Broome St.; 212-228-4450 or thetenbells.com
