The food is good at Fox, the service near excellent and the urban-industrial interiors as slick as anything in Soho or East London. The 17-dish starter menu includes shareable small plates such as salmon skewers ($4.9), Ricotta cheese balls ($4) and grilled Spanish sausage ($6). Soups, salads, pastas and mains fill out the rest of the board. Service is snappish, the staff friendly. The cement-and-exposed-metal décor, complete with oak caskets and an above-ground wine cellar, affects a culinary swagger somewhere between classic French vineyard and upper-crust vino lounge. Yet as near-outstanding as the dining experience may be, the vino lounge remains the raison d’etre of Fox, whose wine list stretches to near-triple digits (and the prices most certainly do). The cheap stuff – Anakena Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile – registers just $19 a bottle. But there are dozens of other choices north of $100, with the 2007 Chateau Lynch Bages from France topping the list at $280. No one ever said being foxy was cheap.
Fox Wine Bar & Bistro, 104 Sothearos Blvd; 090 625656.
