Happy hour, and how to eat it
Ten-dollar cocktails, house wine two for one, and eight plates that came off the real kitchen. How to spend the hours between four and six.
Happy hour runs from four to six, Tuesday through Saturday, and all day Sunday. You do not need a reservation and you do not need a plan. Sit at the bar.
The drinks are the easy part
Every cocktail on the happy hour list is ten dollars: a Negroni, an Aperol spritz, an espresso martini, a Kentucky mule, a blueberry collins, and the Sunset on Main, which is ours. Beer is five. The house wine is two for one, which is the best-value line on anything we print, and we are aware of it.
The food is the surprise
Most happy hour menus are a defensive maneuver, something fried in a basket to keep you drinking. Ours is eight plates and they come off the same kitchen as dinner.
The meatballs are the real ones, veal and beef and pork and lamb, slow-cooked in San Marzano tomato sauce and finished with reggiano. The strozzapreti come in the smoked version, with pancetta, chili, parmigiano and smoked provola. There is burrata with prosciutto di Parma, arugula and toasted bread. There is a focaccia with rosemary, zucchini and cherry tomato. There are zucchini strings with lemon garlic aioli, pasta chips under tomato bruschetta, wings with your choice of sauce, and a Calabrese bread roll: spicy soppressata rolled into dough and baked with tomato sauce and parmigiano reggiano.
How to do it properly
Two people, four plates, four drinks, and you have had dinner without calling it dinner. Three or more, add the bread roll and the burrata to the middle of the bar and let everybody reach.
Then, if the evening is behaving itself, move to a table and start again.
