Stumbling Upon Greatness: Fiddlehead Cafe

The other night, I joined my friends Jeff and Mike for dinner at one of my favorite BYOBs, Mediterranean Grill, in Lincoln Square. After dinner, Mike's wife Kristen decided she wanted to join us for a drink. As Mike, Jeff and I had already gone through both of the bottles of wine we'd purchased to accompany our meal, we decided to head to Fiddlehead Cafe across the street.

I was pleasantly surprised when we walked in. The place has a cute atmosphere that's more stylish than I'd expected. However, I was even more pleasantly surprised by their drinks list, their butternut squash soup and their service. Our server was fantastic. She was attentive without being overbearing, friendly and extremely knowledgeable. Best of all, she went above and beyond to ensure that we were having a great experience.

She brought us menus promptly after we sat down and to my delight, they have wine flights! And not "wine flights" poured from dusty bottles no one ever actually drinks, but real, interesting wine flights. One had a Chilean Cabernet and I remarked I'd never seen that before. The waitress volunteered to bring me a taste so that I could try it -- even after I decided to order another flight. I went with the "Jammy Reds," which I enjoyed very much and would highly recommend. I liked all three wines in the flight, which were true to their name and all big, jammy reds.

My favorite of the three happened to be the wine our server had cited as hers: the NV 2 Cocky Sisters Red Wine from Paso Robles, CA. That's right it's a blend -- a big honking blend of six (6!) different wines. (The breakdown is apparently 46% Counoise, 22% Syrah, 20% Grenache, 4% Viognier, 4% Cab Franc and 4% Petite Verdot.) What really matters though is that it's reminiscent of juicy black cherries, which are almost always my favorite base for a nice weeknight glass of wine. So much so that I decided to have a glass after I finished my flight. Highly recommend.

Sidenote: The Chilean Cabernet I sampled (thanks to our fab server) was also good. It's the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Agustinos Reserva, from Aconcagua, Chile and it's featured in the "South Americans" flight. I plan to try that flight the next time I'm there.

Jeff did the Unibroue Beer Flight... Mostly because they actually HAVE an Unibroue beer flight! Unibroue is one of my all-time favorite breweries and not something you see on just any beer list. I was extremely impressed by the presence of such greatness -- 3 different Unibroue beers at one time! -- and was not disappointed. (I mean, clearly Jeff knew I'd be sampling his order.)

Unibroue Ephemere is one of my favorite beers and it happened to be the first in the flight. Ephemere is a white ale that's brewed with apples, which makes it a great Fall beer, but it's not sweet like a cider, which makes it really interesting. The next beer is their Maudite, which is a red amber. Also delicious and well-balanced -- definitely a step up in hoppiness from the Ephemere. It makes for a great transition between the relatively mild-mannered Ephemere and the dark and stormy Chambly Noir, the third beer featured in the flight. The Chambly Noir is a rich black ale that has some coffee notes (though they're not overwhelming) and is deepened by rich toffee flavors. For the life of me, I can't remember what the carbonation factor was like on this beer, but I did really enjoy it.

It should be noted here, however, that Jeff also liked the 2 Cocky Sisters red from my wine flight so much that he ordered a glass of that following the Unibroue trio -- even though he liked all of the beers and in general is a beer freak.

Mike and Kristen both stuck to Daisy Cutter, which they love, and which as of circa a week ago, Fiddlehead still had. As we were discussing Kristen's hilarious pairing of Daisy Cutter and butternut squash soup, a true blend of the seasons so indicative of the in-between time of year that is early September, the waitress mentioned that they'd just gotten all of their pumpkin beer samples in that day and were trying to decide which to feature on their Fall beer list. Since they had some extra, we got to taste a couple of those, too. Just loved her. And their Fall beer list is going to be a-mazing.

Now I must make further mention of this butternut squash soup. It was deeeelicious. If I hadn't just eaten an entire BBQ chicken schwarma sandwich, I'd have ordered a big bowl after trying Kristen's. It was rich (just buttery enough) and filled with the flavors of Fall. Then it was topped off with a hint of Sriracha crema, which is like pairing fire and ice -- a complete contradiction in and of itself that works beautifully with the soup. Brilliant.

This place made me so happy. Fiddlehead Cafe appeals to beer geeks as much as it does wine geeks -- and especially to those of us who happen to love both equally! Plus, I absolutely cannot wait to try more of the food.

DEAL ALERT: All wine flights are $8 on Tuesdays. This is definitely a great value... I guess I'll be visiting on a Tuesday in the very near future!