Metro Café & Wine Bar

This was a lunch favorite for me and my colleagues. Whether it was a casual outing with 1 or 2 colleagues, birthday lunch or a 15 person team lunch. The food offerings were predominantly American with a splash of Asian and had a variety of things to suit everyone’s taste. Turkey burgers, crab cakes, salads (goat cheese salad being my personal favorite), sandwiches, pasta, stir fries all in generous portions. even dim sum! — which I admit wasn’t bad at all. Prices were non-​offensive for a sit down lunch. Wine was affordable if you wanted one by the glass and you never had to wait too long for your food.
Metro Café was one of the more affordable yet delicious sit-​down lunch options in the area. I had totally forgotten about this place until last week and mentioned to some coworkers we should come by some time.
Unfortunately I read today on Eater that Metro is now closed. Such a loss in an area where your choice for lunch is either an expensive fancy pants place, mediocre, overpriced, gimmicky food or bad-​for-​you fast food.

Only 2 stars because…
— less than impressive décor
— some flights that were offered on menu were not available
— food was overly seasoned — so salty I couldn’t eat it (they offered another entrée but I declined. Ultimately, they didn’t charge me for the meal.)
I guess I give them the two stars because the waitress was quite attentive and apologetic. Otherwise, I would have given them a lower rating.

Went here with my girlfriends after work and had a nice time. We all had white wine flights and they were pretty good. I was surprised at how good my dinner was (little sesame chicken poppers and penne a la vodka).
Good location and a really nice set up/​ambiance.

The stars — for the wine. The wine flights were fabulous. Such great argentinean wine. As good as what I tried in Argentina.
Nice atmosphere and friendly service.
It’s a fun place to try — for experiencing different wines.
The food is a different story, although all we ordered was: chicken satay, the cheese and fruit plate and hummus. Wouldn’t order the food here again. Food maybe 2 stars.
have a fave wine and cheese place that I always go to (Casellula) but I’ll try this place a couple more times to compare. Let’s just hope I remember to.

I organized a meetup event here.
Pros:
— Large room in the back for at least 20 people — private room all to ourselves
— Service was on point, though the food took some time
— Loved the Argentinian wine and veggie patty burger no carb style
— Lots of options for wines (and flights) and food!
— Moderately priced
Cons:
— Apparently their pasta wasn’t as good or «Fresh»
— Cheese platter wasn’t as enticing as I wanted it to be
I will definitely be returning as the spot is great to catch up with friends.

Had the wine flight there. SO GOOD! But then again, I just love wine :)
It’s the perfect place to hang out with your girls for a wine night. Food there is OK, nothing to get overly excited about. It’s got an Asian twist to it.
Maybe I’ll try the cheese plate next time to go with my wine :) I do have a fave wine and cheese place that I always go to (Casellula) but I’ll try this place a couple more times to compare. Let’s just hope I remember to.

the other day, i was making my daily salad in our company kitchen, when my co-​worker started making fun of me … turns out that i measured out one spoonful of raspberry dressing before mixing everything together.
yes, i get it, people — i’m (kinda) type A. i’m a creature of habit. so sue me for liking my routine.
buuut, know WHO appreciates my schedule-​loving nature? *crickets* don’t be shy … that’s you, metro!
located in the perfect location right across my office, MC’s got their own american-​come-​chinese kinda menu which features some mean red-​white-​and-​blue classics such as mac n’ cheese and sweet potato fries along with a little dim sum to appease the yellow in all of us. order yourself a little shumai and white pizza, and you’ve got yourself a happy meal.
when i’m working late (oh dear lord, that’s alot), they know that aimee o at 212.XXX.XXXX will call looking for a goat cheese salad with chicken — chopped up, please — and expect it to be at her door in about 15 minutes. yo, MC — that’s why you’ve got my info on-​file. now, my Unilocalies, don’t go getting any ideas…
as for everyone else — man, it looks like some peeps drunk some hateorade before they wrote these reviews … where’s the love, Unilocal?!wait, i forget who i’m talking to … carry on.

Call me a jets etter because I love me a wine flight… and two for one makes it more fun.
I went to Metro Café with a group for a dinner. They have a great private room in the back that can be reserved. To start I had the Latin wine flight. It’s great if you like a lot of rich berry flavors and smokiness to your wine. For dinner I ordered a buffalo burger with blue cheese and fries. There were a lot of other dishes that looked good, like the clams with linguine or steamed salmon, but I wanted grease. The burger was a great size and cooked to order. I loved the fries. One of my groupmates ordered the beef stew and claimed it was rather tasty. To finish the meal I ordered a sauvignon blanc wine flight. It was a great wine selection as well. Not as good as the Latin one though.
Would definitely come back here if I’m in the mood for wine, as the two for one flights on Monday and Tuesday nights make a great way to sample eight different wines on the cheap.

I had a great time here having after-​work drinks at the bar.
We ordered a wine flight each, which are reasonably price at about $ 15-​$ 22 for a tasting of 4 different wines. They are categorized by type so you can easily choose a flight to try.
The bartender gave us our flights on flight-​specific placemats marked with 1, 2, 3 and 4. We also received cards that gave info on the nose and palate of each wine.
While having a wonderful time just sipping on wine, my companion and I could not help but notice our bar neighbor’s chicken dish. The half roasted chicken entrée was reasonably priced at $ 13 and came served with mashed potatoes and spinach. I’m not usually a fan of poultry, but I enjoyed my meal.
All in all, it was a great place to hit up after work. Not sure if I would come late-​night or on a weekend, but it was a great destination for the time we went.

Kobe burger, my ASS.*
OK, let’s pretend that actually WAS Kobe beef. You still need to put some salt and pepper on it! It won’t magically taste amazing if you throw an unseasoned hunk of meat on the grill, just because you dropped some extra loot on quality beef.
The fries were good though. Surprisingly, so were the roast pork lettuce cups. On the other hand, the vegetable dumplings were horrendous. They were also served with chopsticks for everyone at the table, as if to illustrate how out of place dim sum is at a place called Metro Café & Wine Bar.
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*I wanted to leave the review at that, but it seems insufficient.

metro café has been an old favorite… ambitious and expansive selection of wine (on tap!) it used to be my go-​to place to order in lunch… nice sized portions, delicious vegetarian options and fabulous ambiance.
it can be somewhat «pretentious» on it’s off days but that is a rare occurrence…
i guess what i’m trying to say is. i’m the loyal type and because i loved this place the first five times i went there. i love this place. from lunches, late dinners to drinks and dates… metro café has a place!
p. s. do one of the wine flights. it’s worth it!

I stumbled across this place three New Years Eves ago when I was wandering around with some girlfriends for a place to eat a late dinner before our party. Since then, I’ve been back several times. My favorites are the steaks and burgers. The dim sum are good but overpriced; you’ll find the same thing in Chinatown with better quality and at lower prices.

I kind of want to give this place 3 stars for the wine list, but the service is terrible. I specifically asked if we had table service when we moved to the big table in front (which was excellent for our large group – we expanded to 12 towards the end of the evening) cuz I was in need of some drinkage. I was *just about* to get up and find a manager when the bartender realized that maybe the 4 of us who had arrived first might actually want a f’g drink.
We stayed a long time, since it was a great location for our pre-​karoake adventure and we were drinking bottle after bottle of wine. The snacky foods we ordered were uninspired – the kind of appys I would expect from an Applebee’s. You expect great greasy mediocrity at Applebee’s tempered by foofy goofy drinks. Not here, at these prices.

Talk about a sweet wine spot. I went here for dinner one night and wasn’t really sure what to expect. From the outside, the place looks small and unassuming. Once you walk in, wow, check out the bar to the right! Holy taps batman! This is such a perfect spot for the following: first date, second date, third date, any date, night out with the girls, business dinner, dinner with the parents… well, you get the idea.
The selection of wine flights was fabulous. I tried a few different kinds of wine, and mixed it up instead of ordering the preselected flights (which is perfect for the non-​connoisseur of wine). The wine is then put down in the order in which you selected… to keep track of what you’re drinking.
Oh yes, I also ate dinner here. Don’t remember much about the food, as I was enjoying the wine selections and the company. I plan to come back here fo sho!

Let me ask you a hard Q: Where do you go when you want to sit down in peace, have some wine (and maybe even dinner) while reading a book?
You might say there’s lots of places to carry out that endeavor, but I beg to differ; engaging in a hour long reading session in any other wine bar (Housing Works is a bookstore so it doesn’t count, and don’t even say Think Coffee please) seems out of place, and you would be getting looks (and visits) from your waiter, anxious for you to settle the tab. Not in Metro Café & Wine Bar.
Come in the afternoon with you «Anna Karenina» or «Against the Day» and prepare to relax. A quaint touch receives you, with Parisian airs and high ceilings. Walk towards the back, there you’ll see a perfect bivouac of a sitting space to your left, or feel free to sit on the padded spaces all around you. Now breathe. You want a glass of Riesling don’t you? Well, a ’97 Dorsheimer Goldloch is what you’ll get, now open your page and start reading. Peace.
Now, with that said, Metro Café & Wine Bar is also a perfect place to come with friends for an expanded dinner, or for a casual date or business lunch. The salmon and avocado tartar crostini is delicious, but the BEST app. they have in my opinion is the Kobe Beef spring rolls in red pepper sauce and mustard. They are so exquisite I recommend you to order two portions instead of just one. For mains I recommend the grilled tuna and the chicken francaise.
Another super plus is that they have a large selection of Dim Sum, and this may be the only place around the vicinity where you can get your Dim Sum fix in the morning without venturing to Chinatown.
So let me ask you another Q: What’s wrong with being called Metro huh? As far as I’m concerned, that has to be a compliment.

I’ve been here twice now, almost a year apart, and each time this place has been absolutely perfect.
One of the best things about Metro is their wine flutes which means they give you four glasses (of about 2 oz each) of different kinds of wine, letting you sample a bunch of different options (which is great for people like me who really don’t know that much about wine).
Combined with dinner, it provided the perfect dinner for my date and I on a Saturday night. We got in about 10:15 and there was plenty of seating, but not so much that I felt as if we were keeping the wait staff there well passed when they wanted to go home.
The server was nice and attentive and gave us a good tour of the wine menu, helping me and my date pick out the kind of wines that would best fit our palate. The food was good (the mac and cheese especially so) and not super-​overpriced like you might expect from a place of this nature.
All in all, an excellent date restaurant and a good place to take out of town guests if you want to impress them.

I’m a sucker for consistency … if you looked up consistency in Webster’s you could find a picture of this place.
It’s my neighborhood standby for terrific casual fare, that’s reasonable with good service, and (everyone seems to notice this) immaculately clean bathrooms (not my #1 priority but an added bonus).
Highlights:
— Tons of wine by the glass… even basically shots by the glass since you can build your own «flight»
— Hamburgers are truly amazing… you can go non-​carb which gets you a mesclun salad. You need not go all out on kobe… the regular burger is truly delicious.
— a nice selection on beers on tap
— the menu is very VERY eclectic… dimsum that’s fine, chicken satay that’s excellent, pizza that’s quite good, as is the guac.
— the staff is very courteous, they care and they’re pleasant
— lastly, everything is well seasoned without over-​using garlic as a crutch
The ambience is nice — — with high ceilings… there’s a 2^nd floor but I prefer downstairs. The front has three high tops that are especially fun for a group.
NB: there’s a coupon for 10% on their site good during Sun-​Wed

I noticed Metro Café when I was at The Pump across the street (one of my other reviews) and thought, «Yay! Wine bar!» A few weeks later, I stepped inside with a friend to see what it was all about.
Metro Café & Wine Bar is a classy but minimalist restaurant/​bar. I went at 5:30pm on a Thursday and it was easy to get a seat at the bar or at a table for food. Note: They have no happy hour specials, which was a bummer.
Wine selection is gigantic and you can order most wines in 2oz, 6oz or bottle. Prices are reasonable and range from $ 3 for a 2oz up to a few hundred for an expensive bottle.
This may be a wine bar, but their on-​tap and bottled beer selection is more than enough. Food wise, my friend had the garden burger with a mustard aioli and she said it was delicious. She eats a lot of garden burgers so I suppose she would know!
Very chill, quiet place to catch up with friends. I’ll definitely be back.

I ran across this place on a random walk around the neighborhood. I usually stay in the Gramercy/​Union Square area and for some reason had never seen this place before. So, as is my style, I drug some co-​workers here for a mid-​week dinner.
I like the whole idea of wine flights. It’s brilliant, really. Five small glasses of wine to sip, to decide which ones you like, maybe buy a bottle or just another full glass… or better yet, another whole flight! I stuck with whites. First Californian, and then the French. All were decent, some better than others.
All of my dining companions had steak. Some weren’t really cooked the way they were ordered. A little overdone on one and under on the other. My salmon, on the other hand was well cooked and I really liked the burre blanc with it. But the rest of the food was pretty unremarkable. The spinach dip was not very good if you ask me, I’ve had much better. Stick with the salmon or the pasta.
Service was amiable and quick and they didnt’ get mad that we hogged the table for 5 hours. No joke. We just kept ordering wine and stayed put. Ambiance here is little to none. It was pretty loud, sort of like a cafeteria… and there was no music. However, I did like the décor – modern and clean.
All in all, this is a great after work spot but probably not a place I called a «destination spot.»

Hadn’t been back to Metro Café in like 5 years, but was nice to find out that it was as good of a spot as I had remembered. Was rather quiet on a Sunday evening (perhaps too quiet) but overall, it worked very well to catch up with a friend.
The main attraction is the wine, and here it doesn’t disappoint with a rather expansive selection of reds and whites from across the US and rest of the world. Great variety of price points too. You can do tastes, glasses, flights or bottles, and the wine list apparently changes often (which can be good or bad, depending on your view).
We ended up ordering food after having a few glasses — somewhat mixed results. The fruit and cheese was the big winner, with the spinach and artichoke dip and crab cakes being so-​so. Service though was great (we sat at the bar) and I liked the fact that we weren’t asked to leave even though we were like the last ones to leave …
My overall take — a low key but excellent choice to meet over a glass of wine …