Bern's tips

Hey all, finally making a pilgrimage to Bern’s this week after having read about it for many years. Anyone been recently? Tips or other tidbits you would suggest?

Going with good buddies who don’t care as much about wine, but will happily drink what I order. I am hoping to find some weird old stuff if there are still deals on that stuff.

Thanks!

Weird old stuff at the bar BTG. Prices in the list are up there. Request Brad for your Somm and tell him what you’re looking for along with a budget. He’ll take care of you. Last time I was there I asked for aged Cali Cab, Alexander Valley and he came up with some treats.

It really depends on your budget. I know you probably don’t want to hear this but as someone that has gone there over 50x skip the old, weird and cheap. There is a reason they are still on the list for those prices. You definitely can find a couple of interesting things if you go through several bottles however I have found it better to focus on quality over quantity. You will spend your entire night picking bottles and going through mediocre one after mediocre one trying to find good ones. Come up with a wine budget and ask the somm to pick for you with some direction. The strength of the list is the old Bordeaux and the occasional Cali or Rhone. Burgundy is extremely picked over. They still have over 1 mm bottles and the somms know the list well. Hope that helps. Report back.

And be careful with ordering appetizers. The steaks come with soup, salad, baked potato and the meal typically last a couple hours. If you order a lot of appetizers, by the time your steak arrives, you are already full

Thank you Brian and Robert!

Reporting back…

Overall takeaway – atmosphere was as unique as expected, food was better than expected, wine was great. I went on a Thursday night and it was a zoo. They are crushing it.

In terms of wine, the advice to give the somm budget guidance and let them roll was good… but I would encourage someone to spend 10 minutes mining through less expensive options to try out 1-2 of those. The newer wines and trophy wines are reasonably priced by wine list standards, but not cheap at all. There are other restaurants around the country that can match that concept – great bottles of wine at reasonable mark-ups. There are still a few older wines that are very cheap and it is worth taking a flyer on some of them. It paid off for us. If I was going back (with a party of 4 and a long meal), I would have given him my budget for two bottles of wine and then hunted myself for another 2-3 bottles I wanted to try.

Here is what we tried – I didn’t take detailed notes so these are more generalizations:

1994 Joseph Drouhin Chassagne Montrachet - nice butterscotch and tropical fruit nose. Slight oxidation but not a problem. Not super long finish but enough acidity to enjoy.
1996 Bussia Soprana Barolo Mosconi - high acid, vibrant red fruit and floral nose, classic Barolo from that time period. I enjoyed. Good example however of pretty high markup ($285 on list) – probably could find this on Winebid or something for a lot less.
1978 Messire Louis Revol Crozes Hermitage - wanted a birth year wine and had not tried a lot of 1978 Northern Rhone wines, so this was an easy choice even if it was Crozes. Really enjoyed it. Earthy and spicy, with plenty of fruit to support… though mostly dried red fruit at this point.
1983 A Ropiteau Mignon Monthelie Clos des Champs-Fulliot - dried red berries, nice balance of acidity and fruit. Would have liked to drink with food instead of drinking it at the end, but still a fun wine to find.

Glad it worked out well!

Berns is awesome.
Ask for a tour of the wine cellar (not sure if they offer it by default). Also check out the dessert room when you are finished.
+1 on not getting any appetizers.

My last time there I wasn’t nearly as in to wine and someone in my party who was treated us to a 1907 Leoville Las Cases. We then opened up wikipedia under the 1907 entry and talked about all of the things that were going on in the world during that harvest year. Super fun for a non-wine-nerd.