Stringers Sorrento

Stringers operates as a wine bar first and a restaurant second, the list leads, and the kitchen builds around it. The natural and minimal-intervention wine selection is the kind of list that repays time spent with it: there are bottles here you won't find in most suburban wine bars, and the staff know what they're pouring. The food follows the same logic: raw bar selections, cured kingfish, grilled octopus, mostly cold preparations and technique-forward small plates designed to work alongside what's in your glass.

The room is narrow and atmospheric, the kind of space that works better with two or four than with a party of eight. It suits late lunch when the light is coming through the front, or early dinner before the Sorrento evening crowd arrives. Neither is a mistake.

Come without an agenda, order a few plates, pick a bottle from the lower half of the list, and walk back along Sorrento's main strip when you're done.