Libertine — Restaurant in New York

I understand that the West Village is expensive and the restaurant business is a game of slim margins. However, it's unfortunate that one feels this so acutely when dining.

Dining at Libertine is slightly awkward and tense because at every turn they find a way to charge you slightly too much and give you slightly too little. To remedy this feeling of ill-will, the restaurant needs to figure out some low-cost ways of appearing generous to its patrons.

A major issue is the size of the wine glasses, which are comically small. Anyone buying wine by the glass is expecting around 1/4 of a bottle. It seems these glasses were chosen so that the restaurant can squeeze 6 glasses of wine out of 1 bottle. Being stingy with wine is not a good way to establish goodwill with a guest. We ordered wine by the glass, and then when we saw the pours, we bit the bullet and bought a bottle. If someone orders a glass of a particular wine, and then says never mind I'll take a bottle of that same wine, it is standard practice to comp the glass. This was not done for us, which came across very cheap.

Equally bad was charging $38 for 3 pommes dauphine (fried dough balls smaller than a donut hole). That price point is nothing short of deranged. Fried potato balls are an easy way to be generous to the guest at a very low cost to the restaurant. Scrap the caviar garnish if you need to, and bring out a mountain of those suckers.

You get the end of your meal at Libertine feeling like you've been shaken down for your last penny and you're still a little hungry. Saying no to the dessert menu was easy, not because I was stuffed, but because I didn't want to feel swindled again.

What's so tragic about all this is that the food at Libertine is delicious, and the service, location, and vibe were good as well. If they could figure out how to deliver value for money and the feeling of being treated generously, this would be a...

First time visiting Libertine - pretty phenomenal across the board.

Food: We dined as a 6-top. Ordered literally the entire menu (plus doubles of the scallop and sausage). Not a clunker in the bunch. Especially transfixed by the oeufs mayonaisse, the cold lobster parcel, and the duck breast au poivre. Oh, and of course the sausage, atop pommes puree that might be more butter than pomme (in a good way!) and a super concentrated chicken jus. All absolutely delicious, nice to look at, and appropriate portions (small, not dainty).

Wine: List is fairly reasonably priced all things considered (I'm looking at you, Torrisi), with a focus on the more seasoned / elegant / classical side of low-intervention winemaking. (Read: almost none of the volatile, mousy, nattie juice some of the kids are drinking these days). This is a good thing! The list is pretty curated, and not over-long. And Cody (somm / owner) was patient and thoughtful with his suggestions. Definitely pick his brain if he's around... thanks to him, we drank VERY well. Some real hard to find gems on this list.

Service: In a word... effortless. Service is one of the hardest jobs in NYC and our man Dominic absolutely smashed it. Friendly, helpful, there when we needed him. After 4 bottles and more than a few cocktails, it was a crowded and chaotic table, but he kept us hydrated and organized. Some macvin minis in rad glassware to finish us up, and we have a new best friend. Having seen service gone awry in a few different restaurants recently, seeing it done right at Libertine makes you realize how much it positively impacts the meal.

In short: go to Libertine. Go...

While our food was excellent and the service also excellent, two small details linger: The cost and portion of the bread for five people and the olive(s) for one martini. My wife asked for three olives when she ordered her drink - always does and always gets the three olives. The server dutifully heard and acknowledged her order and when the drink was delivered it had only one olive in it. My wife pointed this out and the drink server said he'd have to go back and ask. With some hesitation in his verbal response about this he did return with two more olives saying that the owners customarily only allow (my words, not his) one olive because they are very expensive and are from Spain but because the owners were not present they were doing this as a favor. The bill refleced your charge for $1.00 per olive totalling $2.00. If you are going to charge $1.00 per olive because you guys think your martinis should only have one, then do the right thing and train you staff to inform the customer of such a policy. Also, train your staff to not inform us that they are doing this because you are not present to terrorize them. Your establishment charged us so you earned your return on the olive (and the favor for doing so).

I know you might consider this petty and annoying but whatever you might think of it you did not experience it. It did not have to happen but you did make it happenb. In the natter of a $627.00 meal it is surprising how your $2.00 sur-charge for olives can taint an evening. Oh, and I just remembered while I looked at the bill, the server also said that instead of four anchovies we were given an extra because our...