“Tell me about the risotto dish,” La Reprise owner Ari Sadri prompted customer Steve Pace. The Burlington resident had stopped by Sadri’s new South End wine shop, market and wine bar on a recent Friday for wine to serve dinner guests that evening, and Sadri was asking him questions to help guide the choices.
Sadri stepped Pace through five options in the $20 to $45 price range: from a northern Piedmontese nebbiolo blend “with bright red cherry notes and a touch of violet” to a French gamay grown in stony soil that “reminds me of the Beaujolais I fell in love with working in French bistros.”
It was the first time Pace had been back in the space since La Reprise opened in June in the now-defunct Dedalus wine group’s flagship store on Pine Street.
“This is a really beautiful building and a beautiful spot,” Pace said, nodding to the brick-walled shop and the glass-enclosed wine bar. “I’m really happy to have something back here.”
Sadri, 58, managed the Burlington Dedalus for its final few months and is also really happy to be back. This time around, he is hosting like it’s his own place — because it is. He bustles around offering advice in the store and the wine bar, making sure no glass remains unfilled. Sadri jokes that he has wine radar: “I can be on the other side of the building and sense when somebody’s glass is going empty,” he said.
The affable, bearded wine nerd started his hospitality career mopping floors for free for the chance to bus tables at a Princeton, N.J., pioneer of new American cuisine called the American Diner. In Vermont, he spent a total of 26 years at a pair of high-profile destinations, working his way up to general manager at Warren’s Pitcher Inn before becoming inn and hospitality director at the Shelburne Farms Inn.
La Reprise marks Sadri’s first ownership role. It is both thrilling and a big responsibility, he said. The seasoned professional recognized that Dedalus had done a lot right; he had no intention of fixing what wasn’t broken even as he planned to add his own subtle stamp.
Customers who miss the new sign over the door might be forgiven for thinking Dedalus has reopened. The wine bar, store and market look much the same, with a gallery of charmingly illustrated tinned fish on the shelves and mostly European cured meats and cheeses in the coolers.
“At its very best, few wine and food retailers did it better than Dedalus,” Sadri said, listing the deep wine selection and store layout, staff and customer education, and the wine bar’s menu and ambience.
The music conservatory dropout (he sang baritone) chose the new name with that in mind. In music, the French word reprise means “a restatement of an original theme with embellishments and changes,” Sadri explained.
During my second visit this summer to La Reprise’s wine bar, the grilled octopus ($38), with an earthy romesco sauce and sweet corn relish, and slurpable tangle of housemade pappardelle ($30) with tomatoes, herbed ricotta and mushrooms were fraternal twins to octopus and pasta dishes that my husband and I shared last September during what would turn out to be our final Dedalus meal.
At that time, I wondered aloud, “Why don’t we pop into this place more often?” A few weeks later, Dedalus closed for good.
Now I have a second chance to become a regular, drawn by both wine and food.
Sadri has kept what he believes worked at Dedalus, which included rehiring some key team members: chef Brian Popov (hence the menu déjà vu), wine bar general manager Anthony Saltmarsh and market manager Elijah Taylor, plus two wine bar staffers, Grace Walter and Dawson Engstrom.
He emphasized one major difference in his approach from that of Dedalus, which grew to four locations including one in Boulder, Colo., plus a sister Pine Street restaurant and listening bar, Paradiso Hi-Fi. “I’m not interested in growing beyond this footprint,” he said.
Popov, 32, cooked for four years under chef Steve Atkins, co-owner of the original Kitchen Table Bistro in Richmond. That mentorship shows in his on-point, restrained execution of European-accented dishes, such as a crunchy gem lettuce salad ($17) with radishes, shaved Gruyère and red wine vinaigrette; and bucatini ($28) with tomato, basil and creamy burrata. I was tickled to learn that the memorable wedge of buttermilk-braised cabbage ($25) with tomatoey lentils, crème fraiche and dill was the brainchild of La Reprise cook Gabe Atkins, the 23-year-old son of Steve and his wife, Lara, who was Kitchen Table Bistro’s pastry chef and co-owner.
Over the two meals I’ve enjoyed so far at La Reprise wine bar, friendly, knowledgeable staff advised us on wine to pair with our food. Another evening at the seasonal wine garden out front, the cook taking orders — and grilling much of the food — ably guided us through the shorter “garden wines” list to go with a spread of chicken, shrimp and veggie skewers (all $12) and salads (from $13).
During an early August wine bar meal for two, Sadri suggested we start with the Domaine Roger Neveu Sancerre ($11 for 3 ounces) and the Sainte Magdeleine rosé ($12 for 3 ounces) to accompany our shared appetizers: a mustardy, caper-and-shallot-flecked beef tartare ($18) and thick slab of soft white toast topped with garlic aioli, juicy tomato pulp and ripples of jamon serrano ($15). The latter is an epic mashup of Spanish-style pan con tomate and the midsummer dream tomato-and-mayo sandwich. I advise you not to share.
Both wines set the meal off on a perfect seasonal arc. Though I had told Sadri that I avoid sauvignon blanc because it often hits my palate like a compost pile of grapefruit pith, green tomatoes and grass, he encouraged me to give the Sancerre a try. He was right; it bloomed tropical and fully ripe with passion fruit and guava.
Swinging back through to see how we were doing, Sadri was clearly tickled that he had fractured my wine prejudice. “At the end of the day, the goal is to turn people on to new things,” he told me later.
For that reason, even though the wine bar menu does not detail this option, servers are happy to pour a 3-ounce glass for a few dollars less than the listed 5-ounce serving. To further encourage customers to experiment both in the wine bar and the shop, Sadri has doubled down on more affordable bottles. Sure, you can buy a 2017 Poderi Aldo Conterno Barolo Bussia for $365, but you can also pick up one of Sadri’s summer faves: a bright, minerally coastal Provençal for $32 or a refreshing Spanish albariño and godello blend for $12.
Sadri is also expanding La Reprise’s list of half bottles and launching three wine club tiers on Thursday, August 21, at the wine bar’s weekly free tasting. La Reprise will honor the remaining value of prepaid Dedalus wine club memberships at a loss in hopes that those customers continue at the new shop.
“I want to be the place that you come to for a special bottle, but it’s more important to me that I’m a place you come to put a bottle on the dinner table Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday…,” Sadri said. “Well, in a perfect world, it would be both,” he added with a chuckle.
Like Burlington’s other recently opened wine bars, Wilder Wines and Bar Renée, La Reprise favors small vintners making wine from organic grapes with minimal manipulation and additives, such as commercial yeasts or added sulfur as a preservative. The resulting “natural” wines run the gamut but can get pretty funky and unpredictable. Some people love that end of the spectrum; others, not so much.
When it comes to natural wines, Sadri said he likes them “funkier than James Taylor, but not to James Brown.”
Sadri considers himself more of a traditionalist. By way of example, he said, “Sancerre rouge should be an expression of pinot noir in the appellation of Sancerre in a particular year.” If the winemaking approach permits volatile acidity or the wild yeast Brettanomyces to go unchecked, the off-flavors “can get in the way of that expression,” Sadri said. “That tends not to be a wine that I gravitate towards.”
Across three meals, a multiage mix of dining companions and I found plenty of wine to gravitate towards.
In the wine garden, a chilled Cleto Chiarli lambrusco ($11 per glass; $44 per bottle) wove juicy notes of strawberry and red currant into a sweet-tart sparkler the same shade as the evening’s glorious sunset.
In the wine bar, a silky Thevenet & Fils Clos de l’Ermitage Chardonnay ($14 per glass; $62 per bottle) underscored the buttery richness of a halibut fillet ($43) with grilled zucchini, crisp fingerling potatoes and a punchy green herb sauce.
For dessert that night, Sadri suggested a honeyed Royal Tokaji, Red Label ($16 per glass; $105 per bottle) to sip between spoonfuls of silken chocolate pot de crème ($12), crunchy with candied hazelnuts and sea salt.
It all bears repeating, but most likely on my next visit I’ll do as Sadri advises and try something new.