Le Vin Coeur

Jerome Mathieu and Massire Sissoko built out this Upper West Side room themselves, without a designer, working from savings rather than a loan: parquet floors, a wood-paneled bar and a mural painted to look like a wine cave, with mirrors etched with the day's menu. Every bottle on the list is French, and Sissoko, previously of Vin sur Vingt, keeps pushing Languedoc reds like Pic Saint-Loup that he thinks get overlooked. Food stays deliberately short, eggs mayonnaise, a Beaufort mac and cheese, hand-cut tartare, so the kitchen can cook everything fresh daily. There's no reservation line, just a walk-in bar and a smaller room booked out for private parties.