The Four Horsemen

Any delivery of booze will be with you, ready to pour, in sixty minutes or less. Given that we seem to spend half our lives waiting in socially distant lines these days, Drizly’s expedient promise is an alluring one. Several of our colleagues swear by their (very) regular deliveries of wine from local-to-them stores in NYC and LA. Hop on the app and lose an hour scrolling through the bulging lists of your favorite neighborhood spots. It almost feels like going out. Almost.

Helen’s lore goes something like this: Sommelier Helen Johannesen started with a tiny, small-producer-forward wine store tucked in the back of Fairfax staple Jon & Vinny’s. Popularity exploded, a wine club was born, and a second location opened in Brentwood. If you’re not already a member of Helen’s Wine Club, now is a great time to join. We look forward to our delivery of limited production wines with handy tasting cards to help expand our palate every month. Otherwise, hop online; browse Johannesen’s smartly organized virtual store; edit your choices by price, country, wine type, style, or region; and get the corkscrew ready.

Disclaimer: Le Cru is pricey. It’s pricey because it’s a European-producer-based subscription service. To be specific, smaller European producers who don’t make the volume or perhaps have the resources to export to the States (making wine is expensive). A curated case of six bottles from say, Catalonia or Piedmont starts at $155, and shipping is free. If this sounds interesting, visit Le Cru’s excellent website, which has details on the various vintners it supports, along with approachable videos explaining the particulars of the regions it buys from.

The man behind Maison Noir Wines also happens to be a former sommelier at both Per Se and The French Laundry. André Hueston Mack specializes in bottling and blending the finest grapes grown in small Oregon wineries. Mack takes a contemporary approach to an age-old industry with bottles wrapped in graffiti-inspired labels and wines with names like Bottoms Up, Knock on Wood, and our personal favorite, P-Oui Pinot Noir. Order online for multi-state delivery—and go for a mixed case to get a real taste of what Maison Noir is about.

Rock Juice is the closest you can get (tied with Peoples in NYC) to a digital personal sommelier. San Francisco–based Melissa Gisler Modanlou is a former restaurateur, advanced sommelier, and a serious tastemaker when it comes to natural wine. Modanlou’s dedication to shipping and serving (and sipping) wines free from coloring agents, stabilizers, and flavor manipulators caught our attention. Rock Juice mainly stocks bottles from vintners and importers the team knows personally and vets for quality. Sign up to receive a box of three, six, or twelve bottles monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. Each delivery comes with detailed tasting notes and information on the producers. (We like to hang on to these paper gems and note the producers in regions we’re hoping to visit, so we can see the magic for ourselves.) To sign up with Rock Juice is to expand your palate and try rarely exported and never-seen-at-the-supermarket bottles from the cozy comfort of home base.

Getting into wine has a tick-the-box quality. Region: tick. Varietal: tick. Terroir: tick. But having someone walk you through those ticks makes delving into oenophilia doable. SommSelect offers three monthly clubs defined by theme (this one is the most affordable at $99 monthly and perfect for novices), SommSelect favorites, and guided blind tasting. For those who want to go deep, the sommelier concierge option tailors cases to your specific palate and budget (this is more suited to those who know their way around a wine cave). Lastly, Ian Cauble of Netflix’s Somm fame, is the maestro behind every bottle selection.

WOW stands for Woman-Owned Wineries, which is the foundational credo of Amy Bess Cook’s Sonoma-centric wine club. When you consider that only 10 percent of the lead winemakers in the thousands of California wineries are women, the absolute necessity of WOW’s rallying call sinks in. On the site you’ll find an invaluable directory of female-owned wineries and winemakers in the United States, plus details of the subscription service. You’ll also find an informative blog that spotlights the work of these female vintners and delves into the layered process of harvesting and producing a bottle of wine. Better yet, one dollar from every sale of WOW’s June shipment benefits the ACLU. Image courtesy of Kelly Puleio.

Farm, forage, ferment is the credo farmer and biodynamic winemaker Krista Scruggs lives by. Scruggs ferments grapes for wine and apples for cider with no nasties (herbicides, synthetic pesticides, or other additives) in Vermont. Sometimes Scruggs goes rogue and coferments the grapes and apples for a wine-meets-cider hybrid that you absolutely must taste. Join Scruggs’s Counterspell Club to receive the latest Zafa wines and other members-only perks throughout the year direct to your doorstep.

Thursday through Saturday, Echo Park’s sexiest bar, Bar Bandini, is offering curbside pickup. The goods: organic, biodynamic wines from the best of small-batch producers around the world. Also on the roster are the ultimate in refreshing, nonalcoholic beverages, effervescent Topo Chico, and Mexican Coke. We have spent many a night munching oozy grilled cheese and sipping glasses of whatever was on tap in the dark, moody confines of this vibey bar, and we would like to continue doing so once this pandemic passes. If you’re a dedicated Eastsider, keep the booze buy local and order a bottle or two from the Bandini stash.

Every neighborhood needs a good local pizza joint, and the latest offering from chef Zach Pollock of nearby Alimento is exactly that, Italian-American comfort food done really well. Cosa Buona occupies the space that was Pizza Buona since 1959, but with a significant upgrade. Chef Pollock and his team have modernized the space with a marble bar and plenty of dark tile. The booze list—heavy with French and Italian natural wines—is concise, and the mozzarella sticks are without question, the best in the city.

No, Desierto Alto is not in LA (though it does deliver throughout Los Angeles County on Fridays). Still, given the frequency of locals road-tripping to Joshua Tree, we consider that patch of the desert LA-adjacent. Desierto Alto is the newish brainchild of three former wine professionals who have an affinity for the Yucca Valley. It’s stocked with all manner of liquors, wines, cheeses, and excellent iced tea, and all are available for delivery within the Joshua Tree/Pioneertown/Yucca Valley/Flamingo Heights area. If you’re further afield and absolutely must have an icy bottle of Grüner Veltliner on the table, get in touch with the Desierto Alto team and they’ll do their best to accommodate.

With a heavy focus on natural and low-intervention bottles, Domaine LA is one of the city’s most revered wine shops—and now it’s delivering. We like to pick up the phone, roughly describe our preferences and budget, and savor the selection pulled together for us. You can, of course, specify specific bottles or stick to that drinkable Montepulciano you’ve been pouring since 2008, but trusting the selection to the more-than-capable Domaine staffers feels like having your own personal sommelier.

Esters has long been a good hangout for a glass or two and a cheese board after work. The wine list runs a staggering twenty-eight pages long and is broken down not by region but by taste, which makes landing on a bottle so much easier.

Kismet is one of the most refreshing restaurants in Los Angeles, not because the Mediterranean food naturally leans healthy but because it’s not trying to be healthy. Sommelier Kae Whalen curates the wine list. And while you don’t know what you’re getting in advance (embrace the unknown!), breathe easy in the knowledge that, like Kismet’s light, bright Mediterranean-leaning food, the wines are best-in-class and reasonably priced. Order via Caviar for at-home delivery.

With its poured-concrete floors and rustic shelving, Glendale Boulevard’s Silver Lake Wine looks like a wine temple. And in many ways, it is. Bottles, stacked from floor to ceiling, cover every square foot with no real organizing principle (or at least not one that we could figure out), and that’s half the fun. That weird, random bottle you had at a friend’s wedding in Corsica last summer? They probably have it. Call ahead and ask for their top choices or have the knowledgeable staffers point you in the right direction. Order four or more bottles and delivery to several zip codes (check the site) is free.

As much as we miss Saturday strolls around the incredibly serene, beautifully merchandised Psychic Wines, we’re over-the-moon that it delivers. Owner Quinn Kimsey-White applies a deeply personal approach to his store’s offering, sourcing each bottle from tiny vineyards helmed by creative, low-intervention winemakers. An order from Psychic Wines is the perfect opportunity to go rogue and try something completely new.

While Venice is awash in good food options (hello, Gran Blanco), wine stores offering delivery are oddly absent. Venice Beach Wines on Rose is our usual wine bar of choice, and now, it’s (thankfully) delivering its full range of organic and natural wines. Take a look at the detailed tasting notes, choose a bottle, and while you’re at it, order a cheese box to accompany a perfect glass.

There’s something seriously appealing about a store with a point of view. Vinovore focuses its lens on female winemakers, a rare breed in an industry heavily dominated by men. Curbside pickup and delivery to several Los Angeles zip codes are available from the location on Hoover, in that patch of East LA that’s not quite Silver Lake but not East Hollywood proper. When stores reopen, we strongly recommend stopping by for wine, as well as quality tinned fish, charcuterie, and artisanal chocolate. In the interim, we’re deep in the thrall of Vinovore’s wine club, the Wolfpack. Owner and sommelier Coly Den Haan selects two to four female-made natural wines monthly, and tasting notes and pairing suggestions are included in the box.

Bed-Vyne Wine & Spirits is a collaboration from four wine and booze enthusiasts. Instead of sticking to the rubric and categorizing its inventory by region only, Bed-Vyne opts for accessibility and categorizes by taste. Do you like sweet? Dry? Earthy? Floral? Bed-Vyne has it all, and much of it is unusual. On the spirits end, the founders favor locally made and artisanal products and wine produced by Black-owned wineries, plus wines made under their own Bed-Vyne label. Order for local delivery via Drizly or download the custom app to scroll through the inventory and load up your cart.

On a good day, Chambers Street Wines has around 2,000 bottles wedged onto its many shelves and crates, and all of them are available for delivery. In a city packed with excellent wine purveyors, Chambers Street stands out for its dedication to organic, small-production wines and unusual champagnes (yes, there’s a whole world of champagne out there beyond the five or six labels we’re so accustomed to paying top dollar for). Chambers has compiled a slew of what it calls “sampler cases” of wine running the gamut: pét-nat (naturally sparkling), skin-contact (orange wine), red, white, and natural (biodynamic). You can try a case of six or twelve wines of the same type but from different regions and producers to note the variations and nuances of terroir.

Chef restaurateurs Fabian Von Hauske Valtierra and Jeremiah Stone are old hands at Michelin-starred food that’s actually fun to eat. Both Contra and Wildair are shut, but a new, unexpected mashup of the two, Contrair, is open for delivery through Caviar. Rather than merely adapting current menus for delivery, Valtierra and Stone have come up with an entirely new concept that fuses both restaurants’ dedication to seasonality, shareable plates, and New American vibes. Divided into hot, cold, and sweet, the dishes are just the kind of food you crave during—well—a pandemic. Warm, comforting congee; lamb-stuffed cabbage; BBQ chicken; and homey rice pudding. A few dishes off this new menu plus a bottle of something natural and funky-tasting sounds like an ideal night at home in front of Tiger King to us. (Oh, and the duo and their team are delivering weekly lunches and drinks to New York City hospital workers in collaboration with our favorite dumpling spot, Mimi Cheng’s.)

Greenpoint’s Dandelion Wines, helmed by Lily Peachin, revels in sourcing the weirdest small-batch female-produced wines from around the globe. Pre-COVID, this hole-in-the-wall neighborhood store was a treasured spot to stop by, browse a few unusual-looking bottles, and have a couple of sips. Now that experience has gone virtual with online tastings and gorgeous curated six-packs of wine that change weekly. Order via the website (take a look around and pick up some accessibly written wine knowledge while you’re there) for delivery in the New York City area and shipping nationwide.

If you happen to live within a few blocks of the superb Flatiron Wines & Spirits, you can take advantage of free delivery on its full inventory. Its site has a handy “how to buy wine online” section, with tips for both novices and oenophiles, which translates to a full cart in no time. In response to the current crisis, Flatiron Wines has partnered with various California wineries to donate between $10 and $50 per case of certain wines sold to ROAR and the United Sommelier Foundation. If you love restaurants and want to support the chefs and servers who have prepared and served your Saturday suppers over the years, buy a case from this section.

Le Dû’s Wines in the West Village is offering free shipping in the Tri-State area, which we’re interpreting as an invitation to splurge. Le Dû’s aims to make the often-daunting world of good wine more accessible, and its informative site reflects that credo. If you’re lost on where to begin, scroll down to the bestsellers and follow the pack. Otherwise, enjoy loading your cart with Chenin blanc and Provençal rosé for the hot summer days ahead.

Peoples Wine was one of the 2019 openings we were most psyched about, mainly because we knew, based on our always-stellar experiences at sibling establishments Contra and Wildair, that it would be fantastic. It was, and hopefully it will be again. Until then, the good folks behind the wine bar are now in the wine delivery business. Order online or email delivery@peoples.wine with your preferences and budget for a sommelier-grade selection of small-batch biodynamic and organic wines from the world’s best producers. And, if you're hungry as well as thirsty, check out the founders' new restaurant mash-up delivery concept, Contrair, here.

Brooklynites, rejoice: Bedford Avenue’s Uva is offering free delivery of its extensive selection of wines and spirits to most of the borough, and it’s shipping throughout the state. When it’s open, it’s not unusual to spot a leading NYC restaurateur or a food writer you’re obsessed with browsing the shelves of this small spot alongside locals who know a lot about wine. What we’re saying is that Uva is a wine shop for wine lovers, to the point that it has an entire section devoted to rare and fine bottles. And there are tons of affordably priced, interesting-to-drink bottles, too. If you’re in a curious yet noncommittal mood, click on a $15 bottle of Chilean Cabernet Franc. If you want to splurge or try something entirely new, hit the natural wine section or go wild on unusual champagnes. Uva has it all, and the enthusiastic staffers are available to help.

We have spent many an evening trying to wrangle a reservation at any of Dan Barber’s three Blue Hill restaurants. Now the Barber family has reimagined the dining experience with six to-go boxes, available for pick-up from both the Pocantico Hills and NYC locations. The Restaurant contains all the components of a flawless Blue Hill–style meal in a box, like dairy, meat, grains, freshly milled flatbread, fermented veggies, and eggs. The Pork and Beef Boxes are made for the devoted carnivore, and the Bread Box is like bringing a fragrant bakery into your home kitchen. Reserve your box online here, where you can also purchase boxes the restaurant has prepared to donate to community hospitals and their teams. Image courtesy of Annabel Braithwait.

Bien Cuit Provisions is the brainchild of Brooklyn bakery Bien Cuit, based on the not-so-simple premise of contact-free deliveries of pantry essentials. Expect heavenly pastries and bread, fragrant coffee beans, and other quarantine-worthy treats with free delivery to parts of Brooklyn and below 110th Street in Manhattan. Get in touch online and note that there’s a minimum spend of $60 for nationwide delivery. Contact-free pickup is also available at both Bien Cuit stores in Brooklyn, and best of all, there’s a 25 percent discount for all medical workers.

Carbone’s takeout menu is firmly in the ridiculous but awesome category, and thank god for that. In this time of quarantine, a blowout supper of whole grilled branzino dripping in butter or bone-in, meltingly tender rib eye with spicy rigatoni vodka is a brilliant way to lift the spirits and keep very talented restaurant workers in business.

If ever there were a time to conquer the fear of cooking fish and re-create those buttery, sautéed scallops you go to restaurants for at home, it’s now. Fulton Fish Market is keeping our fridges and freezers stocked with littleneck clams, smoked trout, wild salmon, and delicacies like uni and oysters. Order here via the website, and within two days, a package of very recently caught fish will be sitting on your doorstep, ready for the skillet.

Katz has dinner covered with its famous brisket, roast chicken or turkey, stuffed cabbage and creamy kugel, and other delicious, comforting dishes for delivery in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Those craving Katz’s never-too-salty matzo ball soup from further afield can order a full dinner package (including brisket) that serves up to four people for $125 with two days’ notice for nationwide shipping. Meanwhile, you can get the deli’s pastrami sandwiches and warming soups on all the usual delivery platforms (Seamless, Caviar, DoorDash) alongside some convenient fridge and freezer staples like sour pickles, hand-carved meats, and liters of broth.

The combination of puffy, charred crust, and sweet-salty tomato sauce at Roberta’s in Bushwick is, to us, the perfect pizza. Along with those still-delicious pizzas, the restaurant is delivering make-your-own pasta kits, too, complete with detailed instructions. For those who like their pies piping-hot, check out Roberta’s thoughtful how-to-reheat illustrations on the site.

The farmers and various purveyors who make up New York’s beloved Union Square Greenmarket are taking great care in adapting to the current situation. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday the market’s meticulous website and app are updated with that day's sellers and relevant information. Several producers are offering preorder and pickup options plus some home delivery (click here for a comprehensive list and contact info). Support farmers and others who go to great lengths to produce quality food and place an order.

Los Feliz fixture All Time turns out hyperfresh California cuisine with a modern edge, and that has not changed. The restaurant has always had a fun Instagram presence, but it has been incredible to watch it pivot, innovate, and problem-solve in real time as a food business during the pandemic. In addition to keeping staff employed and local farmers supported, the owners are looking for ways to care for their community. They’ve moved to an online-only order and payment system (even for a coffee), and they’ve put together a variety of SOS kits, with basic groceries like eggs, milk, coffee, and even toilet paper, and created a helpful tab with cooking instructions on their site. And adding a bottle of wine is always an option. Order online here (we heartily recommend the hot sauce aioli breakfast sandwich and DIY brisket tacos) for curbside pickup or home delivery.

Artisanal grocer Cookbook Market has kept its shelves and fridges packed with essentials like flour, yeast, beans, and eggs, even as the big-box stores sell out. Both locations (Echo Park and Highland Park) are enforcing strict rules to keep everyone as safe as possible, cutting their hours to allow for deeper cleaning and pivoting to curbside pickup only. Call and place your order over the phone for same day collection (they’ll call you once your tasty goods are ready to go).

Sharp Parmesan, salty feta, bouncy mozzarella, and white Cheddar are all now available for curbside delivery, so we grate them over pasta, add to soups, or nibble on with a wedge of apple in the afternoon. Cheese is a true kitchen hero, and to our minds, DTLA cheese is a refrigerator essential. Hop on the site to browse the selection and place an order.

Jeff Cerciello (former Thomas Keller culinary director) perfects the bakery-cum-larder-cum-restaurant concept in this sunny space with all-day dining at rustic communal tables, including a wonderful family-style dinner with a market-driven menu. Ingredients here are top-notch, and Cerciello knows what to do with them, keeping the food exciting and tasty without over-complicating. The Roast Jidori Chicken is a standout, along with any of the fresh seafood or excellent produce-based dishes. There's an attached mini-grocery store with an excellent cheese selection, pastries, and prepared salads and sandwiches.

Chef Evan Funke’s crispy-on-the-outside, pillowy-on-the-inside sfincione (Sicilian focaccia) is justifiably famous around town. And then there are the silky, saucy plates of pasta. Funke and the Felix team have adapted to the current environment by deconstructing their signature pasta dishes for assembly at home. Order fresh pasta kits (we’re partial to pappardelle with Bolognese ragu and the simple rigatoni pomodoro) and cook them yourself at home. Or if you want to get through the cartons of dried pasta you’ve probably accumulated in recent weeks, order pints of Felix’s sauces without the pasta for your refrigerator, plus a sfincione to mop up every last morsel of sauce. If you really can't handle the thought of cooking, well...anything, order the polpette as an antipasto and the tonarelli cacio e pepe to follow. Cocktail kits (choose the mezcal negroni—just do it), wine, and beer are also available to go with your order.

Go Get Em Tiger has locations all over LA that usually serve top-notch coffee, incredible pastries, and some very delicious savory breakfast plates, but it’s switched up its operations toward supporting employees while directly serving the needs of the community. GGET has adapted with a pantry assortment for pickup or delivery: regular and nondairy milk, rice, dried beans, whole loaves of banana bread, concentrates of the chai tea and turmeric ginger brew (so you can mix them at home), and more.

Somehow, Chilean chef Juan Ferreiro intuits exactly what we want to eat. Prepandemic, this involved light, hyperseasonal, fresh fare like smoothies and farm-to-table grain bowls. Now, from the confines of home, we’re craving California-style comfort food—healthy with a dash of indulgence. Ferreiro’s lamb kofta doused in zingy tzatziki and crunchy herb salad, crispy chicken sandwiches with pickles and secret sauce, and the heartiest breakfast burrito laced with roasted salsa and Oaxacan cheese are...as absolutely perfect as they sound. Order online for delivery or curbside pickup.

The Tex-Mex spot has had a few iterations of service over the past few weeks, finally landing on a program that the owners feel keeps their staff the safest while providing food (and margaritas) to the public. They’ve significantly abbreviated the regular menu to just the hits, plus pantry items (eggs, milk, TP). Definitely try the Homestate at Home experience: family-size ready-made versions of house specialties like fresh flour tortillas, guacamole, salsa, shredded brisket, beans, pickled jalapeños, and most importantly, cookie dough.

Prepandemic, Jon & Vinny’s spicy fusilli, ham and yeezy pizza, and delectable Italian rainbow cookies were regular guests on our takeout rotation. These days not much has changed. The restaurant is still making sensationally tasty breakfast, lunch, and dinner takeout from its Fairfax and Brentwood locations. Sister businesses Helen’s Rotisserie (yum), the more Mediterranean-leaning Kismet on the Eastside, and Helen’s Wines are following suit. And all the restaurants under the Jon & Vinny’s umbrella are now selling $45 produce boxes to support local farms like Carpinteria’s Coleman Family Farm and help keep your pantry stocked with peak California bounty.

COVID-19 update: Open for grocery pickup and delivery.

Los Angeles has, in recent years, upped its pizza game considerably, and Pizzana is right up there with the best. Both the Brentwood and West Hollywood locations are open for delivery. If you live close by, take advantage and order the ready-to-eat option. For those a little further afield, the chefs are offering a heat-and-slice option that ensures every bite is as crispy and cheesy as it would be at the restaurant. The funghi pie with fontina cheese and caramelized onions is out of this world (and makes an excellent leftovers breakfast the next morning). You can’t go wrong with a classic margherita, given the San Marzano tomatoes used for the sauce are grown exclusively for Pizzana in the Neapolitan countryside.

Every goop staffer who lives on the Eastside goes to Silver Lake Wines. First off, the proximity to the shimmery, soothing reservoir means you get a solid walk in with your wine order. Secondly, the selection of Old and New World wines, small-batch vintners, quality spirits, Amari, and rare biodynamic labels is second to none. Right now, curbside pickup and delivery are the order of the day, and actually, the quick chat while you file your order and specify bottles and spend over the phone feels as luxurious as the booze. (You can also order over email.) If you go for a delivery, you can determine precisely where you want your case or package left, and the goods arrive before 7 p.m. the following day. For curbside pickup, orders are good to go in as little as thirty minutes.