Discussing the food, wine philosophy, or hospitality practices of establishments other than your own is a ritual of the front-of-the-house pre-shift meeting at many restaurants. Charlie Trotter is famous for this exercise, and his meditations would often extend beyond the realm of other restaurants or food. For Chef Trotter, the quality of your commute on the "L" that morning might have been fair game for that evening's pre-shift discussion. Of course, that evening's game plan was always first and foremost, but chatting about the excellence achieved by Nick Peyton in the Bay Area or Julian Niccolini in New York have been reoccurring themes in my many years of service pre-shifts.

Maître d' Paul Grieco's name began to come up in our pre-shifts at Frasca shortly after an excellent article appeared last year in the New York Times Food Section. A great maître d' is someone who makes you feel welcome, who anticipates your needs, and has thought about your experience in their restaurant long before you did. Paul has certainly earned his status as one of America's great maître d's.

"You're spending one night in New York and you're coming to see us?" Paul asked with surprise after I told him about our layover in New York on our way to France for the harvest. So with great anticipation, Elizabeth and I visited Paul's new wine bar in the East Village called Terroir. Terroir has received some great press in the blogosphere and from the various wine and food bulletin boards that I frequent. Terroir is a different kind of wine bar, one with a lot of introspection behind it, and one that seems to put its message and concept before commerce, although it seems that it has already developed a loyal clientele. It's rather like some of the producers I have visited in Burgundy over the years who place the expression of terroir, purity, and place above their wine's commercial appeal.

That night, we first met up with Paul at Hearth, his East Village restaurant, where it seemed he had been anticipating our arrival, even though we had given him no firm time and Hearth was just winding down for the evening. Paul greeted us, made us feel at home, and walked us to Terroir just a few doors down. We then received a tutorial on the concept of the façade, how its exterior was designed to mimic the famous Clos of Burgundy, and we learned about the long conversations he and his partners had with the architect over the lines and angles of the interior.

Paul then invited us inside where we uncharacteristically ordered a couple of glasses of Touraine reds. "Summer of Riesling and you're drinking red?" Paul asked while pointing to a page on the wine list indicating that the only white wines being offered that night, that whole summer, were about twenty or so Rieslings from Alsace, Germany, and Austria! Paul is a well-known Riesling fanatic and an all-Riesling list shouldn't have surprised me although it's practically unheard of in the U.S. to offer exclusively un-oaked, low-alcohol, sometimes sweet white wines as your only by-the-glass offerings. So we quickly ordered two glasses of Riesling and a few small plates of food, all completely delicious. And as explained by Paul, it was not the all-Riesling list or their propagandistic T-shirts proclaiming that summer 2008 was "The Summer of Riesling," but that it was their excellent menu that set Terroir apart from other wine bars in the city. I'll add to that, that a mastery of hospitality and a genuine expression of place make this Terroir special.

We had a great evening. Thank you, Paul.