THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Tapino Kitchen & Wine Bar

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Tapino Kitchen & Wine Bar Restaurant Review:

THIS ESTABLISHMENT IS CLOSED Just try to pigeonhole chef James Porter’s cuisine. Sure, it’s tapas, but it reaches far beyond Spain into France, Japan, America, Italy, Argentina and, well, often into the weird zone (petite lobster corndogs with fancy dipping sauces, on the same menu as licorice root skewered lamb chops with fennel-Meyer lemon salad, smoked paprika and garlic). Somehow, most of it works. Chalk it up to Porter’s unexpected details, from the pickled grapes alongside his foie gras, to the Szechuan pepper on his Southern fried okra. We like to play stump the server, challenging them for wine pairings for complex tastes like a dish of warm pencil asparagus, honshimeji mushrooms and Parmesan in truffle vinaigrette. By gosh, they can usually do it, too, drawing from a wild selection of wines that surpasses the standards into boutique picks from off-path places like New Mexico and Lebanon.