Venue Review: Vintage Wine Cellar

12206 Copper Way in Toringdon Shopping Center near Ballantyne

More info on the restaurant

Keeping a menu short enough to be well-executed and long enough to stay interesting challenges any small venue. If the place is also a wine store, it's trickier still: You need wine-friendly dishes in quite a range, too.

Kevin and Ingrid Howard's Vintage Wine Cellar near Ballantyne pulls it off, for the most part.

Chef Thomas Landers' flavors are vivid, from truffle mac and cheese to blackberry reduction atop flat-iron steak.

General manager Justin Smith, who also has a cooking background, brings key details to the table as well. The handsome cheese plate, for example.

It has what Kevin Howard calls “harmonious complements” – and harmonious they certainly are: Smith has concocted such accompaniments as “deconstructed white wine” – lemon zest and tiny cubed fruits – to go with drunken goat cheese (aged in wine).

Also on that plate currently: brie with a chunk of honeycomb; manchego with a tomato-onion-garlic confit; gorgonzola with bits of pineapple and a swirl of raspberry crème fraiche; cheddar with paper-thin slices of green apple (though not, on our visit, the apple jelly and pistachio brittle dust promised by the menu). Add slices of warmed focaccia and it's perfect.

Better to begin with is Landers' goat cheese tart, a phyllo crust jazzed with gentle garlic cloves and basil. The kitchen was out of the tuna tartare, so I'll try that another time. Other starters include shrimp with andouille sausage over cheese grits, a Thai beef spring roll and several salads.

That blackberry pepper port reduction outshone the flat-iron steak it dressed, but so did the truffled mashed potatoes: The beef had good flavor (good flat-iron is hard to beat) but was a trifle overcooked for medium rare. Mahi with a blood orange sauce arrived perfectly cooked – though again there was an unannounced substitution: more mashed potatoes, rather than the listed sunchoke puree.

It's hard to keep things on hand in an unpredictable business; two of 13 wines on the red list were out of stock as well one night. But that's what printers are for: Adjusting menus nightly would eliminate a diner's sense of disappointment. And when the menu is so small (11 starters, five entrées, two desserts), it really needs to be correct.

The lineup changes seasonally, though popular items find a way to stay on. Landers shifted the preparation of a popular smoked pork chop; now it comes with maple lime sweet potatoes and a pomegranate barbecue sauce.

He has also instituted “Sushi Tuesdays,” when he shows off the fruits of his two years in Japan with flown-in-that-day seafood. This is worth a special trip: One recent Tuesday produced delicate lobster rolls, gorgeously simple tuna crudo (thin slices, drizzled with sea salt and a bit of chile heat), and a handful of simple, well-executed nigiri sushi. (Half-price wine specials appear that night, too.)

The place is cozy, with wood shelving displaying wines and staff choices highlighted. Eric Solomon wines are appreciated here, and you can browse the interesting labels between courses without causing a disturbance, since spacing isn't too tight. (Don't miss the fun row of quirkily named fare, from Suxx to Barrel Monkeys to Small Gully's offerings.)

There's a communal table at bar height for 12, and a small bar near the back allows for parking yourself to listen to live music, if that's more your style. There's also room out front on a comfortable (and smoke-free!) patio. And wine is served in good glassware: Too rare a feat in Charlotte.

Lighting is just the sort of glowy kind you want when sampling wines, and samples are presented beautifully: Stemless glasses rest in a wooden carrier, each with a name label resting in front of it. No struggling to remember which the server said was which – and no worries that the server won't remember! I kept two labels for future reference, and I'll be back to collect more.