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Is Bite a restaurant with a respectable bar or a bar with respectable food? Bite chooses not to choose, and the resulting blur defines the Bite experience.
It’s an experience defined by the limitations of a two-person service crew, one of them a bartender, the other a waiter. That’s fine for a bar, less so for a restaurant where two people can easily drop $100-plus for dinner.
On the positive side, the Bite experience is also defined by inescapable pop-art style, from the Roy Lichtenstein blonde knockoff on the back wall to the Warhol lampshades to the UFO beehive lantern over the bar.
Seafood served in a paper bag labeled “Dirty Undies” rises above novelty as a kind of cream-sauce cioppino, a steaming collection of clams, lobster, sausage, shrimp and fish. It’s exactly the kind of pop-art alchemy I’d hope for in a place like this.
But the Bite experience is also defined by spotty ventilation that fills the compact space with cooking odors that settle on hair and clothes like grease-scented candles, and I expected more from lackluster grilled steak churrasco, escargot and octopus carpaccio.
Bite
1012 S. Presa St., 210-532-2551, biterestaurantsa.com
Quick bite: Small plates with French, Spanish and South American influences in a hybrid fine-dining and cocktail-bar setting punctuated by pop art.
Hit: Seafood Ropa Sucia, lamb chop, duck with olives
Miss: Lamb cigar, octopus carpaccio, spotty service
Hours: 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday. 5-11 p.m. Friday. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-11 p.m. Saturday. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday.
Price range: Appetizers, $9-$18; entrees, $16-$28; desserts, $8-$10.
Alcohol: Wine, beer and cocktails
Find the full review and star rating on our subscriber website, ExpressNews.com, or pick up the Taste section in the Sunday paper.
msutter@express-news.net
Twitter: @fedmanwalking
msutter@express-news.net
Twitter: @fedmanwalking
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