There's a particular kind of New York bar that has nearly vanished: the kind where wine is the point. Not the pairing, not the accessory to food, not the Instagram backdrop—just wine, in a room small enough to hold a genuine conversation, staffed by people who actually know what they're talking about. Stars, which opened in December on East 12th Street, is that bar. It's 450 square feet. It seats 12. It has no kitchen to speak of, no reservations system, no fussing. There are snacks—deviled eggs, griddled shrimp toast with mandolined lemon, chicken liver mousse—but they exist to keep you drinking, not to pivot the evening into dinner.
Chase Sinzer, whom the Michelin Guide named New York Sommelier of the Year in 2024, designed the list with Julia Schwartz, and their thinking is democratic without being dumbed down. Every by-the-glass pour costs under $20. Exactly 88 bottles are priced under $88. The broader list exceeds 1,000 bottles—natural wines, classics, obscurities, the full spectrum—built with the logic of a sommelier who knows that good wine at fair prices shouldn't require a second mortgage or a reservation six months out. This is a rebuke to the current wine-bar trend of expensive entry points and tables you can't walk into.
The room itself is warm and unpretentious. The hand-finished zinc U-shaped bar is the architecture; the bartenders are the draw. Each knows the broad strokes and the minutiae of what's on the list. Ask for something by region or mood or memory, and you'll get a genuine recommendation, not a upsell. This is the kind of expertise that used to be standard in serious wine bars—the kind that disappeared when wine became another vector for hospitality theater.
Sinzer and Joshua Pinsky, his partner from the food-forward ventures Claud and Penny, have made something genuinely rare: a purer expression of the wine bar genre. It's proof that sometimes you don't add—you subtract. You remove the kitchen demands, the reservation friction, the noise of a full restaurant. You keep the wine, the counter, and the people who know it. If you've been looking for a Monday-night perch where a serious pour doesn't require commitment or costume, this is the place. Walk in early enough to claim a stool, order something you've never heard of, and stay as long as the glass demands.