Wine With Mezze: Pairing Our List, Dish by Dish

Our wine list is nineteen bottles: ten reds, six whites, three bubblies, plus five sakes on the same card. It fits on one page. That is deliberate, and it makes pairing easier than a forty-page book would, because there is a real answer to "what should we drink" rather than an invitation to browse.

The harder part is what the wine has to sit next to. Mezze does not arrive in courses. It arrives all at once and stays on the table: sesame, smoke, yoghurt, garlic, lemon, chilli and charcoal, in play simultaneously, for an hour. A bottle chosen to flatter one dish will lose to the other seven.

So we do not pair dish by dish in the classical sense. We pair by what survives a crowded table — and then, when the grill dishes land, we change the answer. That is an izakaya way of drinking rather than a restaurant one: the food does not stop arriving, so the drink has to keep working. Here is the whole list, the way we would take it at your table.

Two notes before the bottles. First, the Macedonian six get their own posts, because they are the most interesting thing on the card and they deserve more than a line: why we pour Macedonian wine at all, Vranec and Temjanika. This post covers the other thirteen. Second, our wine card prints no prices — not one, anywhere on the page — so ask the floor, and please do not take a number off a blog.

Start with bubbles, because mezze starts salty

The first ten minutes of a mezze table are pita, olives and something fried. Salt, fat and heat, with nothing sweet or acidic to cut them yet. That is a bubbles problem, not a wine problem.

Prosecco Spumante DOC Extra Dry (Italy). The card lists the grape as Glera and describes it as "Fresh apple, pear and white flowers, crisp and lively." Worth knowing, because it confuses people every week: on a Prosecco label, Extra Dry is not the driest tier — Brut sits below it. So this is a shade rounder than the name suggests, which is exactly what you want against the wood-smoked olives and pita straight off the grate. It is also our pick for kibbeh nayyeh, the Margra lamb tartare: the dish is dressed with wasabi ponzu and shio kombu and is more delicate than raw lamb sounds, and a firm red would simply sit on top of it.

San Maurizio Moscato d’Asti DOCG (Italy). Moscato, and the card says "Floral, lightly sweet and peachy with a gentle fizz." This is a dessert bottle and we treat it as one. It goes with the muhallebi — the menu line is vanilla and yoghurt milk pudding, morello cherries in kirsch, yamasa soy caramel and a brown butter digestive biscuit — where the cherries and the low-sweetness fizz meet in the middle.

Sababay Moscato d’Bali (Indonesia). Muscat, and the printed note reads "Tropical and playful—ripe peach, jasmine, bright acidity." It is the only Indonesian bottle on the list and the only wine on it grown anywhere near Singapore, which is reason enough to try it once. Practically, it is our chilli bottle. Aromatic, faintly sweet and properly acidic is the shape that handles heat, so this is what we would pour against the green harissa on the Lebanese charcoal chicken and the jalapenos in the Brussel sprouts. A tannic red against that heat is a fight nobody wins.

The whites: three of the six are not Macedonian

Fidora Pinot Grigio DOC (Italy). The note is "Crisp, mineral, green apple and pear. Fresh, no fuss, all charm." Believe the "no fuss" part — this is the bottle for a table that cannot agree, and it is genuinely good with the fried things. Cassava and taramasalata is twice-cooked cassava chippies with housemade labne, mentaiko XO and tobiko, and it is rich in three directions at once; the Pinot Grigio just cuts through and gets out of the way. Same for the fire-tossed edamame, where shiro miso and confit garlic butter leave a coating that wants something clean.

Luna de Ana Blanco (Spain). Verdejo. The card reads "Zesty citrus and tropical fruit—sunshine in a bottle." This is the smoke white. Our babaganoush is smoked eggplant with kinnogomadare, roasted sesame, tempura and togarashi, and the risk with any smoked dip is that a soft white disappears into it. Verdejo’s citrus holds a line. It is also the right call with Habibi’s Spanakopita, where the Japanese curried cream spinach needs acid more than it needs weight.

Waimea Pinot Gris 2017 (New Zealand). "Lush, floral and weighty with stone fruit swagger" — the card’s words, and "weighty" is the operative one. This is the white for people who normally order red. It has the body for labne with smoked shimeji, and it is the one white on the list we would put against a main: the Atlantic seabass, with its yuzu beurre blanc and miso butter, is a rich fish dish and a thin white loses to it.

The reds, lightest first

Fidora Valpolicella DOC (Italy). Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella; "Bright cherry, spice and herbs; light, vibrant and easy drinking." This is the mezze red, and the only red we would open while the table is still all small plates. Cherry and herbs against matbucha — stewed roma tomatoes and peppers, browned butter, kombu dashi, nori — is close to a tomato-and-wine cliche, and it works for the same reason the cliche exists.

Cal y Canto Tinto (Spain). Tempranillo, Merlot and Syrah, described as "Juicy red fruit, soft spice, smooth and food-friendly." The card is telling the truth: this is the bottle for six people ordering in six directions. If your table has mezze, sprouts and a bird on it at the same time, this is the least wrong answer on the list.

Chateau Haut Blanville Grand Cuvee Rouge (France). Syrah and Grenache — "Ripe berries, spice, smooth and generous body." Southern French Syrah and charcoal are old friends. This is our alternative to the Cal y Canto with the charcoal chicken, and the better bottle of the two if the table has committed to the grill.

Chateau Les Grauzils Initial Cahors 2018 (France). Malbec: "Earthy, full-bodied, plum and spice with a smoky finish." The word "smoky" is on our own card, and it is the reason this bottle exists on a list attached to a charcoal kitchen. Pour it with the Angus Pure ribeye MB4+, 300g grain-finished with truffle ponzu jus. Char meeting char.

Chateau Clauzet 2019 (France). Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon; "Dark fruit, firm tannins, classic Bordeaux balance." Firm tannin has one job on this menu and it is fat. The Blackmore full blood wagyu karubi MB9+ is 200g of 600-day grain-fed short rib, and it needs a bottle with structure rather than fruit. This is that bottle.

Petit Senejac 2016 (France). Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot — "Cassis, graphite, and polished tannins." Graphite and lamb is the pairing here: the Margra lamb rump comes with a méchoui spice rub, cucumber and ginger tzatziki and caraway, and the caraway in particular likes a red with a savoury edge rather than a sweet one. If you want the other answer to the same dish, it is Macedonian, and it is in the Vranec post.

Fidora Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG (Italy). Same three grapes as the Valpolicella, treated completely differently: "Dried fruit, spice, powerful and luxurious." This is the biggest bottle on the list and the last one of the night. We would not open it with mezze. We would open it after the grill has done its work, with the chocolate kataifi tart — Valrhona Caraibe 66% nama, dulce de leche, kataifi and sea salt — because dried fruit and dark chocolate are one of the few dessert pairings that genuinely improves both halves.

Three honest caveats

More than one bottle works with most of these dishes. Everything above is our first choice, not the only defensible one, and the floor will happily argue with us.

We do not run a formal pairing flight. There is no sommelier-led progression here and we are not going to pretend otherwise — if you order FEEEEED ME!, our chef’s-choice menu, tell whoever is looking after you and they will pour around whatever the kitchen sends.

And if wine is not the answer for you tonight, the same card carries five sakes, which behave completely differently against the same dips — that is a whole separate post, and the bottles themselves are written up in our sake list. There is also beer, and there is a real argument for just ordering that instead when the table is entirely grill.

One practical note, since this is a food-and-drink post: we serve pork and alcohol, so Habibi-san is not halal. The full set of dietary answers is in our FAQ.

The list changes rarely, but it does change. Everything quoted above was read off the live card on 2 September 2026. Come and drink it: book a table, or have a look at the room first.