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At a recent dinner at Gem Wine on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, my table was filled with raw scallops on crisp cabbage leaves, a griddled lobster-chanterelle sandwich, mackerel slivers on warm toasts, and smashed and fried lion’s-mane schnitzel. The small plates added up to a decent meal—and the kind of hefty bill that I’ve come to expect at a certain kind of beverage-focused not-quite restaurant: Including a dainty quenelle of corn ice cream and a bottle of Savagnin, I…
