Calliope East Village's newest farmhouse bistro

Taking everything you've learned and applying it all at once isn't easy, though refusing to learn your lesson in the first place could also leave you applying stuff, like topical ointments. Cramming their cumulative experience into one farmhouse bistro: the team at Calliope.

Having done everything from washing dishes at a diner to chef-ing at the Waverly Inn, Picholine, and Prune, the husband & wife behind Calliope are bringing their full range of experience to bear at the old Belcourt space, which's now a Franco-Italian foodie farmhouse with a blonde wooden bar top, a communal table centerpiece, and a color scheme that includes al fresco doors painted French blue.

Dinner kicks off with poached-then-grilled octopus touched w/ lemon & black pepper, Hudson Valley foie w/ mixed onion jam & black pepper brioche, and beef tongue w/ Vidalia onions & gribiche, a dish they describe as "very Frenchy", probably because of the tongue-on-tongue action.

Next up: 21-day dry-aged strip steak from "the best butcher in NYC" (that's Pino's on Sullivan), served sliced and sizzling in a cast iron pot w/ butter; braised rabbit tossed in house pappardelle; and black sea bass in a white wine & leek mussel broth sided by rustic toast w/ "a big slather of Romesco", most other rustic toasts just coming with lots of moonshine and bearded grumblings.

There'll be bistro-y bevs to boot, including a hearty selection of Old World wines, classic 'tails, and brews from $2.50 half-pints of 'gansett, to Duvel and La Chouffe on tap, the cumulative effects of which will likely keep you from learning anything at all.