New York

Restaurants tend to create menus with overly-complicated themes, like "sustainable probiotic gastronomics", and "China". Cut to the chase, at Beer Table.

A former beer distributor's first joint, BT's a low-lit, communal-table'd sleeve that boasts a gloriously bassackwards dining ethos: locally-sourced dishes prepared specifically to complement microbrews -- as opposed to the norm, beer standing in the shadow of food (Beer: "Who wears the pants now, Food?"). As the suds change daily, so too do the small plates, e.g., Salumeria Biellese-sourced charcuterie, Wensleydale cheeses, and Flying Pig sausages (apparently, their improbability does nothing to keep them from being killed, ground, and stuffed into their own intestines). As for the star of the show, BT'll offer a rotating selection of 3-4 per day, opening this weekend with Hitachino's Japanese Classic Ale, the Italian stout Malthus Baluba, and the Belgian Stille Nacht, which translates to "silent night" (at 12% alcohol, yes).

Despite the simplicity of its suds-centrism, BT's opening was delayed 6 months by a backlogged Dept of Buildings, the lesson being that all restaurants share a single, unifying theme: compliance with a ponderously slow government bureaucracy.