For jazzy bites and savvy sips

ON a Friday night, two rigorously fashionable women in their 20s have driven into West Hollywood from Malibu to spend an evening tasting wine together.

Seriously.

And David Haskell, managing partner and resident wine guru of BIN 8945, a new wine bar and bistro on Santa Monica Boulevard, is happy to oblige. He remembers them from weeks before, when the two came in, sat at the bar, and ended up staying for six hours. Who wouldn’t? He hasn’t forgotten that the brunette with the big smile prefers wines from the Cote de Beaune, and when he pours her a glass without prompting, she giggles and claps.

But Haskell doesn’t leave it at that. Because he makes it his mission to invite guests to try something outside their comfort zones, he next pours her a glass of Syrah from the Rhone, a St. Joseph, I think. For someone focused on Spanish reds, he might insist on a crisp, fragrant white made from an indigenous Greek grape. The world of wine is more than California Cabernet or Burgundian Pinot Noirs and he wants to turn you on to all of it.

BIN 8945 (the numbers come from the address) boasts a wine list that encompasses more than 400 selections. Many are older bottles and hard-to-find labels culled from the collection of Haskell’s father and the wine bar’s owner, John Haskell. Few young restaurants can muster such a range of vintages and wines.

The place is so small, a visitor can’t help but wonder where all this wine could possibly be. The Haskells manage by keeping only a bottle or two of each on premises. If someone orders a second bottle on the same night, it’s a run over to the storage facility to fetch it -- which can make for some breathless wine service.

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For a new generation

WHAT makes BIN 8945 appealing is its lack of pretension. This is a wine bar from somebody who has been around the restaurant scene at a high level (David worked at Aquavit and Le Cirque in New York and at one point managed the dining room at Aubergine in Newport Beach), yet it’s as relaxed and easygoing as they come.

It’s a new generation’s take on the wine bar, complete with a pounding soundtrack, babes sipping Burgundy, and know-it-all wine buffs rifling through the list for something they don’t know or a bottle they’ve always wanted to taste.

Chef Matt Carpenter, a graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco who cooked at Eos and Bacar there, and at Josie in Santa Monica, has put together a lighthearted menu with a Caribbean accent. Both his parents are from the Caribbean, so he grew up on these flavors.

His menu plays it fast and loose with plates in three different sizes -- “small,” “slightly larger,” and “even larger” -- which can make for some confusion, but the amiable servers will help you put together a selection of dishes that makes sense in terms of amount and also in terms of what you’d like to drink. It’s basically mix-and-match courses, with, if you like, a selection of wines by the glass.

The menu is headlined by items from the raw bar, which typically includes oysters on the half shell served with a sprightly mignonette of Champagne vinegar and minced shallots. (Forgo the cocktail sauce that also comes with the oysters. It won’t do a thing for a wine.) I could easily see stopping in for a couple of dozen to share with a bottle of vintage Champagne, a premier cru Chablis or a bone-dry Austrian Riesling.

There’s also the option of fried oysters, not something that would normally set my heart racing, except for the fact that Carpenter is an expert fryer and these are plump, juicy and a perfect golden brown, with either a piquant remoulade or a dab of emerald Cuban mojo sauce tucked underneath. I like them with an Albarino from Spain.

The raw bar also offers a novel trio of appetizers: a dab of cool, delicious tuna tartare, one of the aforementioned fried oysters, and a silver dollar-sized blini with a very tiny dab of caviar. The kitchen might want to think about upsizing the blini and serving it warm. Cold blini seems kind of sad.

Dishes from the small plates section include a mini bestila, the Moroccan filo dough pie, here made with Cornish game hen, and covered in a drift of sugar. Not exactly a wine-friendly dish (the sugar tends to make a dry wine taste sour), but that doesn’t stop Haskell or Carpenter.

I get the idea that Haskell and company don’t believe in perfect matches but instead are interested in exploring the way flavors interact with wine. It’s intriguing just to play, tasting different wines with different dishes and seeing what happens.

And the menu certainly offers a wide-ranging playing field. Just added: a haute version of the ubiquitous Cuban sandwich, this one made with wild boar and cured duck and Pecorino cheese, along with a chipotle mustard. For me, it’s way over the top, with too many competing flavors for an ideal match with any wine. If you’re going to try it, make sure you’ve got a sturdy Rhone or maybe something wild and woolly from the Languedoc in your glass.

Another rustic and rich dish is the Munster melt, featuring the smelly cow’s milk cheese from Alsace on a thick slab of pain rustique with a topping of sauteed wild mushrooms. Messy and somehow appealing; for a wine, think Pinot Noir or Cabernet Franc.

BIN 8945 is open until 2 a.m. most nights and late nights you can occasionally spot chefs and sommeliers kicking back. Peter Birmingham from the recently closed Norman’s seems to be a regular. Spago’s Lee Hefter has been in, Neal Fraser of Grace too. Haskell cultivates that crowd: When he worked in New York there were plenty of places to go after hours.

And that attitude, I realize, informs the menu: It’s eclectic bites for the late-night set. This is a place where you can come in for a dozen oysters, a messy Cubano, or a steak frites. And if wine is not your thing, a mixologist is on hand to whip you up a pretty cocktail.

Haskell tries his best to make the place fun and anything but solemn. Instead of a lean, mean suit, he’s dressed in jeans. As the evening progresses, the music ratchets ever louder, and the crowd at the bar gets thicker.

Waiters seem to be having as good a time as anybody, threading their way through the 10 or so tables in the long narrow room, squeezing past the bar to deliver a glass of wine to the lovebirds hoping for a seat inside or out.

A shelf that holds decanters runs the length of the red banquette, and tucked behind is a trough where bottles can be iced down instead of taking up table real estate with wine buckets and such.

More tables are set up on the sidewalk terrace in front, from which you get a great view of the ever-fascinating parade down Santa Monica Boulevard. Even with all the traffic noise, it’s actually quieter out here than inside.

About that steak frites: It’s hanger steak marinated in Belgian beer (go figure), tender and flavorful, but outshone in every way by the duck-fat fries that come with it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that would be potatoes fried in duck fat for maximum delight and crunch.

Among the larger dishes, there’s also a mild-mannered jerk chicken with a killer pineapple chutney and there’s a quite-respectable duck confit with sweet potatoes, walnuts and chanterelles. Neither is particularly easy to share. For that, consider the pan-roasted mussels with Italian sausage in a coconut-curry sauce, another conundrum for wine. This may be the ideal time to try a Chenin Blanc or one of the Greek whites.

I think BIN 8945 works best if you don’t plan out a strategy for ordering in advance. Just pick a couple of dishes that strike your fancy to start, order some wines you think may work with them, or rely on the staff to help you choose something, and then proceed from there.

One night when my table had almost finished, Haskell brought us a taste of two oddball spirits, and then set down a dish with M&Ms; and a Butterfinger candy bar cut into pieces. Put some M&Ms; in your mouth, he tells us, and then taste the way the sugar mitigates the alcohol. Wild. I’m not quite sure I get it, but the combination is fun, and surprising.

Desserts, the real ones on the menu such as banana rum cheesecake and Heath Bar brownie a la mode, are awfully sweet, too much like kid stuff for the spirit of the place. You’re much better off with a glass of Madeira or Port to wind things up.

A note about those late nights: Sometimes, if it’s slow, particularly on a weeknight, they might close up earlier. A call ahead will ensure that if you plan on dropping by after 1 a.m., say, they’ll wait for you. This is L.A., not New York, Haskell, who grew up here, will tell you, shrugging.

And that’s what makes BIN 8945 so interesting. It melds the high energy of a New York late-night spot with a laid-back California vibe designed for the new generation of wine connoisseurs and novices coming up.

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virbila@latimes.com

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BIN 8945 Wine Bar and Bistro

Rating: * 1/2

Location: 8945 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 550-8945; www.bin8945.com.

Ambience: Lively West Hollywood wine bar with older and hard-to-find wines and a menu of small and larger plates with a Caribbean accent. Because it’s open late, chefs and sommeliers come in after their restaurants close.

Service: Endearing and attentive.

Price: Oysters and raw bar, $8 to $28; small plates, $9 to $12; slightly larger plates, $12 to $18; even larger plates, $26 to $29; desserts, $4 to $14 (the sampler).

Best dishes: Charcuterie plate, fried oysters with remoulade, pan-roasted mussels, jerk chicken, steak frites.

Wine list: Wide-ranging and deep. Corkage, $15; buy one bottle and they’ll waive the corkage on a bottle you bring.

Best table: The banquette in the back corner.

Details: Open for dinner only, from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Call first, though, if you plan to come late: Sometimes they close early. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Full bar. Valet parking (on Robertson Boulevard, north of Santa Monica Boulevard), $6.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.