Picholine - View this location on map This town has been awash in bar-slash-restaurants, and newfangled bar menus, for several years now. So it s a little ironic that the most sophisticated bar food, according to New York Magazine, resides these days at that famously sedate, famously un-faddish Upper West Side establishment Picholine. Terrance Brennan has remodeled his bar area in slick shades of silver and white. He has a new bar menu, too, which includes plump segments of shrimp folded with smoked paprika, deposits of freshly made paella wrapped in crispy spring-roll skins ( paella spring rolls ), and cups of gamy, finely whipped trifle, designed to be spread over slabs of truffled toast. Best of all, though, is a dish that seems to have been designed expressly for the restaurant s faithful legions of opera loons. It s a decorative glass of sherry-flavored sorbet crowned, in a deliciously baroque way, with plumes of crackly, baked serrano ham. 35 W. 64th St, New York, New York Restaurant, Nightlife

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