ABV Wine Bar in Manhattan - Hungry City LET it be remembered: In the year 2012, the foie gras fluffernutter entered history. There it is on your table at ABV Wine Bar, seared duck liver laid out on Wonder Bread like a sacrifice, over broad Rothko brush strokes of marshmallow fluff and peanut butter, amid drifts of hazelnut crumble and demi-orbs of sour-apple gelée ($17). It is caviar and Bud, Jane Austen and zombies, Blair Waldorf and Dan Humphrey. How to read this transmission from the brain of the chef, Corey Cova? Childhood nostalgia, machismo, plus a dash of stick-it-to-the-man: this pretty much sums up the attitude behind ABV, which opened in January between Carnegie Hill and East Harlem. ABV's take on comfort food is less reinvention than merry spree, artisanal ingredients and avant-garde technique in service of the munchies. Thus the foie gras, instead of elevating the fluffernutter, lets its hair down, and learns to live like common people. It is suddenly approachable. Too bad its fling with marshmallow fluff is going nowhere: one sweet kiss, and then it's all synthetic afterburn. Another delicacy, beef tartare, is manhandled onto a pita that has been singed nearly to a crisp, mimicking a pizza ($12). The raw meat is the pinkish ruby of broken-down tomatoes, a canvas for pepperoni, olives, whole anchovies. This is crafty. But a slap of banana-walnut butter underneath a salad ($7) is baffling. Are we supposed to drag each leaf through the butter, which tastes disorientingly of banana bread? A dexterous diner can avoid it entirely. Do. ABV is not all circus. The exemplary fish tacos ($8), done right with doubled corn tortillas and corners of lime, are straightforward, apart from cameos by miso and sriracha. The meatloaf sandwich ($10), embellished with a fried egg and hash browns, is a very good meatloaf sandwich, no more. Whence the exquisite petals of tender pickled veal tongue, half-curled in a grove of arugula and pecans ($8)? The dish is an emissary from another, more rarefied restaurant. And nothing prepares you for the fastidious desserts. Strawberries are attacked by a blowtorch, yielding sorbet haunted by smoke ($6). Asparagus ice cream, somehow creamy yet crisp, lolls on a mountain of chocolate "earth" (let's call it disintegrated brownie) wearing a dehydrated slice of white peach as a crown ($8). For all the swagger, Mr. Cova is no barbarian at the gates. A former Navy culinary specialist, he trained at the Culinary Institute of America and worked the line at Morimoto and Momofuku Ssam Bar before being tapped to helm Earl's Beer and Cheese, a bar with a dairy fetish. At Earl's, which is co-owned by one of the people behind ABV, he rehearsed early haute-trailer notions, like a foie gras Eggo. At times he seems to be working harder in the kitchen than you would guess from what winds up on the plate. Despite some old Wylie Dufresne magic with transglutaminase and gelatin, mounds of barley are pallid next to slabs of resplendently near-bloody rib-eye ($20). Fried chicken is suffused with a house-made 38-spice blend that includes dried porcini and Turkish coffee. But once it is stuffed into steamed buns (a salute to Momofuku), all is for nought, wiped out by an overdose of hoisin ($7). Theoretically, these dishes are designed to be paired with wine, which is available on tap ($4.50) alongside beer, and by the glass ($7 to $11). ABV, whose name stands for "alcohol by volume," lacks a hard-liquor license. Virgin cocktails and sleight of hand with the likes of sherry and vermouth compensate. In the early evening, diners pack 12 to a table on picnic-bench seats under menu boards with pushpin letters, or grab metal stools along the soaring glass storefront, soaking up the last of the light. The mood is scrappy, populist, utterly unlike the Upper East Side. It is not quite Occupy Lexington Avenue, but something is stirring. ABV Wine Bar 1504 Lexington Avenue (97th Street), (212) 722-8959, abvny.com. RECOMMENDED Pickled veal tongue, fish tacos, wasabi rock shrimp, tartare pizza, meatloaf sandwich, charred strawberry sorbet, asparagus ice cream. HOURS Monday to Thursday, 5 p.m. to midnight (kitchen until 11 p.m.); Friday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. (kitchen until midnight); Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. (kitchen until midnight); Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 5 p.m. to midnight (kitchen until 11 p.m.). WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Entrance is level with sidewalk. Restroom is spacious and equipped with a handrail.