Where Wine is a Beverage, Not an Event: Flynnies in Marblehead

365 Days

Where Wine is a Beverage, Not an Event: Flynnies in Marblehead

Posted 04/30/2008 at 11:37 PM by Cathy

"This is one of my favorite places to eat."

That's what I heard when I sat down for lunch at Flynnies on the Avenue in Marblehead today.

I looked around.

Maybe it's a favorite because it's a neighborhood kind of place. Most of the people who came for lunch walked right up to the bar with the kind of assurance that comes only from being a very-regular regular.

Maybe it's a favorite because the staff looks you square in the eye and says no, she wouldn't recommend that dish for you or yes, he does think the soup of the day is worth a bowl instead of a cup.

Maybe it's a favorite because the food is messy in a mop-everything-up-with-bread-so-I-don't-miss-a-drop kind of way.

For me it would be a favorite because wine here is treated as a beverage, not as an Event.

That's a big distinction.

I tried a glass of 2007 Sauvignon Blanc from the Undurraga winery in Chile, not because it's a famous wine (it isn't) and not because I wanted something sophisticated (I didn't). I tried it because I wanted something fresh tasting and recent, something that didn't call for much deliberation, something I could simply drink and get on with things.

Is the wine list fancy at Flynnie's? Nope. But sometimes – like in the middle of the day when we're mopping up a warm bruschetta wrap with balsamic dressing – an un-fancy wine is just what we need.

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About the Author

Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe writes about drinking wine every day in the Boston area. She finds the quirky characters, the after-hours events, and the surprising stories that make up Boston's vibrant local wine scene. But no matter where she is, what she's doing, or who she's with, she mostly just wants to drink the stuff.

Her first restaurant gig was at Chez Panisse, when she knocked on the kitchen's back door and asked if she could work there. She's also worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris and Thomas Keller in Las Vegas. She went to graduate school at Harvard (twice), and her writing has run in Boston magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Edible Boston, and on Nevada Public Radio and Grist.org.