Bedford Street is getting another very small room with very specific ambitions. Bar à Part, the long-planned 15-seat wine bar and cafe from the team behind Zimmi’s, is set to open Sept. 28 next door to the Southern French restaurant at 72 Bedford Street.
The project comes from chef Maxime Pradié, Jenni Guizio and wine director Cory Holt. Zimmi’s opened in late 2024 and quickly made its narrow West Village dining room part of the neighborhood’s crowded French-restaurant conversation. Bar à Part takes the opposite approach to scale. With only 15 seats, it is closer to a counterpoint than an expansion.
Wine is one half of the idea. Holt built Zimmi’s list around French producers and an unusually deep selection of half bottles, and Bar à Part is intended to give that side of the operation more room. The other half is pastry. Clodagh Manning, the Irish pastry chef who previously worked at London’s Lyle’s, is expected to make both sweet and savory pastries and desserts for the new space.
That combination makes Bar à Part more interesting than the phrase “wine bar” suggests. The original plan, first reported in early 2025, was to begin as a nighttime operation and potentially add coffee and pastries during the day. More recent descriptions have kept the cafe element in the mix, along with small plates and a substantial wine program.
The tiny footprint is not merely a constraint. It puts the emphasis on a style of drinking and eating that the West Village has increasingly made its own: narrow rooms, short menus, serious bottles and a sense that getting a seat is part of the experience. That formula can become precious quickly, but it also works when the food and wine are specific enough to justify the intimacy.
Bar à Part has been unusually slow to arrive. Pradié confirmed the project in January 2025, when a spring opening was expected. The timetable slipped through 2025 and into 2026. The latest announced date is Monday, Sept. 28, at 4 p.m.
The delay may ultimately help distinguish the place from the parade of wine bars that have opened around downtown Manhattan. Zimmi’s already has a point of view, rooted in Southern French cooking rather than a generic small-plates template. Giving Manning’s pastry work equal billing with Holt’s wine program offers the new room another identity.
There is a practical limitation: 15 seats means this will not be the place for a spontaneous six-person dinner. But that is also the appeal. Bar à Part sounds built for a glass, a plate and perhaps something laminated and buttery from the pastry case, with the possibility that one drink turns into dinner.
The address is 72 Bedford Street at Commerce Street. Given the long gestation, it is worth checking the bar’s own channels before heading over on opening week.
