East meets West at a new sake and wine bar in Islington that aims to strip the formality – and some of the expense – of drinking high-end artisanal bottles. Combining both liquids in its name, SANE has opened in cute Camden Passage, close to Angel tube station.
Founder Maxime Maiano is a winemaker, importer and sommelier originally from France, who has worked at the Mandarin Oriental and helped design the drinks list at Jason Atherton’s Row on 5 in Mayfair.
He pitches Sane as a “high-end yet accessible sake and wine bar, bridging the gap between connoisseurship and casual pleasure“. The wines are from small artisanal producers, most of whom Maxime knows personally, and are imported directly, saving on costs; bottles can be purchased retail or consumed in the bar for an extra £15.
The food menu also combines Europe and Asia, and is notably well priced. Lunchtime sandwiches including crocque monsieur and smoked trout wasabi cost £7-£8, and in the evening there is a range of nibbles, flatbreads, charcuterie and cheeses plus a selection of light mains costing around £11-£12, including tuna tataki and a pinot grigio flammenkueche.
To accompany of day of serious tasting, there’s a blowout 5-course brunch at £27 a head which includes a beef Bourguignon or red wine mushroom pie – and the team also brew their own iced teas.
Another sommelier-led wine bar with an East-West theme has recently opened less than a mile away at the other end of Rosebery Avenue – Ebi in Clerkenwell, from Japanese ex-Fat Duck sommelier Raku Oda.
He serves a daily-changing hand-written list of wines and sakes by the glass and a fuller range by the bottle to drink in or take home, along with small plates of cold food.