Dining Guide

With its airy, high-ceilinged space anchored (and divided into bar and dining areas) by a convivial communal table made from enormous vintage wine barrels, The Press is a quintessential neighborhood bistro—casual enough to drop in on a Wednesday, high-toned enough for Saturday date night. The menu, devised by chef-owner David English (formerly the head chef at Ella), is similarly flexible: It ranges from tapas, like fried meatballs with garlic yogurt or crunchy fried potato croquettes, to appetizer plates like the silken calamari steak with white bean salad, roasted bell peppers and arugula. Main courses, which change frequently, recently included a grilled cod with butternut squash risotto. The pan-Mediterranean influences stretch from Spain to Greece, inspiring not only a small menu of pastas, like the potato gnocchi with prosciutto, broccoli, pearl onions, and parmesan cream sauce, but also the restaurant’s name, which refers to an olive press.