Profile

Like many family-owned bistros in France, Sharz Café & Wine Bar's outdated yet quirky décor and slightly too-bright lighting verge on charming. There are eccentric touches: whimsical, painted monkeys dance across the custard-colored top half of the room, a bronze primate holding court at the tiny bar and an oil painting of a tuxedoed and monacled chimpanzee watching over the 36-seat dining space. Clusters of tablet-sized mirrors and chalkboards on the walls announce a select few from the gamut of wines on offer. Forty are available by the glass: reds, whites, and rosés from across the hemispheres; Champagnes and sparkling wines; and even sakes. Such offerings must make the mostly neighborhood pearls-and-pashmina crowd at this Upper East Side eatery wish there were more than the quartet of stools at the bar. Chef Sharleen Cowan (who puts the Shar in Sharz) turns out American fare that includes bright salads, leafy and chunky, and some flavorful appetizers, like baked lump-crab cakes that are rich and meaty on the inside and crisp on the outside. Entrees and pastas tend to be more filling than interesting, but grilled shrimp with cilantro-lime butter is deliciously herb- and salt-crusted. If the café doesn’t work for you, don’t fret; the wine selection will. — Colleen McKinney

Prix-fixe dinner every day from 4:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m. $19.50, cash only.

Roasted beet, arugula and feta cheese salad, $10; grilled shrimp with cilantro-lime butter, black bean purée and basmati rice, $23