home » media » Phoenix Magazine - December 2006

Best New Restaurants

And I don’t mean this derogatorily, because there’s still nothing cooler than a semi-secret getaway place to chill with your friends. That’s what Gina Bell Madrid and Vinè Saccento have created at Drip, a restaurant and coffeehouse that encourages a little eating, a little coffee drinking and a lot of hanging out.

The sparely furnished, orange-and-white main room holds nothing more than six tables with molded plastic chairs and, in the middle of the room, a couch and curvy table, covered with various newspapers. Regulars gather at the little bar against the back wall to talk to Gina (who is unfailingly relaxed) or partake of the free wi-fi.

A smaller, darker second room is furnished with a modern sink, two chairs and a rack full of trendy magazines. Frankly, the place doesn’t look or feel much like a restaurant.

The menu, which makes clever use of a plastic DVD case, shows breakfast on one side and lunch on the other. It’s short sweet and blessedly simple - five sandwiches, seven breakfast selections and a whipped-cream-mantled crèpe (sometimes filled with apples and raisins, sometimes with bananas and Nutella) that tastes more like dessert than breakfast to traditional me.

Bread baked by Simply Bread is the underpinning of every sandwich here, and it’s wonderful. Drip also sells a few loaves for the take-home. Meanwhile, all of the certified organic produce comes courtesy of Boxed Greens. Portions are small, and in true clubhouse fashion, everything arrives on paper plates. But no matter. If you live in the neighborhood, this is a great place to drop by for a quick, healthy bite.