Noir: Mike Farwell Sets Another Jewel in Pasadena

[Updated August 21, 2009  |  7:43 a.m.] Noir Food and Wine is bright a shiny place, the latest jewel Mike Farwell has set in Pasadena.

After creating Wine Bar 112 at Restaurant Halie and then Old Pasadena’s Vertical Wine Bistro, Farwell has teamed with Chef Claud Beltran to fashion Noir in an intimately petite setting on Mentor Avenue. His goal, it seems, is to recreate the feeling that swept over him during a life-changing visit he made to Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris in 1980.

“I just thought the whole idea of sitting down in a bar or at a table and being able to taste wines from a specific region, actually have more than one, that you could compare, and just spend an evening thinking about the wine and also eating good food as opposed to going out to get good food and then hoping they had good wine. I don’t like that concept. I don’t think that’s what dining is all about. I never have,” Farwell told us on Noir’s opening night.

The feeling is decidedly friendly – despite Beltran’s wonderful cuisine the object here is casual  conviviality  opposed to serious “haute cuisine” in hushed tones.

“If you’re driving around and you don’t have anything to do, you can just come in the door, sit down and have a glass of wine and get treated like family,” Farwell says, describing Noir’s personality. “We’re not going to have that fine dining kind of atmosphere. We’re going to have a friendly atmosphere.”

Noir serves an all small plates menu which, Farwell says, lends “to that casualness where a person can sit down and order some French Fries and a glass of Chardonnay if they want, or they can order a piece of meat with a Bordeaux.”

Chef Claud Beltran, whose curriculum vitae touts working with Thomas Keller at Checker’s, Dickinson-West, Cayo (his own restaurant), Restaurant Hale and Madeleine’s, is an owner and Noir’s Executive Chef. Admittedly, he loves creating courses and full plates, but the Noir concept excites him. Beltran’s menu offers up tastes “of Provence, Piemonte and New Orleans.”

Noir will ultimately boast perhaps 500 wine selections – far more than Willi’s, and more than Vertical’s offering of about 340.

“I don’t think anybody in this town, with the exception of the Langham [Huntington Hotel & Spa], has a bigger wine list than we do,”  Farwell told us.

For now, Noir’s floor is small, presenting a community table and about 8 other tables, but a covered outdoor dining area is in the works and scheduled to open about Labor Day.  “When we get the patio open we’ll be able to seat 70 people,” Farwell says. “That will make a big difference.”

Noir Food and Wine
40 North Mentor Avenue , Pasadena.  (626) 795-7199 )