Where Can I Watch Football Without Feeling Like a Total Sports Bro?

Welcome to Ask Eater, a column from Eater New York where the site’s editors, reporters, and critics answer specific or baffling restaurant requests from readers and friends. Have a question for us? Submit your question in this form.

Hi Eater,

I’m looking for a casual to upscale restaurant with some TVs. I hesitate to say upscale sports bar because I don’t care to have team jerseys hanging up everywhere. A good wine list would be great. The only thing we’ve found close to our needs is Blue Ribbon on the UWS, but we can’t really go there EVERY weekend for the football games. I would love to stay Midtown or below, preferably west side, and no one has any serious food restrictions, though we’d like to have some healthy-ish options and a few in our party are gluten or dairy-free.

Can you help?

Love Football, Hate Sports Bars

Hi LFHSB,

I hate football and think sports bars are fine, but luckily for you, I do actually still find joy in the world despite an unending sense that everything is terrible and nothing is a sure thing except death. Like in wine! I too like wine.

Maybe you should check out wine bar Terroir Tribeca for your weekends sports watching. Wine bar stereotypes insist that the spaces be hush and intimate, but Terroir’s not quite like that. It’s big and ideal for groups, and they will show whatever you want them to show on the TV’s — including football.

Food-wise, all your diet-restricted friends are bound to find something on the menu, which has options ranging from short ribs with a coco bean cassoulet to potato croquettes with ham and peas. And for the healthier days, there are a couple salads where effort has clearly been put into composing the ingredients; the last menu posted online has a fall salad with pears, spiced walnuts, blue cheese, and a maple vinaigrette for $16.

But most importantly, the wine is good. People who work there are knowledgeable, and you’re bound to try something that’s far more interesting than anything you’d fine at a typical sports bar. Last time I was there, I got tipsy on some amazing, funky whites that were all recommendations of my server. Fun fact: Terroir is also the place where the author of popular wine book Cork Dork worked as a sommelier.

Hope it works out,

Serena