This is 2013. Today’s diners are over the incongruity of eating fried chicken in a zillion-dollar dining room with a popping skyline view, much less finding it on the same menu as hamachi crudo, jamón Serrano, and red-wine-braised short ribs. But the confident staff and ecstatic customers are so thrilled to be part of the winning team at Alpana Singh’s brash four-story restaurant, bar, and wine cellar empire that they don’t care one bit if Bjorn Rasmussen’s menu is all over the place.

Take advantage of Singh’s razor-sharp wine acumen to pair smart dishes with interesting wines—such as slow-poached citrus salmon atop a polenta cake with a glass of 2011 Elk Cove pinot gris—and the Boarding House’s shrewd method emerges.