An Evening at Waxlight Bar à Vin

Join us at Waxlight Bar à Vin on Saturday, September 12th at 6:00pm for an evening in one of Buffalo’s most quietly ambitious dining rooms — a converted Chandler Street factory in the Black Rock neighborhood, where rose coral and midnight blue velvet seating sits beneath brass fixtures salvaged from the original Hotel Lafayette.

A Menu Made for the Chaîne

The kitchen has built a special menu created specifically for our Bailliage — not the à la carte list, and not a repeat of anything on the current seasonal rotation. Five courses run from roast chicken potato chips and charred eggplant labneh through snapper poached in tomato leaf oil to Rohan duck with peaches roasted in black olive caramel, closing on huacatay stracciatella ice cream. Every course is poured with its own wine: a Crémant de Limoux to open, a Seneca Lake pét-nat, Sancerre alongside the snapper, a 2015 Rioja Alta with the duck, and a Mosel Kabinett to finish.

About the Restaurant

Waxlight is owner-operated by a group of certified sommeliers and chefs, which means the people pouring your wine and cooking your food are the same people who built the place.

Chef Joseph Fenush — a Buffalo native who cooked at VOLT in Frederick, Maryland before returning home in 2015 as opening chef de cuisine at Toutant — leads a kitchen known for technique-driven cooking with a contemporary French accent. He is joined by Chef Edward Forster, who has been cooking since he was sixteen and has worked in London, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago; he decided the time was right to bring his high intensity and creative flavor back to Buffalo.

The beverage program — overseen by Certified Sommeliers Tony Rials and Jess Railey-Forster — leans toward small, sustainable producers and has been named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program in three consecutive years, advancing to finalist in 2024.

The dining room itself, designed by Biba Studio, won an IIDA Award for Hospitality. Learn more at waxlightbaravin.com.

There is ample parking in the lot behind the building, accessible from the driveway at 37 Chandler or from Grote Street.