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Michael Scelfo’s Wine Pairing Rule: There Are No Rules (Except Bubbles with Fried Food)

October 13, 2015 · Updated July 22, 2026 · 7 min read

Michael Scelfo has been cooking at Harvard Square since 2014, when he opened Alden & Harlow in the subterranean space at 40 Brattle Street that housed Casablanca for fifty years before him. The restaurant earned three stars from the Boston Globe, Best New Restaurant from Boston magazine, and a Bon Appétit nomination for America’s Best New Restaurant in the same year. He has since opened The Longfellow Bar directly above Alden & Harlow, Waypoint at the gateway to Harvard Square, and Josephine in Somerville — a celebration of his Sicilian grandmother’s kitchen that focuses on pizza and pasta made with the kind of conviction that comes from cooking the food you actually grew up eating. Four concepts, one philosophy: cook the food you would make at home for the people you love, and let the wine conversation follow from there rather than lead it.

Key Takeaways

◆The best wine pairing is the one that makes you want another bite — and another sip — Scelfo’s test for any pairing is simple: after a bite of food followed by a sip of wine, do you want more food? Do you want more wine? If both answers are yes, the pairing works. This is more useful than any chart of recommended varietals because it relies on your actual experience of the specific food and wine in front of you, not a generalized rule about categories.

◆Sparkling wine is the most versatile food wine available — and the most underused — “Bubbles go with anything fried,” Scelfo says. “The acidity and the carbonation cut right through the fat.” He extends this further: sparkling wine’s combination of acidity, effervescence, and relatively lower alcohol makes it the most consistently food-friendly category in wine, more versatile than most reds and more interesting than most whites. The idea that Champagne and sparkling wine are reserved for toasts and celebrations is one of wine culture’s most limiting conventions.

◆Pairing is a conversation between the food and the wine — not a rule to be followed — Rules about which wine goes with which food are descriptions of pairings that have worked historically, not prescriptions for what you must do. Scelfo approaches pairing as a creative act: what does this dish need? Does it need refreshment, contrast, complementary flavors, structural support? The wine that answers those questions is the right wine, regardless of what the conventional pairing chart says.

◆The regional pairing principle still works — with flexibility — “Things that grow together go together” is the oldest wine and food pairing principle and remains one of the most reliable. Italian food with Italian wine, Loire Valley dishes with Loire wines, Spanish tapas with Spanish Albariño or Garnacha. The principle works because the wine and the food evolved together in the same agricultural ecosystem. But it is a starting point, not a rule — and Scelfo treats it as one useful lens among several.

◆Trust your instincts — then refine them through experience — The drinker who has tried Chablis with oysters a dozen times has more pairing knowledge than the one who has memorized a pairing chart without tasting anything. Scelfo’s approach to building wine knowledge is experiential: try things, pay attention to what works, remember what didn’t, and build a personal vocabulary of pairings that you know from direct experience rather than received wisdom.

Cooking from the Heart — Scelfo’s Philosophy

Michael Scelfo did not set out to run four restaurants. He set out to cook the way he cooks at home — the way he learned cooking from his Sicilian grandmother Josephine, in a kitchen where the food was humble and the hospitality was genuine and nobody needed a pairing chart to enjoy dinner. The restaurants he has built in Cambridge and Somerville are all expressions of that starting point: thoughtfully sourced, honestly made food that honors tradition without being imprisoned by it.

Alden & Harlow opened in 2014 in Harvard Square’s most storied restaurant space — the basement at 40 Brattle Street where Casablanca had been a Cambridge institution for fifty years. “I used to dream at Casablanca about what I would do if I opened my own restaurant,” Scelfo has said. “Never in a million years did I think Harvard Square would be the place for it.” The subterranean dining room filled with vintage pieces, worn cookbooks, children’s artwork, and maple butcher-block tables was designed to feel like an extension of his home kitchen. It still does.

The Longfellow Bar, which opened above Alden & Harlow in 2018 in the historic Café Algiers space, extended the concept with a neighborhood bar philosophy. Waypoint brought a seafood-focused menu to Massachusetts Avenue. And Josephine — named for his grandmother, designed to evoke her kitchen — is Scelfo’s most personal project yet: pizza and pasta made from family recipes woven into his own, in a space designed for the kind of convivial eating that requires no explanation and no instructions.

The Pairing Conversation — Scelfo’s Approach to Wine and Food

Scelfo approaches wine and food pairing the way he approaches the menu: with personal experience as the primary guide and rules as suggestions rather than requirements. His pairing philosophy is built on a few principles that have served him across more than a decade of restaurant kitchens.

Scelfo’s Pairing Principles — In His Own Words

“Bubbles go with anything fried.”
The acidity and carbonation of sparkling wine cut through fat better than almost any still wine. A glass of grower Champagne or a Crémant d’Alsace alongside fried chicken, tempura, or fried clams does something no Chardonnay can replicate — the bubbles actively refresh the palate between bites in a way that builds appetite rather than satisfying it. Scelfo returns to sparkling wine as his default pairing recommendation more often than any other category, and for good reason.

“After a bite and a sip — do you want more of both?”
This is Scelfo’s test. A pairing that works makes you want another forkful of the food and another sip of the wine simultaneously. A pairing that doesn’t work satisfies one at the expense of the other — the wine overwhelms the food, or the food makes the wine taste flat or harsh. Apply this test instead of consulting a chart and you’ll develop real pairing instincts faster than any other method.

“Things that grow together go together — as a starting point.”
The regional pairing principle is the oldest and most reliable shorthand in wine and food. Italian food with Italian wine. Loire Valley food with Loire wine. Spanish tapas with Albariño or Garnacha. The food and the wine evolved in the same place, at the same table, over centuries. That history is encoded in the flavors. But Scelfo treats it as a starting point rather than a rule — the first question to ask, not the last.

“Build your own experience — not someone else’s chart.”
The drinker who has tried Chablis with oysters a dozen times knows something that cannot be found in a pairing guide. Personal experience of what works — accumulated through curiosity, attention, and a willingness to try things that might not work — is the foundation of genuine pairing knowledge. Scelfo’s recommendation: order a bottle you don’t know, pay attention to how it behaves with the food in front of you, and remember what you learn.

The Alden & Harlow Wine Program

The bar program at Alden & Harlow reflects the restaurant’s overall philosophy: market-driven, ingredient-focused, with house-made infusions and syrups that give the cocktail list the same seasonal specificity as the food menu. The wine list follows the kitchen’s sourcing philosophy — thoughtfully selected, honest in its provenance, and oriented toward bottles that work with food rather than bottles that perform on their own.

The list leans toward producers with genuine farming and winemaking stories — the same producers that appear on any serious natural wine and small-producer list in Boston. This is not coincidental. Scelfo’s cooking philosophy and natural wine’s philosophy share a common ancestor: the conviction that the best results come from honest ingredients, minimal intervention, and a willingness to let the raw material speak for itself.

Visit Information — Michael Scelfo Restaurants

Alden & Harlow — 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge MA 02138. Harvard Square. The original and the flagship. Seasonal small plates, shareable format, full bar program. The room is subterranean and warm; the food is exactly what it says it is.

The Longfellow Bar — 40 Brattle Street (above Alden & Harlow), Cambridge MA 02138. The historic Café Algiers space reimagined as a neighborhood bar and restaurant. Named for architect Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, who created Brattle Hall with his partners Frank Alden and Alfred Harlow in 1889.

Waypoint — 1030 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138. Seafood-focused, at the gateway to Harvard Square.

Josephine — Cambria Hotel, Somerville MA. Named for Scelfo’s Sicilian grandmother. Pizza and pasta, family recipes, the full Italian experience.

The CrushBrew Take

What makes Scelfo’s approach to wine and food pairing worth taking seriously is that it comes from a professional who cooks food for a living and has spent more than a decade watching what people actually enjoy when the rules are set aside. His conclusions — bubbles with fried food, trust your instincts, build your own experience — are not contrarian positions. They are the distilled wisdom of someone who has made thousands of pairing decisions and paid attention to what worked. The chart is a starting point. The dinner table is where you learn.

Culinary Cocktails

Michael Scelfo’s Wine Pairing Rule: There Are No Rules (Except Bubbles with Fried Food)

Cooking from the Heart — Scelfo’s Philosophy

The Pairing Conversation — Scelfo’s Approach to Wine and Food

The Alden & Harlow Wine Program

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