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Nikita Malhotra
Wine Director, Smithereens
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
From New York wine rooms and then through the Momofuku orbit, Nikita Malhotra’s work has been built on buying, directing, rebuilding, and, since 2024, serving as sommelier at Smithereens in New York City. The through-line is accumulation: tasting with discipline, editing with intent, and learning how a list performs on a floor, in a cellar, and across a room full of guests.
The Climb
At Goucher College, the foundation came before the city work. Nikita Malhotra then entered New York’s restaurant field, where wine service demands stamina, judgment, and a clear palate under pressure. The early years were not about one defining move, but about building range across the practical sides of the trade: buying from behind the scenes and serving from the room with equal control. At The Tangled Vine in New York, Nikita Malhotra worked as general manager and wine buyer, a role that sat at the meeting point of operations and selection. That combination matters in wine programs: the list has to make sense commercially, but it also has to hold together on the floor. From 2014, Nikita Malhotra became wine director at Tribeca Grill in New York. Wine direction asks for more than list assembly; it requires cellar structure, sequencing, and a room-level point of view carried through the bottles. In that position, the work moved from selection into authorship. Inside the Momofuku world, Nikita Malhotra served as head sommelier at a new project from the Momofuku team in New York. The pace of that environment required precision and flexibility at once, with the wine program shaped to fit a modern room that values movement and exactness. She later became beverage director and sommelier at KO (Momofuku Ko) in New York, extending that leadership while staying close to service.
Today
Since 2024, Nikita Malhotra has been sommelier at Smithereens in New York City. The role keeps the same working line intact: cellar judgment paired with dining-room service, and the ability to keep a program coherent while it changes around the room. At Smithereens in the East Village in 2024, Nikita Malhotra wrote a rotating wine list that initially featured white wines from the United States, Germany, and coastal Europe. The list reads as a working document rather than a fixed statement, with enough shape to hold and enough movement to adapt. The list has since shifted toward grenache and pinot noirs, keeping the pace active without losing structure. That kind of change reflects a practical approach to wine: bottles chosen to work with food, place, and service, not simply to stand out on their own. Across the New York stops, the pattern is visible in the work itself—Tribeca Grill, Momofuku Ko, and now Smithereens. The career has been built in layers, each role adding another piece of the same trade: service, structure, and the discipline of a considered pour.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Nikita
Where did Nikita Malhotra train or study?
Nikita Malhotra trained at Goucher College.
What recognition has Nikita Malhotra received?
New York City Rising Stars Award (2025).
