Nikita Malhotra

At Smithereens in New York City, Nikita Malhotra works the bottle list with the sort of control that keeps a room moving cleanly from first pour to last sip. The job sits inside the restaurant’s larger beverage rhythm, but the craft is the same: reading the table, shaping pace, and making each choice feel settled rather than pushed. Training at Goucher College gave Malhotra a starting point, but the more useful schooling came through the city’s working food and beverage spaces.

Work in various independent bookstores in New York City, then for a distributor, then in cafes, restaurants, and wine bars built a base in the practical side of service, where the handling of stock, timing, and conversation all matter. That base widened into management at The Tangled Vine in Upper West Side, New York. First as Wine Director, then as general manager and wine buyer, Malhotra moved from selecting bottles to shaping the full structure around them.

In a wine program, that shift changes the job from list-building to room-building, with the list serving the way people experience the space. At Tribeca Grill in New York, starting in 2014, the work moved again: Wine Director, then a management position and overseeing the bar program. The progression shows a broader command of beverage operations, from cellar choices to the coordination of service across the bar and dining room.

Later roles as beer rep, head sommelier at a new project from the Momofuku team, and Beverage Director and sommelier at Momofuku Ko in New York added more range to the same discipline. Across retail, distribution, cafés, wine bars, and high-profile dining rooms, the through line is less about reinvention than accumulation: each step added another layer of perspective to the same working vocabulary. Since 2024, Malhotra has been sommelier at Smithereens, bringing that accumulation into an East Village room that benefits from a hand with range and restraint.

Since 2024, Malhotra has worked as sommelier at Smithereens in New York City. In the East Village restaurant, she wrote a rotating wine list that originally featured white wines from the United States, Germany, and coastal Europe. The list is built around freshness and lift, with enough movement to keep the room from settling into one register. The list now focuses on grenache and pinot noirs. That shift gives the program a different shape, moving from brighter, more openly refreshing bottles into wines that carry a different kind of tension and nuance. In practice, these decisions are not just about inventory; they set the tone of the table.

Nikita Malhotra's honors include New York City Rising Stars Award Winner and Best Sommelier. Those recognitions track with the work itself: steady beverage judgment, clear service, and the ability to turn technical knowledge into a guest experience that feels composed without calling attention to itself. She won MICHELIN Guide New York’s Sommelier of the Year award in 2022 and a 2025 StarChefs Rising Stars Sommelier award.