Because every restaurant is more than just what’s on the plate.

Wine Bar & Provisions | $$ | 724 St Joseph St, Rapid City

Settling In

By the time evening rolls around, most of us have already made forty decisions we didn’t ask for. What to answer, what to ignore, what to reheat for dinner. So when we walked into bb’s natural, all we had to decide was where to sit. Bar stool, high-top, or the couch in the corner.

Walking in feels like stepping into your cool friend’s living room, if your cool friend also happened to have a killer wine collection. There’s a bar if you want to perch and watch the bottles get poured. A few high-top tables for the people who can’t sit still. Couches, if you’re in the mood to sink in and stay a while. And tucked in the corner, of all things, a pinball machine.

The first thing that landed on our table was a watermelon radish, sliced thin, with a little pile of salted butter next to it. It comes with its own tiny decision. Swipe the radish through the butter, or eat it plain and pretend you’re being healthy about the whole evening?

We went with the butter. One bite in, we wondered why we’d even hesitated. That little bit of fat and salt turning a plain radish into something worth slowing down for.

The Little Stuff

We ordered the meat and cheese combo plate, chef’s selection, which meant the only real decision on our end was choosing to order it. Speck, a thick cut smoked prosciutto, alongside Salami Soppressata, paired with a Brillat-Savarin from France and Caputo’s House Cheddar, cave-aged with duck fat all the way from Utah. Someone who does this for a living had already worked out the pairings. All we had to do was enjoy it.

The Brillat-Savarin was rich and soft, the kind that spreads like butter and coats your whole mouth in cream. The cheddar felt like the responsible older sibling, firm, sharp, with a hint of smoke from the duck fat aging. The Speck brought deep, smoky richness without being heavy. The Soppressata had more bite, peppery and a touch funky in the way good salami should be.

Put together, the plate balanced itself out. Rich against sharp, mellow against assertive, not one decision required beyond saying yes to the plate.

The Reason You’re There

Being new to wine, I did the smartest thing I could: handed the decision off entirely. Our server put together a flight, two whites and a chilled red, and let her pick.

I won’t pretend I can walk you through tasting notes or tell you what made one wine different from another. That’s not the kind of critic I am. What I can tell you is that everything she chose complemented what was already on the table. The whites played well against the richness of the Brillat-Savarin, and the chilled red, which caught me off guard since I’d never had a red served cold before, cut right through the smokiness of the Speck.

The list here is long enough to be intimidating on your own, natural wines, pét-nats, orange wines, more regions than you can keep straight. Hand the decision over to somebody who does this for a living, and enjoy what shows up in the glass.

What Sticks With You

bb’s natural isn’t for everyone, and that’s a compliment. It’s quiet. It’s laid back. There’s no chaos to fight through, no crowd to shout over.

I can picture it becoming part of a regular rhythm. A weeknight spot to catch up with someone over a glass of something chilled and red. Or just as easily, a place to show up alone with a laptop, some excellent cheese in front of you, and a glass of wine somebody else picked out because you’re still learning the ropes.

You don’t need to know the difference between a pét-nat and an orange wine to enjoy either one. You just need to be willing to hand off a few small decisions and trust they’ll come back to you in a way that works.

After a day full of decisions that actually matter, handing this one off feels like a break.

Victoria’s Taste

“Get the Brillat-Savarin. It’s super creamy, buttery, with just a little tang, and it basically melts in your mouth. I’d order that cheese plate again just for this one thing.”

Final Bite

Some nights out ask a lot of you. This one didn’t ask for much at all. Just a radish, a little butter, and the good sense to say yes.

Taste the Room pays for every meal we review. We don’t accept comped food, and restaurants aren’t notified of our visit in advance. It’s how we keep our reviews honest and independent.