Restaurant review, The Beagle Celebrates the Dog Days of Eating.

In The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin writes of a delightful liquid he encountered during his travels—the "cool pleasant fluid of the cocoa-nut." At the Beagle, a new restaurant-bar in the East Village run by Matthew Piacentini, the drinks are much, much stronger. Happily so. You'll still find the spirit of the British naturalist here—his name marks the men's room door (the women's reads "Emma," his faithful wife). The space, too, evokes an old-fashioned Anglo sensibility, with blue-and-white wallpaper and framed turn-of-the-century book pages. These touches help signal a conscious coolness, catering to the well-coiffed, slickly dressed kids who don't mind shouting to converse or making dinner reservations by e-mail—or, alternatively, waiting two hours for a table during prime hours.

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