Absinthe Brasserie & Bar

Absinthe Brasserie & Bar occupies the corner of Hayes and Gough, a block from the Opera House and Davies Symphony Hall, and has been the default pre-performance room in Hayes Valley for long enough that its bar is part of the neighbourhood's furniture. The format is a French-Californian brasserie: a raw bar, steak frites and a long menu of pre-Prohibition and mid-century cocktails, served under pressed tin from a marble counter. It trades Wednesday through Sunday, from 11:30am to 10pm on weekdays and from 11am at weekends, which covers both the matinee and the evening curtain.

The non-alcoholic drinks are given a dedicated section of the cocktail list, headed n/a cocktails, with every drink at $12 against $16 to $18 for the alcoholic ones. There are four. Coda Leger is the longest and most aromatic, built on pomegranate with lemon, lime, vanilla and seltzer. Mister Rogers is a stripped-back mule of lime, mint and ginger beer, and is the natural order for anyone who wants something dry and cold rather than sweet. Absinthe Lemonade is the house lemonade cut with cranberry and ginger. Bright Red Shirts is the most technically interesting of the group: the bar makes a non-alcoholic Campari-style syrup in house and lengthens it with orange, lemon and seltzer, producing the bitter red aperitivo that an alcohol-free drinker in a room full of spritzes usually has to go without. The names echo the full-proof list, which is built on similarly playful titles — a Ginger Rogers, a Bee's Knees, a Berry Collins — so the alcohol-free drinks read as part of the same menu rather than as a concession printed at the bottom of the page. The restaurant is closed Monday and Tuesday, which is worth checking before a pre-theatre booking, and the bar serves the full menu throughout. Given how many people pass through this corner on their way to an 8pm curtain, a four-drink zero-proof list at a third below cocktail prices is one of the more practically useful alcohol-free offerings in the city centre.