Bar Bianco

Bar Bianco sits in an 1890s brick bungalow on Heritage Square, the small cluster of surviving Victorian buildings marooned in downtown Phoenix among the towers and the convention centre. It belongs to Chris Bianco, whose Pizzeria Bianco next door has been called the best pizza in America often enough that the wait for a table became a structural feature of the operation — and Bar Bianco is where that wait is spent. The room is low-ceilinged and dark in a way that reads as old rather than styled, with a garden outside that is the better seat for most of the Phoenix year.

A wait bar is exactly the situation where non-drinkers usually get handled worst: everyone else is given a glass of wine and a reason to be patient, and you are given a soda. Bar Bianco does not do that. Its zero-proof drinks are built on Seedlip non-alcoholic spirits and finished with the same house-made syrups used across the cocktail list, which keeps them dry and layered rather than sugary. The Vinifera Spice runs citrus-forward; the Mariposa Milk is the herbal one. Phoenix New Times has picked out that pairing — a named NA spirit plus a house syrup — as the thing that distinguishes the list.

The bar keeps daytime-into-evening hours, 11am to 9pm Monday through Saturday, and closes Sundays. Two practical notes. It is a wine bar attached to a restaurant, so the alcohol-free options are a section of a list whose centre is Italian wine. And because the room exists partly to absorb the pizzeria queue, it is busiest exactly when the restaurant is — arrive early or late if you want a seat rather than a standing spot. Heritage Square itself is worth the detour in daylight — the bungalows are among the last pre-1900 buildings left in central Phoenix.