Clementine Cocktail Bar

Clementine opened on Washington Street in the centre of Providence, a few doors from Trinity Repertory Company, and it approaches a cocktail list the way a museum approaches a collection — eight drinks, each one built to be looked at as well as drunk. One arrives as a flute of Italian aperitifs capped with a quivering smoke bubble that bursts at a touch and releases a cloud of perfumed vapour. It is a room that takes presentation seriously, and that instinct carries over to the drinks made without alcohol.

The non-alcoholic offering is genuinely constructed rather than improvised. It includes an alcohol-free Negroni — the hardest classic to render without spirit, because the drink is nothing but bitterness, sweetness and botanical weight, with no fruit to hide behind — alongside a honeydew-and-lime build and a third that runs floral, sweet and sour. Three distinct builds covering bitter, fresh and floral is a real spread; most bars in this metro manage one.

The room is small, lively and elegant in equal measure, with a good music programme and a food menu designed for sharing across a table rather than eating alone at the bar. It also does a brisk private-party trade, so the space can be booked out. Hours are worth checking before you go: it is closed Monday and Tuesday entirely, opens at four Wednesday through Saturday, and runs a shorter Sunday from three until nine.

We have not published the drink names and prices here. Clementine's own drinks page currently returns an error rather than a menu, so while its non-alcoholic builds are documented in current Providence coverage, we could not check them against the bar's live list. Given how fast lists rotate in this city, treat the shape of the programme as reliable and the specific names as worth confirming when you order.