Dario

Dario opened in the North Loop in early 2024, an Italian restaurant with global influences led by chef Joe Rolle and beverage director Stephen Rowe. Rowe's background is the thing to know: he spent close to a decade as a founding team member of Marvel Bar, which for years was the most serious cocktail room in Minneapolis and one of the most respected in the country. What he has built at Dario is a dedicated spirit-free programme designed to stand alongside the full-proof cocktails rather than beneath them — the restaurant describes it as "a groundbreaking spirit-free offering that mirrors the depth and creativity of the full-proof cocktails," and for once the marketing language is roughly accurate.

The zero-proof list is bitters-forward and botanical, which is exactly where most spirit-free menus refuse to go. The New Age Outlaw combines Dhos Blanco with Spritz del Conte and lime. No. 75 is built on ISH London Botanical with Oddbird Blanc de Blanc and lemon — a non-alcoholic reading of a French 75 that uses a dealcoholised sparkling wine rather than soda, which is the difference between the drink working and not. There is a straightforward Botanical & Tonic for anyone who wants something long and dry, and the Naw-groni covers the bitter aperitif register. Around those the kitchen makes its own sodas, the bar pours an Athletic Brewing non-alcoholic golden ale, and there is a dealcoholised wine list, so a non-drinker at a table ordering wine with handmade pasta has a genuine parallel rather than a substitute.

That combination — a named cocktail list, house sodas, NA beer and NA wine — is the full set, and relatively few restaurants at any price point assemble all four. Dinner nightly, to 10pm on Friday and Saturday.