Gift Horse

Gift Horse takes its name from the saying about not looking one in the mouth, which tells you most of what you need to know about the tone of the place. It is a raw bar on Westminster Street in downtown Providence, chef Benjamin Sukle's second room on the block after Oberlin, and it is centred on local shellfish, seafood and whatever came off New England boats that morning. The oyster programme is the point of pride: oysters drawn from every growing region in Rhode Island, so you can taste the difference between one salt pond and the next across a single tray.

The drinks follow the same instinct toward local specificity. The non-alcoholic build the bar is known for is made with Del's — the frozen lemonade sold from roadside stands across Rhode Island since the 1940s, and about as close to a state emblem as a drink can get — combined with lemon, lime and a citrus cordial. Ordering it is a small piece of local literacy. Alongside it sits an orange shrub, a drinking vinegar that cuts through the brine of a dozen oysters better than anything sweet would.

Two built drinks rather than a full printed section puts this at a three, but the pairing logic is genuinely good: shellfish wants acid, and both of these deliver it. For a non-drinker eating raw seafood, that is a more useful offer than a long list of sweet mocktails would be.

We have not published prices or confirmed current names here — Gift Horse does not publish a drinks menu online, and the list moves with the kitchen. The restaurant sits two doors from Oberlin under the same ownership, and both take reservations through the same system.