Gilt Bar

Gilt Bar opened on West Kinzie Street in River North in 2010 and became the founding room of Hogsalt, the group that went on to build Maude's Liquor Bar, Au Cheval and Bavette's. The premise it states for itself - dedicated to the pleasures of drinking in restaurants and eating in bars - explains the format: a full kitchen sending ricotta toast, bone marrow and steak into a low-lit dining room, a long bar working through classic cocktails, and a hidden lounge called The Library downstairs that nods to the neighborhood's speakeasy history. The room has been a River North fixture long enough that its non-alcoholic list has been through several iterations.

The current menu keeps a Spirit-Free heading immediately after the cocktails, with drinks at $14.95 against $17.95 for the full-proof list - close enough that ordering from it does not feel like ordering down. The Citrus Ritual is the most fully constructed of them, using Ritual Zero Proof's tequila alternative with blood orange, lime, mint and club soda for a long, sharp drink that works alongside the kitchen's richer plates. The Seedlip Sour is shorter and drier, built on Seedlip Grove 42 with cranberry. A St. Agrestis Phony Negroni rounds out the section from the bottle. Resy's guide to the city's non-alcoholic cocktails picked the bar out specifically for the fact that its booze-free drinks read as festive rather than dutiful, noting that the list ran to five drinks at the time of writing. Service starts at 4pm daily and runs to 10:30pm on weeknights and 11pm at weekends, and the spirit-free list is available at the bar as well as at table. The Library, the concealed bar beneath the restaurant, references the speakeasy culture that ran through this part of River North during Prohibition, and it is part of the same operation rather than a separate venue. Gilt Bar was the first room Hogsalt opened, and the group has since grown into one of the larger independent restaurant companies in the city, which is part of why the spirit-free list here is stocked with branded non-alcoholic spirits rather than improvised from juice.