Gufo

Gufo opened on July 28, 2023 at 660 Cambridge Street in East Cambridge, the fourth concept from Coda Restaurant Group and its first outside Boston proper. The group began with CODA in 2008, added The Salty Pig in 2012 and SRV in 2016, and followed Gufo with Baleia in the South End in 2024, so the Italian technique and the drinks-list conventions are shared across the family. Gufo — Italian for owl — is pitched as a restaurant, bar, cafe and community meeting place rather than a dinner-only room, and trades accordingly: weekday lunch from 11am, weekend brunch, and dinner service from 5pm. The food is handmade pasta, pizza and what the kitchen calls comforting-yet-inventive antipasti, and the site includes an all-season patio and a bocce court. Boston Magazine, in its guide to Boston's best mocktails, recommended pairing dinner entrees like the squid ink bucatini and swordfish Milanese with the Garden Party and the Non-Baldi, and noted the drinks fit the relaxed feel of the patio.

The non-alcoholic offering is printed as a named section, Zero or Low Proof, and is priced well below the cocktail list, which makes it genuinely usable across a whole meal. Non-Baldi is $9, a red-bitter aperitivo build using Stappi Red Bitter with orange. Garden Party is $9 and the most-photographed of them, a mix of green tea, basil, lemon and pineapple. Snap Back, also $9, is the savoury one, made from snap pea, salted lime and soda. Trade Route at $11 uses Lucano non-alcoholic amaro with grapefruit, sumac and agave and is flagged at under 0.5% ABV. The amaro is also sold on its own at $8, with the option to lengthen it into a spritz with orange. A second block headed Low Proof Beer + Wine carries the non-alcoholic hazy IPA from Notch, which brews it a few miles away in Brighton and Salem, at $9, Al's non-alcoholic lager at $9, Delirium's Delirio at $15, and three German non-alcoholic wines: Wolffer "Spring in a Bottle" at $14, Wander & Found "Cuvee Blanc" at $13 and Odd Bird "GSM" at $14.