Kitty Dare

Kitty Dare occupies 1029 Edgewood Avenue in Inman Park, a storied Atlanta address, and has been there since 2021. It was founded by owner and wine director Jamshad Zarnegar, known as Jaamy, who was born in Iran and previously co-owned the Last Resort Grill in Athens; the kitchen is led by chef Giuseppe Esposito, from Italy's Emilia region. The restaurant carries the name of Zarnegar's late friend Kitty Dare Etheridge. The food is pan-Mediterranean and ranges wider than that label usually promises — berbere chicken with saffron rice cakes alongside bucatini with shrimp.

It is a wine-forward bar, and the zero-proof list is correspondingly short: two named cocktails, both built on Amethyst, the non-alcoholic distillery from South Carolina. The Kian uses Amethyst Blueberry Ginger Mint with lime, simple syrup and ginger beer. The Farhad is built on Amethyst Lemon Cucumber Serrano with lemon, simple syrup and mint.

Amethyst is worth noting because it turns up repeatedly in this city — the same Lemon Cucumber Serrano bottling appears in the Celery Gimlet at one-Michelin-starred Lazy Betty. A regional non-alcoholic producer being adopted by serious kitchens across a metro is a reasonable signal of quality, and it means the drinks in the Farhad and the Gimlet share a recognisable backbone: the serrano gives a slow capsaicin heat that fills the space a spirit's burn would otherwise occupy. Heat is one of the few tools that genuinely replaces alcohol's bite rather than working around it.

Two drinks is a short list, and this is a wine bar with a restaurant attached rather than a zero-proof destination — go for the food and the room, and expect a properly made drink rather than a menu of them. The bar opens daily at 4pm, with dinner from 5pm and brunch on Sundays.