Laser Wolf

Laser Wolf is the Israeli grill from Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook — the team behind Zahav — on North Howard Street in Kensington. The format is fixed and communal: a spread of salatim, the small salads that open an Israeli meal, followed by a charcoal-grilled skewer of your choosing, followed by soft-serve. It is one of the hardest reservations in the city.

The non-alcoholic list is better than it needs to be, and there is a straightforward reason. Solomonov has been sober for more than a decade, a fact he has spoken about publicly for years, and Visit Philadelphia's zero-proof guide notes that all of his restaurants carry thoughtful non-alcoholic options as a result. That is the difference between a kitchen where the zero-proof list was assigned to someone junior and one where the owner is the person most likely to order from it.

The Laser Lemonade is the drink the guide leads with: lemon with cardamom, orange blossom and butterfly pea flower. Cardamom and orange blossom are the two most characteristic aromatics of the Levantine pantry, so the drink sits inside the food's own flavour world rather than alongside it, and the butterfly pea flower gives it the deep blue-violet colour that makes it obvious across a room. The Passion Fruit Cooler — passion fruit, lime, orange and cilantro — is the one to order with the meat, because charcoal-grilled lamb needs acid and herbs against it, and cilantro does a job here that no soft drink would.

Beyond those there is a hibiscus, rose and mint iced tea, tart and floral, and Unified Ferments kombucha, which is a serious producer rather than a supermarket brand — their ferments are tea-led and dry, closer to a sparkling wine than to a sweet kombucha.

The wider point for a non-drinker is the shape of the meal. Laser Wolf serves a set format at a fixed price with the food arriving in waves; there is no bar to stand at, no rounds to buy, and the evening's rhythm is set by the kitchen. That structure does more to make an alcohol-free evening comfortable than any single drink can, and it is why this is one of the easier hard-to-book restaurants in Philadelphia to enjoy without drinking.