Laszlo

Laszlo is the bar half of Foreign Cinema, the Mission District restaurant that chef-partners Gayle Pirie and John Clark have run at 2526 Mission Street since 1999. It occupies the space next door and works as a multi-level lounge rather than an overflow room: open seating and private banquettes downstairs, a newly appointed upstairs lounge, an advanced sound system and a large vinyl collection, with live local musicians or vinyl DJs most nights and never a cover charge. The full Foreign Cinema menu is available from the bar, along with oysters on the half shell and bar bites. Happy hour runs 5–7pm Monday to Thursday and 5–6pm Friday to Sunday, with $12 cocktails and $3 oysters all night. The second-floor Budapest Lounge is given over to the Budapest Society, a programme donating the space to poetry readings, literary groups, fundraisers and artistic pop-ups.

The printed menu carries a zero-proof section alongside the cocktails, beer and natural wine, and it rotates with the rest of the list. The current pours are the Aplos Mandora Negroni Spritz at $9, a sparkling non-alcoholic negroni; the Manipuri Sumac Soda at $10, built on heimang sumac concentrate with lemon and soda; Coco Libre! at $12 (coconut, lime, pineapple, rhubarb shrub and Monetto non-alcoholic aperitivo); a salted raspberry and chamomile cooler at $12; and NON1 dealcoholized sparkling wine at $12 a glass or $43 a bottle. Fieldwork's Blonde non-alcoholic pilsner is stocked in 16oz cans at $9. Earlier menus carried drinks named for films and songs — Closer to the Sun, Dog with Sharper Teeth, Rebel Rouser, Piece of My Heart — which have since rotated off; the section persists even as its contents change. The sumac soda and the rhubarb shrub in the Coco Libre are the tells that these are built rather than poured.