Lyla Lila

Lyla Lila opened on 6 December 2019 on the ground floor of the Lilli Midtown tower at 693 Peachtree Street, from chef Craig Richards — previously of St. Cecilia — and restaurateur Billy Streck. The name is a combination of the founders' daughters' names. The kitchen cooks southern European: seasonal Italian and Spanish small plates, house pasta and seafood, with menus that change with what is available rather than on a fixed cycle. The restaurant is recognised in the MICHELIN Guide.

The bar keeps a standing spirit-free list of roughly six rotating drinks, priced around eight or nine dollars — and both halves of that sentence matter. A standing list means a non-drinker is reading from a menu rather than negotiating with a bartender, and the rotation means it gets the same seasonal attention as the food. The pricing is worth noting too: many restaurants charge cocktail prices for zero-proof drinks, and this one does not.

The drinks themselves are built on tea, bitterness and acid rather than on sweetness. Cigarettes & Coffee works espresso against grapefruit, yuzu and tonic. Rings of Saturn is spiced oolong with orange, lime, pineapple and almond. Tahitian Hut combines grapefruit, lemon and vanilla with Casamara Club Onda, an Italian-style amaro soda, and Casamara's low-sugar sodas appear across the list. Atlanta Magazine, covering the zero-proof scene in March 2022, singled out a Lyla Lila build of ginger, sherry vinegar, orange and lime oleo — sherry vinegar in a mocktail being a reasonable summary of the bar's whole approach.

Vinegar, over-steeped tea and tonic all do the job alcohol usually does: they add astringency and length, so the drink finishes dry instead of cloying. That is the difference between a zero-proof list a restaurant is proud of and one it tolerates. Open daily from 5pm.