Only You

Only You sits on the second and third floors above The Veil Brewing Co on Colonial Avenue, in the Chelsea district that has become Norfolk's most interesting corner for drinking. It is a cocktail bar in the modern register — small, dark, ingredient-driven — and its non-alcoholic list is properly part of the programme rather than an appendix.

Three drinks are documented by Visit Norfolk, the city's official destination organisation, and the specs are worth reading because they show real construction. The No Coquito builds on Lyre's non-alcoholic rum with coconut milk, coconut cream, cinnamon demerara and vanilla — a genuine attempt at the Puerto Rican Christmas drink rather than a sweet approximation, and one where the NA rum has actual work to do. The Ginger Sorrel Sour uses hibiscus tea as its base with ginger-thyme syrup and lemon, which is a smart choice: hibiscus brings sharp acidity and tannin, the two things most alcohol-free drinks lack.

The Free Spirit is the one that signals a serious bar. Honey, miso, yuzu and calamansi with soda is a savoury, fermented, citrus-driven drink — miso in particular is an ingredient almost no bar reaches for on the non-alcoholic side, because it demands balance rather than sweetness to work. A bar willing to put that on the menu is thinking about what a drink should do, not just how to remove the alcohol from one.

Practically, this is an evening venue with a narrow window: closed Sunday through Tuesday, open from 5pm Wednesday to Saturday, running to midnight at the end of the week. Being above a brewery makes it a natural second stop, and it is a short walk from Ceremony's Baldwin Avenue shop — the two together make Chelsea the best few blocks in Hampton Roads for someone who is not drinking. Buy a bottle in the afternoon, drink something properly made in the evening, all within a few hundred metres. Given how much of Hampton Roads requires a car and a bridge crossing, a walkable pairing like that is worth planning an evening around rather than treating as a coincidence.