Persimmon

Persimmon is one of Rhode Island's serious kitchens, on Hope Street near the Fox Point end of the East Side, and its drinks programme is run with the same attention as the food. What makes it matter to a non-drinker is a single policy, applied across the whole menu rather than to a handful of drinks: any cocktail on the rotating list can be ordered in what the bar calls its neutral counterpart.

The distinction between that and a mocktail is the entire point. Most bars, asked for a drink without alcohol, remove the spirit and add more juice, which produces something sweeter and flatter than the original. Persimmon substitutes instead — matching the role the missing ingredient played rather than the volume it occupied. Fresh jalapeño replaces mezcal, because what mezcal contributes to that particular drink is heat and a vegetal edge, not just alcohol. Prune juice replaces sherry, because sherry brings dried-fruit depth and a faint oxidised note. This is how a good bartender thinks about a drink, and it is rare to see it offered as a standing policy rather than as a favour.

Because the cocktail list rotates regularly with the seasons and the kitchen, there is no fixed alcohol-free menu to publish, and we have deliberately not listed drink names here — anything we printed would be wrong within a season. What holds is the policy. Ask for the neutral version of whatever appeals on the list, and expect it to be built rather than diluted.

The room itself is small and quiet, suited to a long dinner rather than a quick round, and the East Side location puts it a short distance from Wayland Square and the Hope Street shops.