W.A. Frost and Company

W.A. Frost & Company opened in December 1975 inside the 1889 Dacotah Building on Cathedral Hill, the space that originally housed William A. Frost's pharmacy. Half a century later it remains one of St. Paul's defining special-occasion restaurants — known for a tree-canopied patio that is among the most beautiful outdoor dining rooms in the state, an award-winning wine list, contemporary American cooking, and a white-tablecloth setting among the grand Victorian mansions of the neighbourhood.

A restaurant with that profile and that wine list has no particular commercial need to bother with zero-proof drinks, which is precisely why the fact that it does is worth recording. The Cocktail Hour menu carries a dedicated No Proof Cocktails section priced at $8 — notably below what the room could charge — currently listing the Blueberry Buzz Tonic, the Wilfred Spritz and the Strawberry Gimlet. Beyond those the bar pours non-alcoholic and low-proof builds including the Evening At Frost, made with Gnista Wormwood and a house-made spiced orange syrup. Gnista is a Swedish producer whose Floral Wormwood is one of the few non-alcoholic products with genuine bitterness and length, and pairing it with a house syrup is the work of a bar that has thought about the problem rather than bought a solution.

It is honest to describe the scale accurately: this is a real named list but a compact one, three or four drinks rather than a full parallel menu. What it buys a non-drinker is the ability to sit on that patio, at a table marking an anniversary or a birthday, with something in a proper glass that costs what it should. At a restaurant of this vintage and formality, that is worth more than a longer list somewhere less special. Open Tuesday through Sunday, with weekend brunch.