Why am I at Dario anyway when the best pasta in the Twin Cities is blocks away at Bar La Grassa?
I’m here because chef after chef, influencer after influencer, has posted photographs of Dario and either positive or mostly neutral statements about the food on social media. I DM most of them asking them how it was when I see the posts, because I know how to read influencer copy. If it’s positive, it might be okay. If it’s neutral (reads like a menu with mostly positive things being about the cocktails or ambiance or even the cute bathroom), they’re still going to post it to get invited to Friends and Family events or soft openings, but personally? They weren’t a fan.
You should scroll through your favorite influencer’s feed–if every restaurant they go to is good? Don’t trust their reviews.
Here’s some real, actual responses to DMs I sent asking people if they liked Dario:
“Eh.”
“It needs salt in a bad way.”
“The salt is inconsistent like the smokers work on one station and everyone else on another.”
“they give you four small ravioli for 28 needs salt”
“TRAGIC”
“I spent $250!!!!!!!!!!! on dinner with my girlfriend and it wasn’t good.”
“Don’t go.”
That last one was sent to me by a chef who posted photograph after photograph of the food on the stories and even a photo with the owner saying, “Congrats.”
“How much of your food was given to you for free,” I asked that one person, as well as most people who had posted. The answer? A lot of it.
I think people are probably right about the food–the two dishes I had both had a salt problem, like overly salty beets and totally unsalted potato chips on the same dish, leaving me confused and a little bewildered. But that’s not what I’m here to write about—I’m here to write about the N/A list.
I walked in and it felt so beautiful–it reminded me of some of the most gorgeously designed restaurants in San Diego. Light streamed in. The colors are, well, they're my colors. This is the colors of my house: pink and green. It’s sort of like Malibu Hotel in a restaurant in Minnesota. I can already picture it in winter at night, how it won’t be light and bright but dark and sexy. I love a restaurant like that, one that changes with the seasons.
But like Morning Glory, which I went to in San Diego, if you look closely, you can see that already after a few short months being open, the restaurant materials, while beautiful, won’t hold up.
The chair next to me, twill-ish, was pilling already, like a zipper caught it. I stood up to look at mine–mine was, too. The walls were a matte white that catches any tiny little stain. The wall next to the bar, in bar seat one, it’s scuffed. The goldware has silver poking out at the tips of the fork and the knife already. When I went to look at it, sort of playing at the end of the fork, I wondered what it meant for the restaurant’s attention to detail that it was built like that.
Before I ordered my drink, I told my bartender that I was so excited by the N/A menu. Like so excited. I was texting everybody who told me Dario wasn’t all that good with that menu saying, “I think it probably has gotten better.” The list was gorgeous, with my favorite N/A wine that I have never seen on a menu before: Oddbird. The other options were just as good–Copenhagen is a champagne-like drink that’s a Noma spinoff. Then there’s Dry Wit, a local darling, that I squeal about when I see it on menus. And Ish, which is good but not my preference.
I was so, so excited when I saw it. It felt intentional and modern and now. I started looking at other N/A menus around the state to see if I felt like it was in contention for the best. It was. I knew what all the N/A wine tasted like and I planned to make my way through four mocktails over the course of the menu. I was planning to write a piece about how I think sober people should go to Dario even if the food was just okay for the N/A menu.
I came in to Dario kind of dreading coming and immediately felt really excited, hoping people who told me that it wasn’t very good were wrong.
I ordered the first mocktail right after telling my bartender that I loved the N/A menu. I said that I would like a, and I quote, “non-alcoholic listen yuz’, respectfully.” The name of the alcoholic sister is listen yuz’. I said non-alcoholic two ways. I wasn’t carded.
Someone else dropped my drink to me and I posted online immediately that I thought it was the best N/A drink I’ve had in Minnesota and it wasn’t close.
I realized there was alcohol in it when two things happened: my throat started to scratch, I started to feel woozy, tipsy, and headachy. I was halfway through the drink.
I pushed it out of arm’s reach. I stood up. I moved it away from my chair. Then I texted a friend, “Dario served me alcohol and I didn’t realize it until I was halfway through.” Alcoholism lives in the shadows and part of what I do is try to bring it to light–for myself, for others.
I pulled out an AA app, it’s one that helps you find a meeting any time, anywhere, and I looked for one set to start soon–I had enough time to leave, go get cheesecake and a coffee at BLG to reset myself, go home to get Benadryl because really and honestly the most funny thing about this is that I am allergic to tequila and never ordered it even when I was drinking, and then was gonna go sit my ass in a seat in a meeting. Not because I am afraid of relapse, no, but because part of the reason I am confident I will stay sober is that when things like this happen I do things that keep sober.
One month shy of two years sober, sitting at the bar at Dario a little tispy when I didn’t even accept painkillers after major abdominal surgery because I take my sobriety that seriously, I felt something I never imagined I would feel: bad, with alcohol in my system.
It’s a new core memory for me–one in which if I ever think about drinking, I can recall. Both the sinking feeling of realizing I was served it, the pushing away, and also the recoiling from it like a hot flame. A promise of AA–that one day, you will not want this anymore, fulfilled.
Thank god.
I posted about it online on my way to BLG. A lot angry and pretty haughty and with a lot of fucks in my Instagram story. That’s who I am and I am not sorry about being mad about this.
Immediately I got two kinds of messages: one from influencers telling me to pull it down and tell them privately and one from other addicts telling me that they, too, were served alcohol at Dario.
I want to be clear here that it’s not the bartender's fault (I tipped, I didn’t say anything, I was in shock, but I still believe it is not his fault), it’s the owners’ and whoever wrote the menu.
A na-groni and a negroni sound the same in a loud bar. A listen yuz’ and a listen yuz’ respectfully sound the exact same when you’re in the shits.
It’s like calling your vegetarian meatballs meetballs please and hoping to serve people the right dish. Like come on you know that’s how you wind up with mad vegans in your restaurant. You know that.
There are so many places this can fall apart.
Upon order like someone not seeing the cocktail version and shortening a long-ass cocktail name, which, by the way I did see and made longer. Most sober people don’t look at the cocktail list, because well, we have a problem.
Upon entry into your system when you’re in the shits and not paying all that much attention.
Upon viewing from the bartender making the drink, again, in the shits.
Upon delivery to a large table where there’s like 8 people and you send the N/A version to the drinker and vice versa.
So, yes, this is partly an angry reaction to a service mistake, which I’ve had more than one person called me entitled about in my DMs, but it’s also a pattern at Dario and a lesson for restaurants. Restaurants are notoriously bad in the back of house at supporting sober chefs or chefs with active drinking problems and as they become more N/A friendly in the front of house, care for addicts is something they must learn.
I have been served alcohol seven times in the last 12 months at restaurants after informing them, verbally or in my reservation, that I am sober. It’s not just a Dario problem, but Dario exemplifies it.
And hey, to the influencers and chefs who wish I would shut up and show some decorum or respect, that’s now who I am and that’s not what this is and I think restaurants were better when critics spoke their minds instead of talking behind other chefs’ backs about how it’s just okay. I think actually, maybe, if other people had delivered this feedback in Friends and Family or privately to the team instead of to my DMs–the number of people served incorrect drinks and dishes was decently high when people were DMing me–that this wouldn’t have happened.
But it did–and it has consequences for the people in the restaurant—and me, an alcoholic in recovery. Any restaurant with a fleshed out N/A menu should care about addicts enough to make sure alcohol doesn’t cross the bar.
Here, Dario, let me help you. This is: how to write a goddamn N/A menu.
One: Write a menu where mistakes are impossible
There are two menus in the Twin Cities that all have different fun ways of distinguishing their N/A drinks and who take excellent care of sober people.
I think that Dario, and any restaurant, with similar names (even nohito) needs a menu rewrite, because you are just asking to make a mistake.
It is literally going to happen. It is not your staff’s fault–it’s yours.
My favorite N/A menu naming system in the city is Hola Arepa and Hai Hai. Both of them have their N/A drinks as numbers which is an entirely different naming system that makes it impossible to make a mistake. I’m not ordering a next up, AA version, I’m ordering a one.
My second favorite is Herbst, where they offer you full, low, or no proof options of their cocktails. Every time I order at Herbst, someone repeats back to me, “non-alcoholic,” and I get to say, “Yes.” At the very least, the staff at Dario should have been trained by someone to ask that question, but they didn’t. That’s a management issue. Anyway, Herbst has my favorite N/A cocktail program in the city and the food is banging.
Two: treat sobriety like shellfish allergies—like it’s fatal
I wasn’t asked if I had allergies or restrictions at Dario. I started listening to see if anyone was asked by any service staff–no one was when I was there.
I know chefs harp on this as a server issue, but if the owner is in the restaurant (he was) and this is happening, it’s a management issue. If I had been asked up front what my restrictions are I would have said: I’m sober. It was apparent to me that this is not a part of Dario’s culture when one service staffer was saying to another that a dish with chicken stock “is vegetarian but isn’t vegetarian but is vegetarian, you know?” Not asking about restrictions and having unlisted chicken broth on your menu in a dish that otherwise seems vegetarian is also a recipe for a mistake that is avoidable—but it’s probably not fatal.
Giving a sober person alcohol is a serious, serious thing. Alcohol addiction is deathly serious.
There’s a reason that people go to meetings to try to stay sober, because it’s really fucking hard. There’s a reason that 85% of people with substance abuse disorders relapse at some point, because it’s really fucking hard. And there’s a reason that so many of us don’t take painkillers even when we might need them, because we know that we are addicts for the rest of our goddamn lives.
Hai Hai, Hola Arepa, and Herbst take sobriety seriously.
So does Martina–Martina is the bar I am at the most and every bartender knows I am sober, even the ones who have never served me before. I can see sometimes when a new person is working that Ryan or someone else is telling them that I am sober before they come and talk to me. It feels deeply caring–and they have the second best N/A cocktail menu in the cities after a rich and complex revamp. Get the Incendio and tell them I say hi.
Myriel also has a beautiful care around sobriety, too. I will never, ever, ever forget the moment I walked into Myriel for the tasting menu with a note that I am sober in my reservation and Mark had an actual drink plan ready for me for my meal, if I wanted it (I did), and explained to me the dishes I could sub out if I didn’t want cooked alcohol (that’s fine by me, but it was moving to me). But more on that on Friday when I write about why I love Myriel so, so much.
When restaurants with a long N/A list ask you, “Are you thinking wine or cocktails,” or whatever they say, I wish they also added in, “Or non-alcoholic options.”
It’s a nice way to ask a comp of do you have a shellfish allergy without asking are you an alcoholic? I notice when restaurants do this. It means a lot and it matters to me and I don’t think every restaurant has to do this, but I think restaurants catering to sober people (which Dario is with that menu) should.
Three: never forget that restaurants are about the diners
Part of what I try to do is listen to people around me at restaurants. I try to get a sense not just of the food, but of what makes a restaurant special and who goes there and why. I eavesdrop when I’m alone sitting next to you. For me, my writing and my whole MO is about the experience of other diners. Did you like your food?
I know that influencers and lots of food writers have wedged themselves into industry and only talk about their experiences and make friends with each other in a way that feels like community. I get why, but that’s not my bag. I want to send people to places that are really, really special without any smoke and mirrors–places where the people next to me also love the food and get good service.
Earlier this year, a pretty popular influencer would have written a drastically different post about Petite Leon if he had compared his plates (perfect) to mine (totally different even though we ordered the same things). I pay attention to that. I write about it.
I want people to eat good food in settings where people will care about them. I know that I eat out way more than the average American diner by a lot. In preparing for my book Eating Alone, I read a lot of criticism. Food writing used to be more direct and more about the human–it’s become robotic in many ways thanks to listicles and social media.
But… also? In Minnesota, I think that many food writers and influencers and chefs have forgotten that restaurants are about the people who eat there and the memories they make.
Restaurants are about diners not about being a close knit community of foodies and chefs sending people to mid restaurants over and over and over just because they’re new and shiny and your friends work there. This is how we leave some of the best restaurants (Snack Bar, Tilia) scrambling to get people in the doors (a tasting menu even when the chef hates tasting menus and trivia respectively)—by elevating the okay in order to act like every restaurant is equally excellent.
Dario, in so many ways, felt like a restaurant that was not concerned with experience but with style.
That’s how you get a menu like this, because it’s cute to put a word after your alcoholic cocktail and call it N/A. I just want someone in every restaurant that serves N/A cocktails to take a step back and ask, “Do I think sober people will have a good experience? Do I think that sober people will get the right drink?” Because you don’t have to serve us, some restaurants don’t and get along just fine. I’ve been in really fancy restaurants with Diet Coke (10/10, highly recommend eating caviar with Diet Coke it bangs).
You don’t have to build a bar program for me, in the same way that you don’t have to cater to gluten-free people in a pasta restaurant (Dario doesn’t and lists that on their website very clearly). But if you do cater to sober people, you should do it from the same place you build your other bar program–because you want it to be special and you want to be the best.
Four: Do your homework
DC has some of the worst N/A menus in the nation. Almost all sickly sweet and sour, I had canker sores upon leaving. So many restaurants give you juice and call it a mocktail. And Oriole has a menu built around vinegar like I’m a fucking salad. Ask sober people—or your local N/A shop—what is new and fresh and current. Then go taste it and put it on the menu.
When I went to Alinea in December of 2023, the N/A menu felt dull and boring and toothless. When I went back in March, it felt light and fresh and so damn current and it paired so well that I was touched by it. I even had a popcorn cocktail. I told that to someone in the restaurant, that I thought it used to be boring and was now exciting. I think he was slightly taken aback by the directness of that statement, but that’s how I felt. He said that they didn’t want to serve things they didn’t like, so it took them a long time to find things they liked. I respected that—the not serving bad N/A drinks just to have them and the searching for the best ones.
Dario obviously searched for the best drinks, but I see a carelessness so obvious in the execution that I will never send any sober person there, ever, even though I believe this to be true:
I think Dario has the best N/A list in the city. I do. But you shouldn’t go there, because see here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter how good the list is when tequila hits your table.
Writer’s note: It took Dario 90 minutes after this post was published to soft block me on social media, hiding their posts and their stories from me.
I love to hear about where they're doing N/A menus right in the Twin Cities- loved Herbst so so much so I love to see them mentioned.
Also thank you so much for your transparency and thoughtfulness here!