The two hours before dinner
Aperitivo is not a discount, it is a habit. What happens at our bar between four and six.
In Italy the hours before dinner have their own name and their own rules. Aperitivo is not a happy hour in the American sense, where the point is that things are cheaper. The point is that the evening has a beginning, and that the beginning happens standing up, with something bitter in your hand and something salty within reach.
Bitter, then dinner
The drinks are built to open an appetite rather than blunt one. That is the whole logic of the category: bitter and low and cold, nothing sweet enough to fill you, nothing strong enough to end the night before it starts. If a drink makes you want to eat, it is doing its job.
When it happens here
Tuesday to Saturday, from four. All day Sunday. Ten dollar cocktails and a bar menu that only exists during those hours.
The bar keeps walk-ins. That is deliberate, and it is not a fallback for when the dining room is full. Some of the best hours in this room happen to people who did not plan to be here, who were walking down Main Street and came in because the light looked good through the window.
How to do it properly
Do not sit down straight away. Order at the bar, stay standing for the first one, and look at the dinner menu while you are drinking it. By the time you take a table you will already know what you want, and the evening will feel an hour longer than it was.
That is the trick, and it is free.
