Pépé le Moko

Around the corner from Clyde Common, Portland’s restaurant-cum-cocktail bar mainstay, is Pépé le Moko, a small, dark, jazz-filled subterranean cocktail joint helmed by Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Overhead, a curved ceiling evokes the architecture of a train car or a boat, drawing the eye downward to the bartender dumping a bright green Grasshopper into a soda fountain glass. The drinks here lean heavily on rejiggered midcentury classics that went the way of the dodo when craft cocktails came to town. Expect Long Island Iced Teas and Espresso Martinis alongside “bar snacks” like oysters, braised octopus and bone marrow crostini.