Uncommon gifts: high-quality complimentary bar snacks entice guests to linger and enhance the total experience.

It's not your imagination. That once ubiquitous bowl of free bar snacks now is less common--both less frequent and less pedestrian. Citing sanitation and health concerns, a growing number of operators have banned communal snack bowls from the bar, sweeping away a glut of stale popcorn, plain-Jane pretzels and canned nuts in their wake. All good news. Even better is that removing the lowest common denominators from the gratis nibbles roster has made the "best-of" bar freebies stand out, prompting other operators to do some bar-snack soul searching themselves. The consensus? If you're going to do free bar food at all, do it well.

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The logic is crystal clear. Smart complimentary snacks act as taste ambassadors, "giving guests a little tease of what the kitchen can do, enticing them to stay around and order something from the menu," says chef Peggy Thompson of DISH + drinks at the River Inn Hotel in Washington, D.C. Thompson tempts bar patrons with sweet and spicy house-made pecans.

Also viewing bar snacks as "a complimentary taste of what we can do at the restaurant," executive chef Michael Mazza sends out "Grazie Antipasti" to bar guests at Il Mulino locations in Chicago and New York, individually-portioned plates of aged, hand-sliced cacciatore salami, Parmegiano-Reggiano cheese and twice-baked, spicy foccacia bread.

SNACK DU JOUR

Free bar snacks are pint-sized vehicles for creativity, even serving as something of a limited-edition amuse-bouche, says Karen Bremer, owner of City Grill in Atlanta. "It's perfect for when your chef may have a small amount of very special, seasonal ingredients from local farms or purveyors you want to showcase." Taking this approach, City Grill's chef, Shan Hollar, prepares bar snacks du jour: A mix of root veggies fritto misto one day, mini croquet monsieur the next. Hollar also uses the snack du jour approach as a way to give line chefs the chance to test their creative mettle.

Philosophically speaking, "free bar snacks are just a nice thing to do," notes Stephen Stryjewski, chef and co-owner of Cochon in New Orleans, who house-pickles dozens of vegetables and house-smokes and candies locally-grown peanuts for bar snacks.

Jason Weiner, chef/owner of Almond Restaurant, in Bridgehampton, N.Y, agrees. "Giving away something free reinforces that spirit of love and hospitality that makes the restaurant experience so specific and different from other forms of commerce," he says.

In Italy, gratis is taken for granted, says Guido Piccini, general manager of Pricci restaurant, one of Buckhead Life Restaurant Group's restaurants in Atlanta. "It's expected in Italy. An apperitivo is always served with little free bar bites," says Piccini. "So for Pricci, being genuine with that is very important to creating an authentic Italian food experience." Towards this end, Piero Premoli, chef at Pricci, prepares taralli--hard breadsticks shaped into rounds. These are topped with fresh, warm mozzarella or a spicy vegetable dip. "We also serve focaccia with goat cheese and marinara, or bruschetta--very simple, tasty little bites," adds Premoli.

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The same rationale prompted New York City restaurateur Shelly Fireman to add an assortment of free happy hour cicchetti (small bites) for cocktail-purchasing patrons at Shelly's Tradizionale, which re-opened this fall after renovations and a slight name change. Among the selections: marinated vegetables, wild mushroom crostini and fried olives.

SIMPLEST OF SIGNATURES

If done with flair, complimentary bar snacks can become signature items without being difficult to make. China Grill New York's Spicy Wonton Strips is a case in point. It doesn't take much to snip wonton wrappers into strips that are fried and seasoned with Japanese togarashi (spicy pepper) spice. China Grill beverage manager Alex Metzroth says the "approachable, but different" appeal of the snack has made it a signature for more than 10 years.

In fact, bread products--sticks, rolls, tortillas, crisps--are a low-cost, easy entry into the free-bar-food arena. For bars connected to restaurants, "it is especially easy, because we're already putting the breads in baskets for the dining room," says Victor Platt, of Platt family-owned Andina in Portland, Ore. Guests at Andina's Bar Mestizo are presented with Peruvian-style quinoa bread rolls, which are served with two salsas and a peanut sauce. Likewise, house-made grissini (thin Italian breadsticks) are the free bar feature at Rose Pistola in San Francisco and Veni Vidi Vici in Atlanta, among others.

Thoughtful presentations can drive up the "signature" positioning. At Amaranta Cocina Mexicana in Los Angeles, mini corn tortillas made by hand with a wooden press are delivered to each bar guest wrapped in a red napkin and paired with a trio of house-made salsas of varying piquancy.

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FANCY YET FAMILIAR

Beyond breads, elevating familiar salty snacks such as potato chips, popcorn, pretzels and olives to more upscale presentations is another savvy approach to free snacks.

Replacing ready-made nibbles with a house-made Asian snack mix "has resulted in a better-quality, fresher-tasting snack," says Dan Zillweger, general manager of Bluepointe, a Buckhead Life restaurant in Atlanta. The oven-toasted mix combines peanuts, almonds, wasabi peas, rice crisps and cashews in a blend of chili powder, sugar, salt and soy sauce for a zesty, crunchy treat.

Truffled Popcorn at 7 on Fulton in New Orleans "has become a real draw," says the restaurant's consultant, Vicky Bayley. Developed by chef Michael Sichel a year ago, the popcorn, which is sprayed with a blend of truffle and olive oil, "has a wonderful aroma," she says. "It definitely is something guests come back for, and they always have a drink with it, which leads to conversation, which leads to orders of appetizers."

The exotic potato chips that chef Alexandra Guarnaschelli makes for the bar at Butter in New York City reflect her Greenmarket program connections: They're sliced from purple majesty, purple Peruvian and red thumb potatoes.

Perfecting pretzels, chef Rosario Romano at Ristorante Panorama at the Penn's View Hotel in Philadelphia has made a signature statement with his savory struffoli. Normally a Neapolitan dessert, Romano's pretzel-like version of the treat is made with toasted almonds, flour, salt, yeast and crushed black pepper instead of sugar. And personalizing olives at Rose Pistola, chef Valentino Luchin soaks them in a marinade scented with lemon and rosemary.

UNCOMMON NUTTINESS

Pumpkin seeds--lightly sprayed with olive oil before being salted, tossed with pasilla chili flakes and toasted--are the happy-hour nosh executive chef Kevin Tubb created at Eldorado Grill, one of parent company Food Fight's many concepts in Madison, Wis. "A little crunch, a little spice ... We keep it simple because people coming here usually like to have a big meal," says Tubb.

To make Almond Restaurant's sugar-roasted almonds, chef Weiner tosses almonds with egg whites, turbinado sugar and fleur de sol (sea salt) before baking them in the oven. To avoid the "many hands in one bowl" problem, nuts are served in rocks glasses on the bar, one to a party. They're also packed in mini tins and given away to guests as a Christmas treat.

At Cochon, Stryjewski cold smokes locally-grown Valencia peanuts, then candy coats the nuts with honey, sugar and salt, serving them as a bar snack from mid-October "through April or so, when we run out and switch over to pickles."

Sending out complimentary bar snacks as passed hors d'oeuvres allows for greater complexity than popcorn or nuts. Eric Hara, chef de cuisine at davidburke & donatella in New York City, says he "loves sending out little surprises for the guests at the bar." Examples include his Rice-Pearl Crusted Foie Gras Lollipops, Mini Kobe Corn Dogs and Mini Lobster Dumplings, snacks that are passed by a server to guests at the bar throughout the evening. "Free foods like these just add a degree of elegance and a little decadence" to the bar experience, Hara says, not to mention keeping servings sanitary.

Ensuring that such little touches don't inflate food costs too much, many operators limit free bar-food offerings to the weekday happy-hour period. Others only serve them during happy hour one or two days a week. Southern-inspired complimentary hors d'oeuvres at Washington, D.C.'s Morrison-Clark Restaurant in the Morrison-Clark Historic Hotel and Restaurant, located in a 19th century Victorian mansion, for example, are featured with "Big Chill" cold weather cocktails only on Thursday nights. Seated in the hotel's drawing room next to a fireplace, guests sip cocktails and are passed delectables such as Jumbo Lump Crab Hushpuppies and Pan Seared Moulard Duck Breast on Sweet Potato Biscuits with Pear Cardamom Chutney.

Says chef Janis McClean, "Hopefully these little free samples will communicate what we're about and tempt guests to stay for dinner." Talk about advertising that makes a statement!

Michele Grayson writes about culinary and menu trends, as well as foodservice, from Chicagoland.