Photograph by Catherine Grace
Chef Jose Salazar’s namesake restaurant returned to the culinary landscape in new digs (right across the street from Mita’s) at the tail end of last year, with a fresh menu full of style. Everything comes with an unexpected pop of color or a twist on traditional presentation. Salazar keeps its creste di gallo very, very green, and it keeps its kimchi very, very red. There are some classics from the old venue, but Salazar’s vision for this new, larger space features fresh, joyful ambition you can see, smell, and taste.
The decor features clean, relaxed color combinations and carefully chosen accents to spark conversation. The most notable of these is a set of custom Rookwood pieces displayed over the window to the kitchen, but there are many little treasures hidden throughout the dining area.
Photograph by Catherine Grace
Servers patrol, hands behind their backs, looking for opportunities to preemptively refill glasses or spirit away used cutlery. The team is also happy to introduce newcomers to the Jose Salazar style of dining, where you order everything all at once and your server paces it out in courses. It’s a tapas restaurant in soul if not body.
The Little Fried Oyster Slider is a microcosm of the Salazar experience as a whole. It’s inventive, colorful, and surprisingly playful. Everything is made with love and obsessive attention to detail, from the housemade brioche bun to the artfully arranged greens that bloom just so around the sandwich’s periphery.
Photograph by Catherine Grace
Much of the food’s vibrance is due to the emphasis on seasonality. While there hasn’t been an opportunity to see what the summer and early autumn will bring, the opening menu’s use of winter root vegetables is laudable. The creste de gallo merges umami-rich wild mushrooms with spinach cream to create a unique, well-rounded bite made whole, but not carried by, the cheese.
Little polishing touches to the menu, like loose leaf tea from Churchill’s, underline the reborn Salazar’s investment in honing a unique, but entirely comfortable, dining experience.
101 W. Fifth St., downtown, (513) 345-1500, salazarcincinnati.com
Photograph by Catherine Grace
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