March 2019
Features
-
Best Restaurant No. 10: Mita’s Restaurant & Bar Offers Diversity while Preserving Identity
Mita’s had a transcendent first few years and is now settling into restaurant middle age with grace and dignity, producing lovely versions of its classics, like jicama salad and pozole verde, and occasionally dazzling with new seasonal dishes as reminders of what it is still capable of. Lots of menus have a butternut squash soup, […]
Best Restaurant No. 9: Eighth & English Pulls Off a Successful Pivot
Editor’s note: This restaurant closed in September 2019. After a year in business, Eighth & English did something courageous and difficult. Owner Chase Blowers and his new head chef Pedro Rangel completely revamped the menu without abandoning the identity the restaurant had worked to build. The focus on seafood remains, as well as the eclectic […]
Best Restaurant No. 8: Phoenician Taverna Gracefully Fine Tunes Classics
Wassim Matar, Phoenician Taverna’s owner, once told me something interesting: Be careful with recipes. Reason being, a recipe can make you think you know how to make something and give you false confidence. A dish should never be a mechanical procedure, because when you cook you are always working with living things. No two cloves of […]
Best Restaurant No. 7: Miyoshi Inspires Appreciation for Simplicity
Editor’s note: Miyoshi closed August 28, 2021. Entering Miyoshi is like entering another world. Floating in a busy sea of strip malls and traffic in Florence, the restaurant is a kind of oasis. No flat-screens glare at you—just a small, gently raked Zen garden and an air of peacefulness and quiet. Also greeting you at […]
Best Restaurant No. 6: Please Balances Crowd-Pleasing and Experimental
If you want to try something you have absolutely never been served before, or even heard of, Please is the place to go. Each iteration of the tasting menu, which changes several times a year, introduces new marvels and curiosities. Dining at Please is a kind of whirling carousel of discovery. Sometimes it can make […]
Best Restaurant No. 5: Abigail Street Impresses with Attentive Service
Much less than other restaurants of its caliber, Abigail Street is understated in its greatness. Service is so friendly and casual that you only gradually realize how competent the servers are, from their knowledge of the rotating wines on tap to their ability to pace and shape a meal consisting of several small meze-style offerings. Dishes […]
Best Restaurant No. 4: Boca Maintains Elegance in its Rustic Appeal
Like walking onto the set of an opera, there is something theatrical and almost over-the-top about Boca, with its enormous chandelier, floor-to-ceiling draperies, and grand staircase. Balancing all of this, though, is food that, for all of its elegance and polish, is almost rustic in its appeal. In all of his restaurants, Chef David Falk […]
Best Restaurant No. 3: Restaurant L Does Luxury Like No One Else
Editor’s Note: This restaurant closed on March 15,2020. There are nice restaurants, there are places you go for a special occasion, and then there is Restaurant L. Unless one happens to be the holder of a baronetcy, or whatever the American equivalent might be, there is still a certain thrill that comes from having a […]
Best Restaurant No. 2: Bauer Tries New Cuisine and Makes it Extraordinary
Bauer has been continuously improving since its doors opened a few years ago, and it’s now one of Cincinnati’s true gems. While maintaining its roots in the peasant tradition along the Franco-German border, Chef Jackson Rouse keeps finding fresh dimensions to this cuisine. From the city’s best charcuterie and housemade pickles to several of its […]
Best Restaurant No. 1: Sotto is the Gold Standard for Consistency
Most restaurants, from meal to meal and year to year, have ups and downs. Standards slip when someone is out of town, chefs get bored or lose focus, execution falters. A few establishments, though, maintain a magical focus over time. Even with staff changes and shifting trends, such places simply don’t have offnights. From food to […]
Dudley Taft Jr. Is Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Taft
What if your teenage rock and roll fantasies came true? What if you flew around the world playing shows for adoring audiences, hung with music icons, lived in a bona fide mansion on the hill (more on that later), and looked like the kind of guy who walks into a room and makes people say, […]
Cincinnati’s Female Chefs Sound Off on Gender Equality
These Cincinnati-based, industry-leading ladies discuss how they got into the business, battling sexism, working tirelessly, and creating a hopeful future for the next generation of women in the kitchen. Kayla Robison Executive Chef, Arnold’s Bar & Grill Years in the Business: 14 How did you get your start in the industry? [I started working in […]
Cleaner and Greener: Cincinnati’s Sustainable Future
They stand like soldiers and define our downtown. The staircase roofline of Atrium Two. Procter & Gamble’s iconic twin towers. The majestic skyward march of Carew Tower. WKRP’s “Central Trust Bank” building. The glowing tiara that adorns Great American Tower. We love them all…but they pollute. When Ed Mazria, one of America’s most notable architects, […]
Three Restaurants Where You Can Watch the Kitchen Magic
Believe it or not, your food doesn’t just magically appear on your table. While most restaurants may not show you every step in the process, others relish the opportunity. Here are three spots that will let you belly up to the bar and get a front-row seat to the culinary action. CWC, The Restaurant Caitlin […]
Experience Unique Dining at These Local Pop-Up Dinner Events
Craving an intimate, one-of-a-kind dining experience? Try these exclusive pop-up dinner events while you still can. LIVING BREATHING KITCHEN This month, Chef Robert Castañeda’s traveling pop-up serves culturally diverse courses at the Samuel Adams taproom in OTR, Fridays from 4 to 9 p.m., before he opens his late-night $10 Moroccan taco bar at Chako Bakery […]
-
Frontlines
Adrian Belew Releases His First Solo Album in 10 Years
Adrian Belew’s long and winding career as an innovative guitar visionary enters yet another new phase with the pending release of Pop-Sided, the Covington native’s first solo album in 10 years. But don’t think the ever-restless singer-songwriter and prolific session guitarist has been sitting on his hands over that time: he created FLUX, a fascinating […]
By the Numbers: What You Need to Know about FC Cincinnati’s Major-League Debut
While the Cincinnati Reds may be the oldest team in Major League Baseball, the Queen City wasn’t as quick to be at the forefront of the nation’s professional soccer scene. This weekend, though, Cincinnati’s soccer franchise made the leap to the major leagues. FC Cincinnati debuted as the 24th team in MLS when the it […]
Guy Ulam Knows How to Run a Great Gay Bar
A year after The Dock—a nightclub that served as a gay community anchor for the Queen City for more than three decades—lit up its dance floor for the last time, Guy Ulam, current general manager of The Birdcage, opens up about what it means to operate one of the only remaining downtown bars designed to […]
An East Walnut Hills Drawing Center Celebrates Its 15th Anniversary
It was a Thursday night, early 2000s, in a back room of Xavier University’s art building. Nearly 20 people gathered, students and otherwise, for a weekly open-figure drawing session. Jason Franz, now the executive director of Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, was then a Xavier professor. And the open-figure sessions? His trial run […]
What Is It Like to Be Rosie Red? Amy Burgess Knows
Amy Burgess always expected to perform in front of crowds. (She majored in theater at Miami University, after all.) She just didn’t plan on doing it in a 25-pound suit at Great American Ball Park. At the start of her 11th season with the Reds—and the team’s 150th anniversary—she looks back on what it’s like […]
Dr. Know: Unidentified Artist, Antlers on Central Parkway, and Public Comfort
I’m on a team in Clifton that’s renovating a beautiful century-old mansion. We know a lot of its history, but there’s one detail that eludes us: a gorgeous mural on the living room ceiling that has no signature. Come take a look at it, and please help us identify the artist. —WHO DUN IT Dear […]
Radar
Style Counsel: Hunter Clem Knows How to Mix Eras
Occupation: Creative Director, Photographer, Videographer Style: Expressive Era-mixing You’re a photographer and you work in the art world. How does that affect your style? I use that as an advantage. My job is to keep up with visuals or aesthetics that are impacting people. To me, fashion is the endless opportunity of creative expression. Then […]
This West-Side Gem Took Inspiration from Homearama Homes
During a years-long career as a homebuilder and developer, Bob Mathews kept a file of all his favorite features in Homearama homes he’d seen. When he and his wife, Mary Anne, were preparing to build this Delhi Township home for their family of eight in 1989, Mathews pulled out the file and passed it on […]
This Family-Friendly East Walnut Hills Shop Offers Games for Every Kind of Player
Whatever your placement on the Geek Culture spectrum, Woodburn Games in East Walnut Hills has something for you.
The Motor City Is Gaining Momentum
Don’t call it a comeback. Detroit’s renaissance bridges its past and future. It’s also the perfect excuse to visit the Motor City.
Columns
Editor’s Letter, March 2019: The Seven Stages of Fine Dining
Imagining dinner at one of Cincinnati’s best restaurants is like planning a mini vacation: so many things to see, do, and touch and so many ways to break out of the daily routine. I’ve found that I usually experience seven stages of emotions when dining at one of our top restaurants. Shock: I can’t believe […]
The Vintage Warehouse of Your Dreams Is in Lower Price Hill
On the third floor of a big red brick warehouse in Lower Price Hill, there is vintage clothing. A lot of it—10,000 square feet full, to be exact. Pixel 19 Vintage and Sweet Dahlia Vintage took up residence there six years ago, though Stu Nizny, the owner and only-ever employee of Pixel 19, has been […]
Reconsidering the Meaning Behind the House I Grew up In
I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Eismann in decades, but as soon as they answer the door I am 10 years old again, coming to play with their daughter Darlene, my childhood best friend. I’ve brought my own mom with me today, and we step inside. I’m here to learn some history of the neighborhood […]
Dine
George Zappas Takes Over as Executive Chef of Orchids at Palm Court
The new executive chef of Orchids at Palm Court is anything but unknown. He’s been preparing for the role his entire career at the esteemed restaurant. How and when did you transition to your role as executive chef? It was middle of September [2018]. [Former Executive Chef Maxime Kien was here] about six or […]
Three Local Bars with Food Worth Staying For
These watering holes flip the script as libation-centric destinations with surprisingly good grub. Longfellow This OTR hangout mixes quality cocktails without pretension, and its food is held to the same standard. Ever-changing sharables like housemade pâté with saltines, caviar with wavy potato chips, and a vegan green Thai curry are worth stopping in for. longfellowbar.com […]
This Old-School Chinese Restaurant is a Hidden Downtown Treasure
The restaurant is 43 years old, and its menu (possibly the only copy) shows it: yellowed, stained, prices scratched out and taped over. There’s a real history in those peeling laminated pages, as told in the photocopied newspaper blurbs underneath. There’s the tale of owners Tom and Mei Li introducing Cincinnati to this once-new thing […]
Give Your Brunch a Southern Twist in Over-the-Rhine
Among an expansive brunch menu of clever Southern takes on breakfast classics, none feel quite as quintessential as LouVino’s eggs benedict. Why mess with tradition, you might ask? Probably because the origins of eggs benedict are as murky as a muddy puddle. The inspiration for their variation is pretty darn clear, however, and it’s as […]
This Latin-Fusion Spot Pumps Out Flavor in Over-the-Rhine
Some days could use more reggaeton and plantains. Scratch that. All days could use more reggaeton and plantains. Particularly when the latter is crisp, salted, and served with red snapper and shrimp ceviche or guasacaca gruesa (a Venezuelan avocado dip), and the former provides a steady beat by which to eat it. In brief: You […]
The City’s Most Notable Culinary Stars Unveil Karrikin Spirits Company
Create a cocktail of some of Cincinnati’s most notable culinary stars—MadTree founder Jeff Hunt, former executive chef of Maribelle’s Eat + Drink Mike Florea, and Christian Moerlein’s former vice president of brewing, Eric Baumann—and you’ll get craft distillery and restaurant Karrikin Spirits Company. “This is a lot of different worlds colliding,” Florea says. “It allows […]