Sugar
30
places to fuel your day
I remember it like it was yesterday. I walked into the patient room, where I was greeted by a friendly middle aged man with a big smile. He was worried about a spot on his back he was told had changed. I started looking at his skin, but my heart sank once I got to his back. I biopsied the red, black, and brown 1 cm growth staring at me, and hoped that this was not the melanoma I suspected. I wish I had been wrong. I know he fought this disease, but in the end, it was a
canbe fatal, but with yearly skin exams, we can catch atypical moles, melanomas, and other skin cancers before they have a chance to evolve. I may not be able to bring him back to his family and loved ones, but I hope I can encourage people to get yearly skin exams and be aware that early detection is the key.
1 in 5 people will develop skin cancer by the age of 70
doubles your risk of melanoma
survival rate for melanoma is 99%
Knowing the signs and symptoms of skin cancer is vital! Living and training in Miami, Florida, strengthened my passion for skin cancer prevention by providing me with intense exposure to the diagnosis and treatment of various skin cancers. I love seeing my patients learn and embrace new habits to be more sun safe, especially after a skin cancer diagnosis. Wearing sunscreen, utilizing SPF protective clothing, getting annual skin exams, and limiting sun exposure during the time of day with the highest UV index are a few great ways to be sun safe. I can’t wait to bring my experience and passion for dermatology to the patients of Cincinnati!
Visit monadermatology.com to schedule your yearly complete skin exam or learn more about skin cancer prevention.
It’s known as the most important meal of the day. But what that means depends on who you’re talking to. Are you a bacon-and-eggs person? A cereal buff ? Or maybe a waffle aficionado? Whatever you eat to start your day, you’ll find it in one corner or another in the Queen City.
Remembering the arduous, elegant lives of Anna and Harlan Hubbard and their hand-crafted Kentucky home, Payne Hollow.
BY CARRIE BLACKMORE SMITH
18 / SPEAK EASY
Eve Rodsky helps you find a unicorn space
18 / CULTURE
The May Festival’s 150th season
20 / STYLE COUNSEL
DAAP fashion professor
Arti Sandhu
22 / STOREFRONT
Metamorfa, East Walnut Hills
24 / ESCAPE
Nashville, Indiana and Hard Truth Distilling
28 / DR. KNOW
Your QC questions answered
30 / WELCOME TO MIDDLEHOOD
Memory, matter, and time travel
BY JUDI KETTELER
120 / CINCY OBSCURA
A pioneer cemetery BY LAUREN FISHER
94 / OFF THE MENU Paying as you can at For the Life of the World Café in Norwood
96 / TAKEOUT HERO
Grub Local at The Well, Covington
96 / TABLESIDE WITH… Cincinnati Alchemy Fest founder Jeff Hendrickson
98 / SNACK TIME
Halo-halo at Christine’s Casual Dining, Western Hills
100 / TRY THIS Sliders from Blue Oven Bakery, Over-the-Rhine
103 / DINING GUIDE
Greater Cincinnati restaurants: A selective list
by BRITTANY DEXTER
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WHEN YOU COVER THE CITY’S NEWSWORTHY RESTAURANT SCENE AS EXTENSIVELY as Cincinnati Magazine does, it’s easy to focus on the first syllable of that adjective: “news.” As in new places opening up, new menu offerings at favorite haunts, and new chefs challenging old conventions. Or news updates of ongoing industry disruptions in staffing, supply chains, real estate, and customer preferences. Or the convergence of both “new” and “news,” as when Royce and PearlStar—widely praised new spots from a Nashville restaurant group—closed suddenly in late February.
If you saw our March issue, you might recall that Royce was included in our Best Restaurants rankings and PearlStar was among five restaurants that just missed the top 10. Both spots shut down after the printer had shipped our issue. The episode is yet another reminder that Cincinnati’s restaurant owners—even those who run consistently excellent fine dining icons—are still feeling their way through pandemic recovery and need all the support we can muster. It’s a tough business, including for those who make it look easy.
This month, we turn to another segment of the local dining scene that makes it look easy: breakfast spots (“Breakfast of Champions,” page 36). I mean, how hard can it be? Grill some eggs and goetta, toast some bread, and serve it with a cup of coffee or a glass of orange juice. Order up for table 11!
My go-to breakfast is Pop-Tarts and a cup of tea, so lucky for you Senior Editor Aiesha Little didn’t recruit me into the team that reported on dozens of fun and filling breakfast restaurants around the area. The experts highlight old school spots, new classics (including food trucks), and brunch favorites, as well as bread options, morning drink surprises, and vegan twists on breakfast staples.
If you consider yourself a breakfast expert, vote in our online Breakfast Battle (cincinnatimagazine.com) and support your favorite local restaurants. A total of 32 breakfast spots are competing in March Madness–style brackets, with a winner crowned on May 31. That’s easy enough, right?
JOHN FOX EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Contributing writer Carrie Blackmore Smith first encountered Payne Hollow, the legendary off-the-grid homestead of Harlan and Anna Hubbard, while paddling by the property on a canoe trip. Smith explores how both their beloved homestead and their story live on in “Thriving on the Fringe of Society” (page 54). “I got the incredible opportunity to visit the property in January,” she says. “It was a magical experience and I was in awe the entire time.”
“A Journey of Discovery Bears
Fruit” (page 50) isn’t Jim DeBrosse’s typical investigative Cincinnati Magazine story, he says. “My recent two-month stint teaching in Bethlehem, as well as visiting other parts of Palestine and the Holy Land, was a life-changing experience, both politically and spiritually.”
Ukrainian artist Valeriia Potaichuk’s whimsical, Disney-esque creations have brought to life everything from hamburgers and coffee pots to mushrooms and Legos. This month, the Denmark-based illustrator tackled a new challenge: breakfast. Her signature style makes Cincinnati’s favorite morning meals look almost too cute to eat in “Breakfast of Champions” (page 36). “I won’t survive until afternoon if I don’t eat breakfast,” Potaichuk says. Her go-to? A healthy, savory concoction featuring eggs, salad greens, avocado, bread, and cherry tomatoes.
For people suffering with addiction, recovery can sometimes seem like an impossible dream. But through cutting edge research, education, and the most holistic treatment options available in the area, UC Physicians and UC College of Medicine faculty offer healing and hope. Using a multidisciplinary approach that relies on a full spectrum of professionals—from nurses and social workers to peer specialists, psychologists and addiction physicians—UC Addiction Sciences is helping people from all walks of life reclaim their dignity, their purpose, and their lives. right here in Cincinnati.
med.uc.edu/indispensable
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In Hamilton County, Indiana, you can have the relaxing getaway you deserve any day of the week. Find an escape in the arts and outdoors. Relish the elevated cuisine and fi nd repose in Midwestern hospitality. Come to Hamilton County, for the weekend—any day of the week.
An old friend, The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati, steps up to rescue the legendary Overthe-Rhine concert hall.
JOHN FOXT COULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST HISTORIC ARTS FACILITY TO GET REHABILITATED in Over-the-Rhine three decades ago, long before the neighborhood renaissance took hold. Instead, the Emery Theatre will be OTR’s last outdated concert hall to find new life. And a familiar old friend is leading the charge.
The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati (TCT) wraps up a public fund-raising campaign this month to renovate the Emery Theatre as its new home for public performances and education programs. The overall goal is $48 million, which includes $10 million in historic and new market tax credits and almost $2 million in state and city funding. The vast majority of the budget is for construction costs; $5 million will be allocated to programming enhancements and an endowment for future preservation needs. TCT is planning to close the deal this fall, begin site work in November, and debut the new theater in fall 2025.
Kim Kern, the organization’s managing director and CEO, says the positives of operating a permanent home for its theater productions outweigh the challenges of renovating a 111-year-old building—especially considering that TCT performed in the Emery in its early years. “We’re going back home,” she says.
The Emery Auditorium opened in January 1912. The city’s leading arts benefactor of the day, Mary Emery, funded it to serve as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s new performance hall and hired Harvey Hannaford Jr., a partner in his grandfather Samuel’s architecture firm, to design it. Mary named the theater for her late husband and would go on to fund a major expansion at the Cincinnati Art Museum and to found the village of Mariemont.
The Emery stage has hosted luminaries such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, John Philip Sousa, and George Gershwin, who performed his Rhapsody in Blue there. Bette Davis, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. gave speeches there as well. The building’s last sustained activity was in the 1980s and early ’90s and included organ recitals, classic movies, and the Riders in the Sky national radio show.
In 1989, the Contemporary Arts Center drew up preliminary plans for relocating to the Emery complex (the theater and adjoining classroom building, which is now apartments). The Mapplethorpe controversy scuttled those plans, and the CAC built a new facility at Sixth and Walnut streets.
gatherings.”
Kern is excited about new technology that will allow TCT to overcome some of the Emery’s shortcomings, especially the lack of stage wing space and depth. An onstage video screen and projection mapping capabilities will expand sets to the full proscenium and even onto the building’s walls. A 20-foot-by-20-foot turntable lift will allow set pieces to be stored and raised from below the stage. Not bad for a facility that officials at the University of Cincinnati, former owner of the Emery, declared “beyond repair” as recently as 2019.
Read our March 2020 story about Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati’s initial efforts to renovate the Emery Theatre at cincinnatimagazine.com
For 20 years, from 1949 to 1969, TCT called the Emery home. The organization had launched in 1919 and was known as the Junior League Players until becoming an independent arts nonprofit in 1947. Performances moved to the Taft Theater in 1969.
Being a tenant at the Taft, says Kern, limits TCT mainstage shows to 40 total dates per year. A new home at the Emery off ers unlimited possibilities. “We’d like to add new programming targeted to specific age groups and present shows from other children-focused arts groups,” she says. “We’ll also rent the space for one-off shows and private
Local developers Dave Neyer and Chris Frutkin purchased the buildings from UC that year with the intention of renovating the performance hall with Children’s Theatre. The pandemic caused yet another delay in the Emery’s rebirth, though planning continued behind the scenes.
Since the ill-fated CAC renovation idea, the Emery has stood by while Over-the-Rhine icons like Music Hall, Memorial Hall, Woodward Theater, and Ensemble Theatre were remade for modern audiences and new facilities were built or adapted for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Art Academy of Cincinnati, and the School for Creative and Performing Arts. The Emery’s wait might finally be over.
The May Festival mixes classical and modern sounds in its 150th anniversary season May 19–27 at Music Hall (built for the festival in 1878). The lineup: Bach, Mahler, and Mozart as well as world premieres from American composers. mayfestival.com
Women’s professional and domestic spheres are frequently blurred, with many of us trying to maintain a “worklife balance” that requires Cirque du Soleil level acrobatics. This gray area is as elusive and rare as a unicorn, but writer/lecturer Eve Rodsky is determined to help women find and protect it. She shares how to tap into this powerful potential at the Power to Pursue Summit May 5 at Music Hall.
“Domestic rebalance” is at the heart of your new book, Find Your Unicorn Space. Can you explain? Unicorn Space is time you create and allot space for in your schedule to reclaim, discover, and nurture the natural gifts and interests that make you uniquely you. When a teeth cleaning feels like an indulgence, the idea of carving out time seems like a fantasy. It will remain the stuff of fairytales until we recognize that we’re more than our roles as professionals, partners, and/or parents.
I grew up in a single-mom household where, early on, I helped my mother manage eviction notices and late utility bills. I vowed that when I grew up I would have an equal partner in
life, and I did! Cut to two kids later, and I found myself sobbing on the side of the road because of a text my husband sent me: “I’m surprised you didn’t get blueberries.” I thought to myself: I’m so overwhelmed I can’t even manage a grocery list. I knew something had to change.
Why is this message so important to women especially? Even today it’s still subversive for women to spend their hours on unpaid interests beyond their roles of partner, parent, and professional, but the benefits of Unicorn Space to our mental and physical health are clear. Creativity is not optional; it’s necessary for our longevity and health.
How does your message fit with the Power to Pursue Summit?
Being on a stage with an audience of women who are seeking more for themselves invigorates me because these are the cultural warriors who will help us redefine what women are and are not “allowed” to do. We have the right to be more than our roles.
—SARAH M C COSHAM
OCCUPATION: Associate Professor of Fashion Design at DAAP
STYLE: Mix and match, eclectic, all about the textiles
Where do you find inspiration for your looks? It’s from a lot of places. One thing that’s very much a part of how I dress is the fact that I’m from India. My research [is] on Indian fashion, so it’s just natural that Indian textiles and designers are on my radar. I also find it inspiring when I see someone my age or body type wearing something—someone I can relate to. What made you want to pursue fashion as your career? When I was little, I used to make clothes for my Barbie dolls. This was in the ’80s and early ’90s in India, and design as an area of study hadn’t formally existed for very long. In the ’90s there was a lot of talk about fashion design, and I loved drawing and making clothes for my Barbies, so that’s what made me pick fashion. Tell us a little more about your book Indian Fashion:Tradition,Innovation,Style. Like everything else I’ve done in my life, it was something that I sort of stumbled into. In the early 2000s there was a lot of conversation about Indian textiles and clothing, but no one was talking about it in a contemporary sense. I felt like there needed to be somebody to write about it. What’s the key for someone who is trying to find or elevate their personal style? Find what gives you joy. I think joy is really important. I think it’s reminding yourself that if you want to wear something, and it gives you joy for a reason that is personal to you, then that’s OK. Find things or people that you can relate to and clothing that makes you feel good. One of the things I’ve learned too is that it gets easier as you get older. You break away from peer pressure. It takes a very long time to get there, but that’s something nice to look forward to.
—BRIANNA CONNOCK
Believe it or not, it was a background in architecture that inspired John Meyer to open Metamorfa, his East Walnut Hills jewelry, homegoods, and gift shop. The start and end points might seem a world apart—Union Terminal renovation to earrings made of polymer clay, anyone?—but trust him: It makes sense.
“When I’m sourcing new jewelry, I always look for things that are geometrically driven,” he says. “As an architect, I’m drawn to classic pieces that will hold their style.”
Metamorfa opened in October, the third of Meyer’s Cincinnati storefronts, which is scheduled to grow to four by the end of the year. Metamorfa’s tagline, “forged in fire, grounded in earth,” is a nod to metallurgy, or using iron and ore harvested from the planet for jewelry or sand into glassware.
The open-concept store was designed with modernity in mind, Meyer says. Inside, you’ll find jewelry at mid-to-high price points and a team of sales associates who will walk you through the store. Meyer has an eye for quality, and he knows his pieces aren’t priced to be impulse buys, but investments.
“We want to find pieces that will last for years and years,” he says. “We’re really trying, as people come in, to build relationships with them because we love this neighborhood so much. We want to create an experience where we know your
style, we know who you are, and we can help you build [your collection].”
Meyer came to own Metamorfa, which also carries gifts like barware and seasonal items, accidentally. When his previous employer offered a stipend to employees to get them away from their desks to work on creative projects, Meyer started to make bar soap, which eventually led to &Sundries, his first storefront. Meyer and his partner opened &Sundries in 2019, just before the world got stuck at home with nothing to do. As they looked for ways to reinvest, they identified pandemic trends, from barware for the at-home mixolo-
gist to bold earrings to spice up Zoom calls. Enter Metamorfa, which started at outdoor markets and grew in the background throughout the pandemic.
Meyer is excited to be a part of the community in East Walnut Hills, and he hopes to see the area continue to grow. “I’m also one of the market managers for the farmers’ market and a few other community initiatives,” he says. “Being involved in building back that street is super important to us.”
and &Sundries, Meyer also owns Embri Candle Co., a shop in Over-the-Rhine that specializes
responsibly sourced candles, soaps, and perfumes.
Dr. Julia Elpers brings precision and fine arts training to Allure Aesthetics Centerand MidWest Eye Center
Julia T. Elpers, M.D., brings a trifecta of skills to her role as an ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Allure Aesthetics Center and MidWest Eye -
thalmology and plastic surgery, but she also brings an artistic eye to her work. Prior to going into medicine, she always enjoyed working with her hands, completing a minor in Fine Art in college.
“While I don’t think it’s a requirement to be an artist to do surgery, I do think it’s an advantage, especially in plastic surgery,” Dr. Elpers says. “Of course, in medicine,
I do art every day.”
In college, Realism and portraiture were her favorite disciplines, and she brings her understanding of natural shape and shadow of the facial form to her work today. “I think that helps guide what I offer to patients,” she says.
Her specialization equips Dr. Elpers to address both cosmetic and functional issues like scarring or deformities around the eyes from trauma or cancer. “The reconstructive aspect of it is most exciting for me because every patient is different, every scar is different, every skin cancer removal is different,” Dr. Elpers explains.
One of Dr. Elpers’ most mem-
orable cases happened during her residency. A patient struggled to leave the house after a stabbing attack that left a scar running from her forehead to her cheek, preventing her eye from closing, and compounding the patient’s trauma with vision issues. After operating, the pa-
saw one of the clearest cases of her work having an immediate and dramatic effect on a patient’s quality of life.
Many of Dr. Elpers’ patients suffer from heavy or drooping eyelids that interfere with their vision. “The patients are always amazed when you get that heaviness off how much more they can see and how much they like what they see in the mirror,” Dr. Elpers says. “The satisfaction you get from how happy they are is really great.”
Some patients may not realize they have an issue with their eyelids, but notice needing more light to read or trouble seeing out to the side. Others may note an improvement in vision with manually lifting their eyelids. These can all be signs of a medical issue the team at Allure Aesthetics Center and MidWest Eye Center can improve.
Ultimately, Dr. Elpers says her mission is: “to improve patients’ daily lives by maximizing vision and function, while optimizing their cosmetic outcome.”
A “DESTINATION DISTILLERY” JUST TWO HOURS WEST OF CINCINNATI IS AN OUTDOOR PARADISE SERVING UP MORE THAN JUST WHISKEY. —MICHELLE MASTRO
Famed for its natural beauty, Brown County, Indiana, is beloved by campers and trekkers alike. Brown County State Park alone is a must-see for its sweeping views and original log cabins. This natural splendor draws artisans of all kinds, including landscape artists who set up shop in Nashville, the area’s main community. And in 2018, local favorite Hard Truth Distilling Co. opened a “destination distillery” that mixes artisan spirits with the great outdoors.
Tucked away in the woods of Hard Truth’s 325-acre campus, a two-story rental cabin, owned by the distillery, welcomes guests who are looking for a longer stay. Handmade rocking chairs add to the craftsman-style cabin’s rustic quality, while a screened-in back porch looks out onto woods where deer make their morning commute. The cabin features an open concept living space with two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom,
and plenty of organic design touches that’ll make you forget you’re staying in a brand new, custom-built space. While you won’t need to venture far to find dining options, the cabin comes with a kitchenette to stock all your favorite snacks. The best part? A stay at the cabin guarantees your group a distillery tour.
At the distillery’s very own restaurant, enjoy a menu that features signature starters and cocktails of the month—or stick with the classics, like the Manhattan, which just might be the best you’ve ever tasted. Or try unique inventions, like the Lost in the Woods, made with Hard Truth Vodka and citrus juices. Some of the standout food selections include the Signature Pulled Pork Nachos, with house-smoked pork shoulder and homemade peppercorn ranch. For entrées, you can’t go wrong with a side of pub fries and the Campfire Roast Beef: pot roast covered in beef gravy, red skin potatoes, carrots, onion, and corn on the cob, all wrapped in aluminum with a sprig of rosemary sticking out (you know, for a campfire feel). On the weekends, remember to check out the Bloody Mary Cocktail Bar. And in spring and summer, the large outdoor dining area plays host to live music as Hard Truth on the Rocks. If you head into Nashville proper, you can breakfast at Heavenly Biscuit or head to Hobnob Corner for fresh lunch favorites. The Nashville House, with
its menu full of homestyle American classics, is perfect for a dinner, while the patio at Mexican restaurant Casa del Sol is practically made for evenings out with a margarita in hand.
Nature lovers will want to try the Get Lost ATV Tour. It makes several tasting stops along the way to checking out scenic spots, like the lake where guests can feed the fish (machines take quarters and dispense the food). You’ll spot the world’s smallest rack house on water, a tiny structure bobbing on the lake with one barrel of whiskey. For a touch of romance on your trip, try the Mixology Class, where you can make not only seasonal cocktails, but your very own bespoke couple’s cocktail. If you’re
WHISKEY & RIVERS
1: Hard Truth Distillery’s Rackhouse No. 1
2: An ATV tour through the Nashville woods
3: Enjoying spirits at Nashville’s destination distillery
looking for a deeper dive into the making of artisan spirits, check out the Single Barrel Selection Experience or Hard Truth Distillery Tour, both of which offer insider perspectives to the making of the spirits at Hard Truth. And when it’s time to venture out into downtown Nashville, head straight to Van Buren street, where you’ll find local boutiques, charming country stores, and art galleries around every corner.
Hard Truth Distilling Co. hardtruthdistilling.com
Brown County State Park browncountystatepark.net
The Nashville House nashvillehousebc.com
View
FAMOUS AMERICAN IMPRESSIONIST T.C. STEELE MOVED TO BROWN COUNTY FOR ITS PICTUResque landscape. In 1907, he founded the Art Colony of the Midwest among its rolling hills. Admirers of his work can visit the T.C. Steele Historic Site, where every structure is carefully curated and preserved. Guests can walk through the artist’s large studio, a barn-like structure holding his original art. On a small, guided tour, see the artist’s residence, the “House of the Singing Winds,” built atop of one of the larger hills. Bring your hiking shoes and venture through the 92-acre nature preserve on two hiking trails that trace their way through the landscape. Deep ravines cut by the region’s rivers add to the spot’s beauty, and in spring and summer, watch as wildflowers fill the crevices of the hillside garden planted by Steele’s wife, Selma.
The sneaker-collecting Reds fan is about as Cincinnati as it gets—and he brings his love of steak to the table at Council Oak Steaks and Seafood at Hard Rock Cincinnati.
Born and raised just north of Cincinnati, Messer developed a love for cooking at a young age. He helped his grandfather—whom he fondly referred to as Papou— cook Sunday dinners for the family. When he was 14 yearsold, you’d find him working on the weekends at fairs and festivals helping a friend with a Texas BBQ pop-up and eventually rolled up his sleeves to help open the standalone location. Messer fell in love with developing the skills it took to smoke meats and the beauty of butchery. Fast forward several years, and Messer’s résumé includes nearly 20 years of whipping up dishes at a variety of restaurants, including
Council Oak is named after an oak tree at the corner of Stirling and 441 in Hollywood, Florida, but the restaurant itself is located inside the Hard Rock Cincinnati in Over-the-Rhine. It’s the only steakhouse in Cincinnati with a view of the dry aging and butcher room so guests can take a peek at the process, part of the beauty
to serve, it’s cooked using Josper coal-fired ovens with organic cherrywood and natural white oak lump charcoal. The open kitchen offers guests a view of the kitchen commotion and the process of sizzling steaks. If you order the prime rib, choose your steak from the cart that comes to the table. This table-side service is another specialty Council Oak offers. Ask about the award-winning wine list or choose from the cocktail menu developed by the bartenders in-house. And if you order a baked Alaska, it’s flamed table-side! •
11 years spent in downtown and Over-the-Rhine eateries. From working with local butchers to learn about specialty cuts and the trends in Cincinnati to helping open and lead one of the most popular Italian spots in OTR—Messer established himself and brings his expertise to Council Oak Steaks and Seafood.
and craft, says Messer. The menu includes classic steakhouse dishes such as New York Strip and rib eye steak, but the quality and Messer’s attention to detail makes each dish special. Messer sources USDA certified prime steak from Chicago’s Purely Meat Co. and dry-ages each cut for 28 days. Once it’s aged and ready
“ASK ABOUT THE AWARD-WINNING WINE LIST OR CHOOSE FROM THE COCKTAIL MENU DEVELOPED BY THE BARTENDERS IN-HOUSE.”
There’s a small house on Purcell Avenue in Price Hill. Every inch of it is superbrightly painted, with flowers and berries and butterflies, some of which are three-dimensional. The house looks like a cartoon frame from Yellow Submarine. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but what’s the story?
—THIS HOUSE IS FLAUNTED
DEAR FLAUNTED:
Unfortunately, the Doctor’s editors kept insisting that “we can’t afford photographs for your column” as they drove away in their Bentleys to their Indian Hill mansions. At noon. Fortunately, the gleaming home you describe made a brief cameo appearance on page 56 of our issue
from September 2022, when this magazine published an inspiring article about community-based projects revitalizing Price Hill. A lovely photograph—affordable on Cincinnati Magazine pages other than this one, somehow—shows Purcell Avenue’s recently-rehabbed Masonic Lodge. The multicolored home that caught your attention is photobombing next door.
Officially, 821 Purcell Avenue is no longer just a home; it’s an art project entitled Casa Colina . Two community nonprofit groups, ArtWorks and Price Hill Will, collaborated to do this over-the-top makeover. About a dozen artists descended upon the humble one-story abode in the summer of 2021 and transformed it into a blindingly radiant cottage of wattage. It is probably visible from space. If it were a motel, its slogan would be “We’ll Leave the Walls on for Ya.”
Jerry Samuels has died. He was better known as Napoleon XIV, creator of the 1966 one-hit-wonder “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” More than one person has told me that Samuels was from Cincinnati or at least spent several years living here. If true, what did he do here after his brief fame?
DEAR HO:
Jerry Samuels was famous for his musical joke, possibly because he was victimized by a joke at birth. His parents, living in New York, already had a son named Perry, and they apparently thought it would be cute to rhyme the new baby’s name to his. Poor little Jerry may have written his odd song as a cry for attention; big brother Perry always came first. It must have been cold there in his shadow (oops, wrong song).
Why is the Doctor even bringing up Jerry Samuels’s brother? Because that is whom your friends are mistakenly talking about. Perry Samuels, not Jerry, came to Cincinnati in 1969 as an executive for the Avco Corporation, then started his own company, and spent most of the rest of his
life here, dying in 2016. He never had a song in the Top 10. He was not famous for even 10 minutes. Jerry (living elsewhere) kept writing songs, most notably Sammy Davis Jr.’s “The Shelter of Your Arms.” So the joke is on you—ho ho, hee hee, ha ha!
Was the Benson Street Bridge— the little span that connects Lockland to Reading—intentionally designed as a tribute to Cincinnati’s Union Terminal? It sure looks that way. When I go over the bridge I can’t help thinking how much it resembles our famous old train station. Am I right?
—TRAIN OF THOUGHT
DEAR THOUGHT:
No, you are not right. Don’t bring up this subject anywhere in Lockland or Reading. If anything, the reverse could be true: That our famous old Union Terminal (now the Cincinnati Museum Center) was designed to pay homage to the Benson Street Bridge.
Decades before the city of Cincinnati had even begun its traditionally required process of bickering and obstructing plans for improving any kind of local travel, the suburbs of Reading and Lockland had already built their modest span over the Mill Creek. Union Terminal’s design wasn’t approved until the 1930s, but Benson Street’s “rainbow arch” went up in 1909. Despite various rehabs, the bridge’s original look is basically unchanged.
You can be forgiven for assuming that a cute little bridge may have copied the larger railroad palace. The resemblance is undeniable; we would love to include some photographic evidence here, but, you know, those Bentleys. Simple resemblance, however, is not proof of provenance. Just try telling Ronan Farrow he looks a lot like Frank Sinatra and see what happens.
EARLIER THIS SPRING, WHEN I HEARD THAT HOTEL COVINGTON WAS RENOVATING AND reimagining an adjacent building that used to be the Willard Wade Covington YMCA, turning it into North by Hotel Covington, I was desperate to gain access. I hadn’t been inside since 1985, back when we just called it “Wade.”
My sisters did gymnastics there in the late 1970s. I tagged along whenever I could, starting lessons there myself in 1984, when I was 10. I was on the team one year before the program shut down.
I’m a lifelong YMCA person, with associations at multiple places like Tri-City Y in Florence (another defunct one), where I spent most of my youth, first on the gymnastics team in middle school and high school and then running the gymnastics program in college; Blue Ash Y, where I’ve belonged since 1999 and have used just about every feature at
some point; and Countryside Y, where I’ve enjoyed their adult gymnastics open gym sporadically over the last 15 years.
And so for the relatively short span of my life the Wade years represent, they have an outsize place in my personal mythology. The building at the corner of Madison and Pike—with its marble staircase, Rookwood tile, multiple entrances, upper and lower gyms, elevated running track, basement pool, and rumors of haunted dorms—still lives large in my memory. It’s the smell of bar chalk, the sound of panel mats unfolding, and the feeling of following in the footsteps of the three people I most wanted to be like. Basically, just my entire childhood.
That’s quite a lot for a building to live up to, especially one that was already past its prime in the 1980s. It opened to great fanfare in 1913 after a grassroots campaign raised funds for a new Covington YMCA, but it didn’t open to women until 1918 (boo); an addition in the 1930s expanded its footprint. It was eventually renamed for Willard Wade, who led the branch on and off from the 1920s through the 1950s. After the Y sold the building in 1987, it became a Family Service Office for the state of Kentucky for a few decades, until it wound up vacant, the pool full of concrete, the floors I once tumbled on in dusty disrepair.
But the Salyers family, long-time champions of Covington, had a vision and came to the rescue. I’d covered Donna Salyers a lifetime ago as a business journalist, and she had perfected a way for sewing chic, luxurious faux fur. I had to get into that building and see for myself how they were reimagining the Y.
TO BE HONEST, I SIMPLY WANTED TO return to a time and place where I’d sit in awe of the teenage girls on my sisters’ team, probably fidgeting on my mom’s lap in one of the uncomfortable spectator chairs that had been set out along the perimeter of the floor during gymnastics meets. It was the place where I first learned a back handspring. The place where my whole life hadn’t happened yet. The place where the memories were so close but so fragmented.
Fortunately, Amanda van Rooyen, chief creative officer for Hotel Covington, was happy to give me a tour. Obviously, I brought my sisters—at least the two who still live locally; we sent my other sister text
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updates. “The desk was right there,” my sister Nancy said, when we saw part of what used to be the old lobby. “You went through a door there to get to the lower gym,” Laura said, pointing to a space by a wall. “These were the steps we always walked up,” I said, sure that if you could excavate all of the shoe prints over the last century you’d see a layer from my ADSs (which stands for “Almost Dr. Scholl’s,” what my sisters called the knock-off sandals we all had circa 1980).
When my sisters and I walked with Amanda into the shell of the lower gym, a space that’s not yet renovated, we remi-
nisced about how the trampoline always stayed there but the rest of the gymnastics equipment was in the upper gym. When we saw the second floor, where the hallways retained a portion of the painted brick wall from the elevated track, with its navy stripes and red graphic of a runner, we told Amanda everything we remembered about the track, how the sides banked, the feel of the railing, and the way you could use the
early memories are the last to leave us, even if they can sometimes be the trickiest to excavate. Being at Wade (I mean, North by Hotel Covington), I felt dizzy with remembering but also sad, because, like the running track, life moves in just one direction—which means the spaces that once held balance beams now hold beds and kitchenettes.
track to spy on people in the lower gym. Continually amused by our glee and nostalgia, she kept asking, “How do you remember all of this?”
How, indeed? I presume it’s because
There were terrific nods to the Y throughout the space, like art created by using gym equipment, rings, and dumbbells covered in paint and given new life on the canvas. Old photographs of people working out at Wade hung here and there, and the design team was able to salvage the upper gym’s beautiful end-grain wood floor in several spaces. As for the pool? It became the ballroom, a corner exposed to let you see the history beneath, where children used to splash and squeal and businessmen swam laps on their lunch hours.
I loved our tour. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about James Monroe.
EARLY MEMORIES ARE OFTEN THE LAST TO LEAVE US, EVEN IF THEY CAN SOMETIMES BE THE TRICKIEST TO EXCAVATE. BUT, SADLY, LIFE MOVES IN JUST ONE DIRECTION.
MY 14-YEAR-OLD SON IS TAKING NINTH grade physical science. He likes science, because it allows him to ask over and over, “What happens when…” and that’s his favorite thing to do. And so, in between watching TikTok and talking to his friends, sometimes we have interesting conversations about scientific concepts, like how magnets work (I have no idea) or the nature of matter (I have slightly more idea because I did force my way through Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time ). One night several months ago, he asked something like, “How is there just always the same amount of everything in the universe?”
He was talking about the conservation of mass, which says that in a closed system—which the universe is—matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The matter that exists now is the same amount that’s always existed and will always exist.
It wasn’t the first time we’d talked about this topic. I’d brought it up several years ago, probably when I was bleary-eyed from
mostly not understanding A Brief History of Time, and I remember, because my son, who was obsessed with memorizing American presidents, asked, “So we could be drinking remnants of James Monroe’s poop juice right now?” To which I naturally answered, “That’s exactly right.”
Now, though, my teenager was thinking about this concept the way an almost-adult would, which meant poop wasn’t necessary for explanation anymore. “There is always the same amount because matter just keeps changing forms,” I explained. “But how does it do that?” he pressed. “Decay and rebirth,” I said. “All that kind of stuff.”
He understood the science of it. It was the human part he couldn’t sync. How do we live inside of this giant recycling bin, where no one and nothing is permanent yet it’s never actually gone? Where the people and bricks and iPhones and cats and flowers and cities and pillows are exactly what they are, and then they’re something else, sometimes over billions of years and sometimes
right before our eyes. It’s like he was saying, What do we do about this?
That was another question altogether, and one you can probably glimpse an answer to only when you sit in silence or read poetry or have sex or hear a baby’s giggle. Even then, when your senses are most heightened, it still doesn’t really make sense that you’ll lose so much but it will never truly be gone.
So we raze and we build and we use phrases like “economic redevelopment district.” We spit into tubes and try to trace our trail back in time. We send missions to far-flung places in outer space and set high-powered cameras to capture images of stars to see if any part looks like it could belong to us. We sing Joni Mitchell songs in our car and say “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” at graveside funerals.
And sometimes we use our credentials to tour places that were once everything to us, to see if the new iteration makes the recycling bin feel less terrible. It does.
Prevent heart disease by lowering stress, eating a healthy diet, and checking vitals regularly.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women in the United States, according to the American Heart Association. However, taking preventive measures and making healthy lifestyle choices can reduce the risk of developing heart disease.
Registered Nurse and Practice Manager at the Florence Wormald Heart & Vascular Institute at St. Elizabeth Olivia Urlage stresses the importance of regularly checking vital markers, such as cholesterol and blood pressure, on an annual basis. “Know your history and know your numbers,” says Urlage. “Also, [it’s important] to advocate for yourself—if you’re one to have higher cholesterol, talk to your phy-
sician. High Lipoprotein
(a) also known as Lpa is a genetic indicator that can increase your risk of heart disease.”
Symptoms of a cardiac event in women may differ from those in men, and women often ignore common signs of a heart attack. “Symptoms can be typical—chest pressure or pain, radiating pain in the shoulder or the arm, pain in between the shoulder blades, or jaw pain,” says Urlage. “[Another symptom] can be back pain. Women often brush symptoms off as being stressed, but we shouldn’t dismiss those signs and symptoms.” Unexplained pain, such as shoulder discomfort that’s unlikely to be caused by exercise or heavy lifting, should be taken seriously. Other common symptoms among women include pain or discomfort in the lower chest or upper abdomen, sudden dizziness, cold sweat, indigestion, and extreme fatigue.
Risk factors that can increase the chances of developing heart disease include dia-
betes, obesity, smoking, alcohol use, diet, exercise, and genetics. Women can reduce their risk of developing heart disease by lowering blood pressure, increasing HDL (or good cholesterol), and reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. Eating a mostly Mediterranean diet and reducing alcohol consumption are also effective at reducing the risk of heart disease.
If you or another woman in your life experiences symptoms of a heart attack, call 911 and encourage others to go to the emergency room for immediate medical care.
At the Florence WormaldHeart & Vascular Institute at St. Elizabeth, our heart expertsbring a singular focus on you, with compassionate care andminimally invasive proceduresto addressyour specific needs. Nationallyrecognized for excellence in heart care, our team of specialistscollaborates closelyto provide heart care personalized just for you.
stelizabeth.com/heart
It’sknownasthemostimportantmealoftheday. AreButwhatthatmeansdependsonwhoyou’retalkingto. youabacon-and-eggsperson?Acerealbuff?Ormaybe awaffleaficionado?Whateveryoueattostartyourday, you’llfinditinonecorneroranotherintheQueenCity.
ByLaurenFisher,M.LeighHood,AieshaD.Little,KaneMitten,andJ.KevinWolfe
PhotographsbyJeremyKramer
Sugar n’ Spice’s Eggs Benedict with a Bloody Mary
This Over-the-Rhine joint is best known for turning diner lunch classics into elevated fine dining, so it’s no surprise that the same principle applies to its all-day breakfast menu. At first glance, the choices appear ordinary: an omelette, hash browns, corned beef hash, and eggs. But look a little closer and you’ll see that the omelette is made with piquillo peppers and goat cheese, or the hash browns are coated in neckbone gravy and served with roasted chicken. Our advice? Don’t skip the pancakes, made with lemon and ricotta in the batter. They’re practically dessert.
1437 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 213-2864, sacredbeastdiner. com
It wouldn’t be a Cincinnati restaurant list without an appearance from Jose Salazar. This simple American joint is probably the biggest CM staff favorite on the list, with funky-yetfamiliar versions of pancakes, grits, goetta, and more. It’s certainly more straightforward compared to Salazar’s fancier restaurants, but the word “basic” will never leave your mouth at G&E. Having one of the city’s best chefs cook up subtle twists on brunch classics is never a recipe for disaster.
1800 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, gooseandelder.com
With its wood paneling and rooster memorabilia, the decor at this place is a throwback to the days when genuine hippies roamed Ludlow Avenue. The omelettes are the go-to, but many give the pancakes two thumbs up. And biscuits and sausage gravy might need a side of ham to make sure you get your minimum daily requirement of pig. The service is friendly and generally fast as they bring out a basic breakfast at prices that won’t break your wallet. Speaking of wallets, make sure you bring yours—it’s still cash only.
345 Ludlow Ave., Clifton, (513) 281-4965
Back in the day, Sugar n’ Spice was just a restaurant. Now, it’s a nouveau-retro breakfast institution. The original location on Reading Road is being renovated (it’s reopening this summer), but the food is as classic as it was in 1941. The famous omelettes are still fluffy and the legendary pancakes are the same lighter-than-air variety that fill the plate, if you can keep them anchored down with butter and syrup. But if you’re a steak-and-eggs kind of person, go at it. Reservations (and loose pants) are highly recommended.
Locations in Bond Hill, Over-the-Rhine, and Blue Ash; eatsugarnspice.com
Vegans and vegetarians, fear not—there are still plenty of breakfast options to fit your needs. Here are four of our favorites.
— Lauren Fisher
1 Vegan cream cheeses, typically made from a cashew base rather than a dairy one, are a relatively new addition to the ever-expanding lineup of everyday pantry staple substitutes. Will it fool anyone when it’s smeared on a bagel by itself?
Probably not. But it’s a perfectly fine way to anchor a bagel sandwich at OTR Bagel Bar, where build-your-own options abound. For a hearty breakfast on the go, try the vegan schmear on a bagel of your choice with avocado, tomato, and vegan goetta, which is just as crumbly and believable as the real thing.
107 W. Elder St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 202-6972
2 In the Sisyphean millennial quest to find the greatest avocado toast, it’s hard to believe there’s one out there that takes the cake. But the toast from brunch spot Yuca, the sister restaurant of Covington’s Cedar, comes pretty close. Instead of the typical mashed avocado/ lemon/seasoning song and dance, Yuca leans into its more colorful roots, topping its variation with Latin-inspired ingredients like fire-roasted corn pico and guacamole. Slices of Sixteen Bricks bread get a healthy spread of spiced garlic aioli and pistachios add an unexpected crunch that helps put this avo toast a step above the rest.
700 Fairfield Ave., Bellevue, (859) 360-0110, yucabycedar.com
3 There are certain pleasures in this life that non-meat-eaters go without: juicy steaks, hot dogs fresh off the grill, gelatin, etc. But then there are the dishes you don’t even think to miss, like biscuits and gravy. Lucky for us, Newport brunch bistro Press on Monmouth has concocted a way to recreate this Southern classic without the meaty bits. Two crumbly, buttery-soft biscuits are drowned in savory vegetarian gravy and topped with fresh arugula. Take it a step further and order the meatless fried chicken add-on to make this breakfast dish feel more like a main course.
421 Monmouth St., Newport, (859) 261-3397, pressonmonmouthnky.com
Yaki Omelette Sando
4 Ordering this sandwich with both a vegan egg and vegan cheese really made it feel like we were putting all our trust in the capable hands of Proud Hound’s cooks. In its virgin form, the toasted sammy relies heavily on the fluffy, omelette-style eggs and white American cheese, two textures that sound like they’d be next to impossible to replicate without actual eggs and cheese. But the vegan substitutions hold up, anchored by the shiitake mushrooms, egg-free Japanese BBQ and yum-yum sauces, cabbage, and crispy onions between two slices of sesame-seasoned toast.
6717 Montgomery Rd., Silverton, (513) 987-1233, proudhoundcoffee.com
Christian Gill has become a Cincinnati foodie icon for his repeated victories on various Food Network series, like the time he beat Bobby Flay or conquered Guy Fieri’s grocery games. It’s no surprise, then, that his restaurant serves up some of the most inspired breakfast in the tri-state. You really can’t go wrong with any of the Southern cooking on this menu, but the best option is in the name. Don’t pass up the rotating housemade jams and butters either— the habanero-cinnamon butter on a biscuit lives in our heads rent free.
9039 US-42, Suite H, Union, boomtownbiscuitsandwhiskey.com
This West End food truck slings acai bowls for health-conscious diners who’d rather indulge in acai berry puree and granola than syrup and pancakes. Full of antioxidants, the puree can be mixed with your pick of six gourmet granolas, and then topped with fresh fruits and other ingredients (like mangoes, bee pollen, and coconut shavings). We recommend the Expialidocious—oats, honey, cherries, strawberries, banana, mango, blueberries, cinnamon, pumpkin seeds, and coconut—which is a popular option with BOLers.
2165 Central Ave., West End, (513) 903-9636, bolonline.org
This place serves up breakfast classics done right. Scrambles, sandwiches, avocado toast, eggs, goetta, and all your other morning favorites are here. Options for dietary restrictions are abundant, too; there are even pancakes made from bee-pollinated flowers. If you want breakfast staples just how you remember ’em with freshly sourced local ingredients and plenty of gluten-free and vegan options, it’d be hard to do better than Sleepy Bee.
Downtown, Oakley, College Hill, and Blue Ash locations; sleepybeecafe.com
Sweet!
CROWN REPUBLIC GASTROPUB
There are only three weekday breakfast options here, but those are three of the best (and biggest) ways in town to start your day. Hearty portions of each—baked eggs with seasonal vegetables and ciabatta bread, a “belly buster” sandwich, and a business special that includes eggs, toast, potatoes, extra aioli, your choice of meat, and a beer—ensure that you’ll be ready for a mid-afternoon nap the moment you step out the door.
720 Sycamore St., downtown, (513) 246-4272, crownrepublicgastropub.com
One of Northern Kentucky’s bestkept secrets, Bellevue Bistro’s crown jewel—cinnamon-brioche French toast with powdered sugar and peanut butter bourbon caramel sauce, served over bananas—will cure the mightiest hangover. But this homey breakfast spot can also serve up a mean hot brown, a killer goetta grilled cheese (complete with bacon jam and potatoes), and a bevy of meats and proteins served over biscuits. If you’re wondering why you can never find Fairfield Avenue parking on weekend mornings, blame Bellevue Bistro.
313 Fairfield Ave., Bellevue, bellevuebistro.com
Taste of Belgium has many fans (and some detractors) among Cincinnatians, but one thing’s for sure—everyone’s been there. It’s grown from its humble beginnings as a stall at Findlay Market to a breakfast juggernaut with eight locations. While most known for its array of thick, nosyrup-needed Belgian Liège waffles, many customers partner that with a chicken breast and hot sauce in place of maple syrup. But don’t overlook the crêpes and omelettes. There’s no better time to develop your own opinion on this Cincinnati classic.
Multiple locations in Ohio and Kentucky, authenticwaffle.com
Fifty years is a long time to perfect your hotcakes and home fries, but as good as those are, the Blue Jay is best known for its signature omelettes. The Gyro Omelette transforms the classic sandwich into a breakfast star (gyro meat, feta, tomatoes, onions, and peppers), and if you’re feeling particularly proud of your hometown, there’s no start to your day like the Northsider 3-Way Omelette (egg, cheddar, and Cincinnati chili). True to its roots, it comes as a 4-, 5-, and 6-way, too, with onions, tomatoes, peppers, or beans.
4154 Hamilton Ave., Northside, (513) 541-0847
Health nuts, look no further. Maplewood is your breakfast of choice. This West Coast–style café prides itself on its organic ingredients—like grassfed butter and cage-free eggs—and features every trendy health food you can think of: avocado toasts, quinoa bowls, kale salads, greens, superfoods, and plenty more. There are also specialty cold-pressed juices (see “Drink Champs” on page 44), locally-roasted coffee, and bottled cocktails made daily for the perfect pairing to go with your meal.
525 Race St., downtown, (513) 4212100, maplewoodkitchenandbar.com
It’s no surprise that this quirkycasual MainStrasse eatery has a brunch menu that’s a little unusual. For the unadventurous, there’s your basic French toast or lox bagels. But you probably won’t find many spots serving you a casserole at 10 a.m. or a BLFGT (ahem, fried green) on a toasted croissant. At Otto’s, unusual is never a bad thing.
512 Main St., Covington, (859) 491-6678, ottosonmain.com
Maplewood Kitchen and Bar’s UpBeet, Sol Glo, and Sweet Greens
Opt for something other than plain coffee or tea when you head out for your first (or second) meal of the day. —Aiesha
COLD-PRESSED JUICE
1 Each 8-ounce bottle at Maplewood Kitchen and Bar contains fruits and veggies squeezed in a hydraulic press for a higher concentration of the vitamins and minerals we need. Try them in four varieties: Super Greens (spinach, pineapple, romaine, kale, parsley, and celery), Sweet Greens (cucumber, green apple, pear, lemon, lime, spinach, celery, and kiwi), UpBeet (beets, lemons, green apples, carrots), or Sol Glo (oranges, carrots, pineapple, and ginger).
BLOODY MARY
2 You could have a V8 or you could have a Bloody Mary. The city’s most ’roided-out version of this tomato juice–based drink can be found at Northside Yacht Club. The Yacht Club Bloody includes a house smoked pulled pork slider, Amish jumbo wing, and American hickory bacon.
D. LittleMIMOSA
3 If you want a little bubbly with your breakfast, HangOverEasy’s mimosas can make things interesting. With options like Aloha & Aloha (pineapple juice, coconut rum, champagne, and Maraschino cherries), Life’s Peachy (orange juice, schnapps, and champagne), and Air Mail (rum, lime, honey, and Champagne), you’ll have a tough time choosing your favorite. Runner up: Sugar n’ Spice’s pink lemonade mimosa.
COLD BREW COFFEE
4 This coffee technique, which involves coffee grounds steeped in cool temperatures for a stronger shot of caffeine, is on deck at spots like Proud Hound, Taste of Belgium, and HangOverEasy. If you want to jazz it up with a little alcohol, check out Maplewood’s Horchata Cold Brew (cold brew coffee and spiced RumChata and Kahlúa liqueurs).
When you see Cackleberry’s vintage trailer set up around town, your mouth should immediately start watering. It’s the only proper Pavlovian response to China Kautz’s Filipino-fusion breakfast sandwiches. We’re partial to the Lola (Spam, Japanese rolled omelette, chives, and sriracha mayo) and the Lolo (Filipino sweet sausage with atchara, egg, and garlic aioli), named after Kautz’s Filipino grandparents (“lolo” and “lola” are “grandfather” and “grandmother” in Tagalog). If you’re thinking over which sandwich to get (the Porter, with its goetta and Muenster cheese, is another great option), don’t dawdle—once they’re gone, they’re gone, and you’ll have to wait until the next weekend for a taste.
eatcackleberry.com
Given the items on the menu—Walk of Shame, Kick In The Crotch, Sunshine On My Ass, just to name a few—and its proximity to UC’s campus, you’d be forgiven for assuming HangOverEasy is a by-and-for-college-students-diner. (It is.) What you might not expect is that H.O.E. is a stunningly executed and tasty monument to excess, with every single dish as big and bombastic as a college football crowd. French toast, but make it out of cinnamon rolls and coat it in a giant mound of powdered sugar and five inches of whipped cream. Pancakes, but they’re made of oatmeal, have granola inside, and are layered with buttercream icing and some more granola on top for good measure. You get the picture.
13 W. Charlton St., Corryville, (513) 221-5400, hangovereasy.com
PEPPER POD RESTAURANT
When you have a hankering for a slab of goetta or a country biscuit breakfast, it’s hard to beat this Newport diner. It’s good, hearty food designed to launch you into your day on a full stomach. Helping the tri-state live up
to its Porkopolis roots, Pepper Pod offers both a grilled pork tenderloin breakfast and a grilled pork chop breakfast, complete with eggs, hash browns, and toast. If that sounds like too much meat, the Poor Boy Breakfast delivers fried bologna with the same sides as its big brothers.
703 Monmouth St., Newport, (859) 431-7455, pepperpod restaurant.food74.com
HALF DAY CAFÉ
This family-owned and -operated spot offers craveable breakfast staples and innovative twists on everyday items. It’s a Cincinnati spot for Cincinnati favorites. We’re talking Glier’s goetta and Seven Hills Coffee beside house specialties like mango butter rum pancakes and the Bowl O’ Goodness (house-made red-eye gravy over carnitas, white cheddar grits, and sunny-side up eggs). The rosemary potatoes go well with everything, including the chorizo omelette (chorizo, black beans, spinach, red peppers, and goat cheese) or the sweet potato pancakes.
8825 Wilkens Blvd., Mason, (513) 204-1965, halfdaycafe.org
POT STICKERS
STUFFED TOFU WITH SHRIMP
STEAMED SHRIMP DUMPLINGS
VIETNAMESE SPRING ROLLS
PAN-FRIED TURNIP CAKES WITH CHINESE SAUSAGES
STICKY RICE WRAPPED IN LOTUS LEAVES
SESAME BALLS WITH RED BEAN FILLING
CHICKEN SUI MAI PAN-FRIED PORK BUNS
STEAMED BBQ PORK BUNS
SHRIMP & PORK PUFFS
STUFFED EGGPLANT WITH SHRIMP
If you’ve never tried dim sum—a Chinese brunch style where servers roll around carts full of savory and sweet delights for you to purchase—head up to an Uncle Yip’s weekend brunch service immediately. Having servers come up to your table and show you various plates full of food for $6 each is an ideal dining experience. “Do you want steamed BBQ pork sticky buns? Pan-fried cake? Fried puff pastries with shrimp and pork? Mochi with a peanut filling?” Yes, yes, and a thousand times yes. Be prepared to stay a while. 10736 Reading Rd., Evendale, uncleyips.com
Since 1956, Hathaway’s has served up breakfast in Carew Tower. The interior remains nostalgic with vintage posters and old Cincinnati photos as well as tables and red chairs right out of a Happy Days rerun. It’s probably the one place “Under the Rhine” that still serves up a filling breakfast at a reasonable price. You get the standard breakfast fare you’d expect at any decent diner with a few perks, like the decadent French toast sandwich, or the local fave, the goetta omelette. Most diners add a pancake and hash browns, too.
25 W. Fifth St., downtown, (513) 621-1332, facebook.com/ hathawaysdiner
A hot breakfast isn’t always what you’re craving in the morning.
Sometimes what you want is the breakfast of your youth—a nice cold bowl of cereal. That’s where Saturday Morning Vibes Cereal Bar comes in. Choose two cereals from the menu, add a topping (like coconut flakes, brownie crumbs, or crushed Oreos), and pick from five types of milk (regular, almond, soy, oat, or lactose free). You can Frankenstein the bowl of cereal you longed to create when you were a kid before parking yourself in front of one of
several flat-screen TVs showing classic cartoons. It’s your inner 10-year-old’s dream come true.
3539 Reading Rd. Suite 101, Avondale, (513) 801-6058, smvcerealbar.com
THE ECHO
The Echo is an edible oxymoron: an old-school diner right off of posh Hyde Park Square. It’s been there almost 80 years and still has a line out the door for breakfast on weekends. They might have the crispiest Belgian waffle in town here, but to be initiated properly, get the Hot Mess. It’s layer upon layer of that pesky cholesterol your doctor warns you about—home fries, scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon, all hiding under sausage gravy and cheddar. And why not add a side of hollandaise on top of that and a pitcher of mimosas, too.
3510 Edwards Rd., Hyde Park, (513) 321-2816, echo-hydepark.com
True to the neighborhood it resides in, Northside Yacht Club has never fit into one category. The nauticalthemed gastropub is described as a dive bar (it’s too clean for that), a tiki bar (it’s too cool for that), the best wing joint in the city, a great music venue, and plenty more. So it’s no surprise it excels at brunch, too. The
menu has everything from poutine to waffles to a surprising number of vegan and vegetarian items (including the Killer Tofu, which is made
with tofu produced by local soy sauce maker CinSoy). Rock on. 4231 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, northsideyachtclub.com
These four spots go above and beyond your run-of-the-mill doughnut joint. —Kane Mitten
The Baker’s Table Bakery is the sister restaurant to the awardwinning The Baker’s Table, featuring delectable pastries and locally sourced espresso in the mornings. But the biggest draw is the bread. The sourdough bread, made in-house daily, makes any sandwich taste better, and frankly, it’s ridiculous how much flavor The BTB manages to extract out of something as simple as toast. The breakfast menu may look small, but make no mistake: It is mighty.
1001 Monmouth St., Newport, (859) 261-0125, bakerstablebakery.com
The owners of Milford BBQ favorite Pickles & Bones shifted in a different direction for their second restaurant. All Hail the Biscuit lives up to its name, with biscuits in every single dish you could think of. Biscuit doughnuts, cinnamon biscuits, brisket biscuits, biscuit benedicts, biscuit sandwiches, traditional biscuits and gravy, and more. In case you’re somehow not there for the biscuits, they’ve got traditional breakfast fare like frittatas and pancakes, and a nice cocktail menu, too. But with AHTB’s biscuits being the perfect level of goldenbrown flaky buttery goodness that you’d expect, it’s hard to imagine ordering anything else.
877 OH-28, Milford, (513) 340-4811, allhailthebiscuit.com
The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into Bagel Brothers is how good it smells. The next thing you’ll notice is how dark and cozy it is, even in broad daylight. After that, you’ll see how many homemade options you have—bagels, croissants, doughnuts, cookies, and pastries galore, with all manner of possible sandwich toppings. The cream cheese adorning each bagel is made in-house each day with no additives or preservatives—as are the chicken, tuna, and egg salads. Cheap, quick, and delicious, just one bite of anything in this small shop will make you realize this is a UC student staple for a reason.
347 Calhoun St., Clifton, (513) 221-4000, bagelbrotherscincinnati49.com
Picture a coffee chain with every single pastry or bread you could ever think of ready and waiting on rows and rows of shelves as you walk in the door, and you’d have a pretty good idea of what Paris Baguette is like. This South Korean bakery chain (the only location in Ohio) makes the grade by having a gargantuan variety of items available for the downtown consumer. There’s your regular doughnuts and croissants, sure, but the real surprise is in the unexpected. Japanese rice pastries? Yep. Chiffon cakes? Sure. Tiramisu tarts? Absolutely. Feuillete au Chocolat? Why not?
100 W. Fourth St., downtown, (513) 399-5858, parisbaguette.com
The Baker’s Table Bakery’s Multigrain Sourdough
Jason Al Ghussein plants his Palestinian roots in Over-theRhine, hoping a bright mural can open minds and bring people together.
By Jim DeBrosse
Photographs by Devyn Glista
Orange Ya Proud Jason Al Ghussein photographed at his mural on March 29, 2023.
location was hard to miss even in the labyrinth of back streets in northern Over-theRhine: a five-story-high mural painted on an abandoned building, the wall ablaze with giant oranges and bursts of white blossoms on branches latticed against a bright blue sky. The mural’s creator, Jason Al Ghussein, was standing in front of his work on a late summer afternoon last year when two black Escalades rumbled past him on East Clifton Avenue, did a quick turn around on the empty street, and pulled up at the curb.
When the passenger door of the lead SUV popped open, out stepped the lanky frame of 78-year-old Roger Waters, co-
founder of Pink Floyd. After landing at Lunken Airport earlier that afternoon, his solo concert at Heritage Bank Center was just a few hours away. But first the rock legend wanted to meet with Al Ghussein, and for one reason: The two men share a passion for the Palestinian cause.
Al Ghussein’s mural was inspired by the famed Jaffa oranges, given as prized winter holiday treats in Europe since the days of Queen Victoria and once grown on Palestinian land owned by his family. But in 1948, his widowed grandmother and her 11 children were driven from their land and into neighboring Jordan during the begin-
ning of what Israelis call the War of Independence and Palestinians call the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe.”
By war’s end, hundreds of villages in Palestine had been destroyed and 750,000 Palestinians had fled or were expelled. Their abandoned properties were then confiscated by the fledgling nation of Israel through the 1950 Absentee Property Law. Land taken from Al Ghussein’s cousin, Ali Qleibo, has been proposed for the site of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem—a move that reverses 70 years of U.S. policy by recognizing Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its capital rather than Tel Aviv. Today nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees are eligible for services through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, with one third living in UN refugee camps.
Waters greeted Al Ghussein with the teasing words, “Man, you’re a hairy dude.” Al Ghussein, 34, a freelance graphic design artist and software developer, sports shoulder-length hair and a bushy lumberjack beard. For his meeting with Waters, he was wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress that’s become a symbol of the Palestinian resistance movement.
Waters donned another keffiyeh that Al Ghussein gave him for a photo shoot in front of the mural. The rock star chatted for 30 minutes during his visit and signed covers of Pink Floyd’s iconic The Dark Side of the Moon album as well as Al Ghussein’s electric guitar. Before leaving, he asked if he could take Al Ghussein’s keffiyeh with him. The younger man gladly handed it over. During the concert that night, Waters wore the scarf while performing “Déjà Vu,” a protest song he wrote for Palestine.
Roger Waters has long supported Palestinians in their struggle for nationhood and civil rights. Al Ghussein has far more personal reasons for his support. His grandfather, Yacoub, was a national Palestinian leader arrested several times by the British and beaten unconscious after he cursed a British police superintendent in 1933. He was arrested again in 1936 for being a leader of the Arab Higher Committee, loaded onto a British destroyer, and sailed to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian
Ocean, where he was a political prisoner for nearly two years.
The roots of the Arab revolt go back to World War I. After promising Arab countries their independence if they would fight against the Turks and Germans, Britain reneged on that promise and, under pressure from Zionists, unilaterally designated Palestine a homeland for Jews under the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In the decades that followed, hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants, mostly from Europe, poured into Palestine. Tensions with the Palestinians grew, and both sides began smuggling weapons for what they knew would be a coming war.
Al Ghussein’s grandfather died of a
heart attack five months before war broke out. Then on April 9, 1948, in the village of Deir Yassin, Jewish paramilitary groups massacred 107 Palestinians, including women and children, piling up their bodies and burning them. The massacre is considered pivotal in the lead-up to the war. Palestinians began fleeing the country, including Al Ghussein’s family, who fled north to Lebanon from their village of Ramleh. Five weeks after the massacre, neighboring Arab countries joined the conflict.
For Al Ghussein and other supporters of Palestine, the 1948 war wasn’t about Israel’s struggle to defend itself against Arab attackers.
“It was, and is, a war of conquest,” he says. “Zionism was a foreign ideology and movement that originated in Europe. And it was foreigngovernment officials, the British, who issued the Balfour Declaration. It’s not the Israelis who are defending themselves, it’s the Palestinians.”
One of the first official actions of the new Israeli legislature was to confiscate homes and land left by fleeing Palestin -
ians, including the thousands of acres Al Ghussein’s family had accumulated over 1,500 years. The scattered family carried on. Al Ghussein’s uncle Jaweed became a leading Palestinian educator and philanthropist who later blew the whistle on corruption within the Palestine Liberation Organization; his uncle Talat became the first ambassador from Kuwait to the U.S.; and his father, Khaled, helped manage Jaweed’s construction firm before retiring to Cairo, Egypt. It was there that Al Ghussein’s mother, Marilyn, a Cincinnati native and professor of art history at the American University of Cairo, met his father.
Despite the family’s prominence, Al Ghussein had no idea he was Palestinian until he turned 16. His mother kept it a secret from him as protection against political controversy surrounding the Palestinian conflict. “Growing up as a little kid, my mother always told me I was Egyptian,” he says. “My friends even remember me telling them I was Egyptian.”
He learned differently after he was assigned a high school
Family Ties
Jason Al Ghussein’s grandfather, Yacoub, was among Arab leaders who met in London (front left above) and who were exiled to the Seychelles (second from right at top).
“It was the first time I had even heard of Palestine or that there was a war there. They don’t teach you anything about Palestine in American schools.”
Remembering the arduous, elegant lives of Anna and Harlan Hubbard and their hand-crafted Kentucky home, Payne Hollow.
by CARRIE BLACKMORE SMITH
THE TRAILHEAD AT THE END OF A RURAL DRIVE NEAR MILTON, Kentucky, doesn’t look like much. But this spot, about 50 miles southwest of Cincinnati, is where Anna and Harlan Hubbard would have hiked in and out of the woods while living at their beloved Payne Hollow homestead.
Hundreds of people made the trek down the mile-long trail by foot or came up from boats on the Ohio River, the only two ways into Payne Hollow. Friends and strangers alike came to see the world created by the unconventional couple who, as Harlan put it, lived on the “fringe of society.”
“I don’t know exactly how to describe it,” says Bob Canida, who was a young man when he first visited the Hubbards in 1972. “You left feeling there was something inherently good and different here.” The hike became a time of meditation, where Canida could clear his head of the outside world and spend time with two people living unlike anyone he’d ever known.
The Hubbards met in Cincinnati. Anna Wonder Eikenhout hailed from Grand Rapids, Michigan, born into a Dutch family. She graduated with honors from Ohio State University and taught German and French before taking a job at the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library.
Harlan Hubbard was born in 1900 in Bellevue. His father
died when Harlan was 7 years old, and he and his mother moved to New York City to live with his two older brothers, who were working there. He grew up in the Bronx and studied art at the National Academy of Design before moving back to Kentucky with his mother.
Harlan resumed his studies at the Art Academy of Cincinnati but didn’t complete a degree, giving up on traditional art instruction and instead just making his way on his own, says Kentucky historian Jessica Whitehead, who’s currently working on a complete biography of Hubbard. “Their story, along with Harlan’s art and writing, have enjoyed sustained regional devotion,” says Whitehead, who thinks “there are whole new generations of people primed for their particular strain of the American experience.”
The Hubbards met at the downtown library, where Harlan was a regular patron. Both were musicians, and eventually they started dating and got married in 1943. Straight away, the couple chose an uncommon path, spending their first two years together living in a shack on the banks of the Ohio River down the hill from their home in Ft. Thomas. They built a shantyboat that they’d eventually live on for about six years as they floated down the
Ohio to the Mississippi River and all the way to New Orleans.
“Thus they came to the beginning of the great adventure that they made possible for one another,” Wendell Berry writes in his 1990 biography, Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work. Harlan’s attraction to the river went back as far as he could remember, Berry writes, while Anna’s began only after she met him. “Her enthusiasm for it gave a legitimacy to his that it had not had before. She gave a necessary permission.”
Years later, Payne Hollow was their shantyboat life come ashore, as Berry puts it. Without electricity or modern conveniences, they built an existence in tune with nature and enriched by art and the satisfaction of hard work.
“Creativity, self-reliance, beauty, industry, and quietness are the kinds of values that resonate with those who love the Hubbards,” says Whitehead, who serves as board secretary of a new nonprofit organization, Payne Hollow on the Ohio, that recently purchased the property with plans to preserve it and make it available to the public. “It would be impossible for all of us to chuck everything and build our own Payne Hollow. But these kinds of principles can apply to whomever and wherever we are in the world.”
ON DECEMBER 22, 1946, AFTER TWO YEARS OF CONSTRUCTION, ANNA and Harlan Hubbard drifted away from Cincinnati on their shantyboat and began their downstream journey. “The boat was loaded with canned goods stowed away during months of gardening and foraging, clothes for all weather, musical instruments, books,
“Anna and Harlan’s home was beautiful, welcoming, well designed, and refined,” Catherine Turcotte says about Payne Hollow. “I thought it would be a shack, but it was not.”
painting supplies, fiddle strings, rope, anchor, foghorn, their little dog Skipper, and a hive of bees,” writes Berry.
There were times of free drifting, when the Hubbards could simply let the boat go in the hold of the current while they cooked, made music, or read inside. The boat often required guiding, and Harlan would redirect it with a small johnboat powered with oars. When river currents were particularly troublesome, Anna would help with long oars on the shantyboat’s deck while Harlan guided the johnboat.
In the warmer months, they set anchor and tied up somewhere for the growing season in places like Bizzle’s Bluff on the mouth of the Cumberland River in Western Kentucky and Bisland Bayou near Natchez, Mississippi. They would grow a garden, fish, forage, restock supplies, and prepare the rig to drift again. They lived on what they could barter for and on a bit of money Harlan made selling his paintings. He journaled constantly, leaving us with a lot of life insights and daily details.
The trip included some close calls. One day early on, the Ohio River froze solid around the boat, threatening to crush it. All could have been lost had it not been for kind people on shore who helped the Hubbards pull their home up on land with ropes.
Once the couple reached New Orleans in 1950, they bought an outboard motor for the shantyboat in order to explore the Louisiana bayous for another year. It would be one of the few motorized tools they ever owned. In 1951, they sold their boats for $679 and bought an old Dodge with a rebuilt motor and pulled a handmade trailer with all of their possessions back to Kentucky.
While away on their adventure, the couple had been collecting rent at their Ft. Thomas home, and after a short trip to Califor-
nia they decided to put down roots. Payne Hollow had been their first long stop on the river voyage, and they had a good feeling about the place; they bought seven acres there for $300. The homestead they built came from a culmination of skills tested on the water and mastered on land—what Harlan called “a free and hardy life.”
Catherine Turcotte was 12 when her parents told her they’d be visiting people who built a house on the river without electricity and running water. “I thought it would be a shack, but it was not,” she says. “Anna and Harlan’s home was beautiful, welcoming, well designed, and refined. They had candles on their table, a grand piano in their living room, a cistern system for water, and a bed that folded into the wall.”
The way they lived was clever and comforting, says Turcotte, remembering a firewood bin built into the house without letting in cold air and “a big, lovely window overlooking the Ohio and studio and music space for creativity.”
She loved to watch Anna cook. One meal described by Berry, shared with friends on the shantyboat, was described as “small catfish, dressed just before frying, mashed potatoes, kale just brought in, salad and choice tomatoes, cottage cheese and bean sprouts, hot biscuits made of our own grind of wheat flour, and containing toasted sunflower seeds, with maple syrup, [and] wild strawberry jam.” Only the milk for the cottage cheese hadn’t been grown, caught, or produced by the Hubbards.
Turcotte, now 64, grew up in Carmel, Indiana, a typical suburban neighborhood where “everyone CONTINUED ON PAGE 88
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DAWN ISENHOWER Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 236-1254
COCO JAMES RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 801-0542
STEPHANIE JANSSEN Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 460-1841
ANDREA JOHNSON RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (513) 253-3780
TERESA JOHNSON Comey & Shepherd (513) 836-6766
JOLYNN JOHNSTON Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 760-4418
WHITNEY L. JOLLY-LOREAUX HUFF Realty (859) 380-5811
CHERYL JONES
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 607-0276
JESSICA JONES
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 919-2561
LEAH JOOS
Keller Williams Advisors (513) 407-5901
PRAYASH KADARIYA
Plum Tree Realty (513) 400-0338
DANIEL KAISER
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 923-0855
KISHORE KALIKIRI Plum Tree Realty (513) 666-1259
BARRY KAPLAN
Comey & Shepherd (513) 368-9000
CARL KAPPES III
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 866-0347
KEVIN KELLY Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 702-0414
KRISTY KELLY
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 253-4291
ANGELA KEMP Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 504-7714
CHRIS KENNEDY Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 250-2992
SHEILA KENNEDY Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 378-3927
MAYS KHALAF Comey & Shepherd (513) 703-0800
BISHNU KHAREL RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 857-9888
KHEM KHAREL Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 410-5224
AMY KING Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 464-3455
DENNIS KING Comey & Shepherd (513) 378-5464
TASHA KLABER-FLOOD Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 991-9044
HEATHER KOPF Kopf Hunter & Haas (513) 378-1167
LAURA KRAEMER Comey & Shepherd (513) 305-8215
TERESA KRAFT Coldwell Banker Realty (859) 512-3000
KATHY J. KRAMER Star One Realtors (513) 265-8650
BRIANNE KROGER
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 407-0796
SUSAN KUEHNLE
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 379-4967
LINDA KUNKEL
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 404-7115
KURT J. LAMPING Star One Realtors (513) 602-2100
KATHY LANDSTRA
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 673-6729
TIFFANY LANG
Hoeting Realtors (513) 405-2794
MARTHA S. LEACH HUFF Realty (859) 803-0100
KIM LENZO
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 265-1779
SUE LEWIS Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 324-8095
Mary Barrera’s success lies in her ability to have fun while working hard for her clients. With a creative and collaborative mindset, she prioritizes understanding her clients’ unique needs to provide a variety of options. From first-time buyers to seasoned sellers, Mary has the expertise to help them make the best decisions for their families. When challenges arise, she tackles them with innovative solutions. Mary’s goal is to make the real estate journey as smooth as possible by providing support, guidance, and championing her clients’ needs. Her authentic approach ensures clients feel supported throughout the process. Mary’s exceptional skills are proven by her achieving Circle of Excellence and OAR President’s Club awards yearly since 2020.
6764 CINCINNATI DAYTON RD., LIBERTY TWP, OH 45044, (513) 678-5011, HTTPS://MARYBARRERA.COMEY.COM
BENJAMIN LIEBING Plum Tree Realty (513) 348-3785
LINDA C. LINTON Star One Realtors (513) 477-9436
MAUREEN LINTZ Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 515-0604
NEIL LOBERT Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 266-7711
JENNA LOCKARD Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 380-5175
DEBORAH LONG Keller Williams Advisors (513) 675-8844
JOHN LORMS Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 486-0060
KIM LOUIS RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 477-1900
ANDREW LOVETT Realty Executives Select (859) 512-5578
BILL LUCIUS Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester Office (513) 252-5364
KATIE M. LYLE Star One Realtors (513) 509-2409
GEORGE MADDEN RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 324-8975
TOM MALDONADO
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 780-3000
DOUGLAS E. MANZLER Keller Williams Advisors (513) 766-0770
SHEREE MARCUM Comey & Shepherd (513) 617-5371
ROB MARTIN RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 485-7987
JAMES D. MAYBERRY
HUFF Realty (859) 816-3393
LISA MCCARTHY Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 256-2629
JENNI MCCAULEY
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 543-6969
DENISE MCCOY
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 912-1969
JUDITH MCCOY Comey & Shepherd (513) 766-0889
ALEX MCDONALD RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 397-2081
MIKE MCENTUSH Star One Realtors (513) 675-1702
JENNIFER MCGILLIS Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 344-9077
MICHAEL MCKEOWN HUFF Realty (859) 653-2884
FLOR DE MARIA MCNALLY
Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester Office (513) 227-3870
MICHELLE MEENACH Star One Realtors (513) 813-1979
TAHSIN MERT Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 802-8977
ELLEN MICHAEL Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 265-2682
ELA MILDNER-SHAPIRO Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 703-4202
LINDA MILDON RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 802-2815
HEATHER MILINOVICH Comey & Shepherd (513) 200-8925
Representing the region’s finest properties with exceptional skill using the most innovative technologies currently available. We offer ultimate privacy and security, speed, and efficiency. Our years of full-time experience have given us a clear understanding of the mindset of home buyers and sellers and a thorough understanding of the Cincinnati regional marketplace. Under the leadership of Jon Bowling, this diverse group of full time real estate professionals guides their clients through the home-buying and -selling process using the latest technologies and marketing strategies to ensure exceptional results no matter the market condition.
9313 MASON MONTGOMERY RD., SUITE 120, MASON, OH 45040, (513) 342-4840, WWW.JONBOWLING.COM
SHELLEY MILLER
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 256-3411
SUSAN MILLER
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 368-6715
KELLY MILLIKIN
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 703-7965
JESSICA MILLS
Comey & Shepherd (513) 226-8473
RON D. MINGES Star One Realtors (513) 604-1877
LORI A. MITCHELL
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 509-0075
DOLORES MIZE
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 476-1986
CLIFF MONTGOMERY
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 317-6543
DAN J. MORENA HUFF Realty (513) 498-1697
GREG MORGAN Comey & Shepherd (513) 516-9129
KRISTINE MORGAN Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 283-4192
KORINNE MORRISON Lohmiller Real Estate (513) 317-0505
BRENDAN MORRISSEY Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 365-8383
NICHOLAS MOTZ eXp Realty (513) 615-1999
LAURA D. MULLEN HUFF Realty (859) 802-6111
CATHERINE M. MUSGRAVE HUFF Realty (859) 653-2409
KIM NACHAZEL
Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 653-7879
HOLLY L. NALLY
HUFF Realty (859) 866-9633
ROSE NASSAR
Plum Tree Realty (513) 288-6629
ALEJANDRO NAVARRETE HUFF Realty (859) 818-4614
ROBERT NEAL
Comey & Shepherd (513) 237-5251
KATHERINE NELTNER Keller Williams Advisors (513) 240-4865
LORI O’BRIEN Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 503-9683
MICHELE M. O’BRIEN HUFF Realty (859) 380-6535
JERI O’BRIEN-LOFGREN
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 266-8568
CHERYL ODONNELL
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 919-3086
JEFF OLINGER
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 900-8822
DAWNITTA OLLIS
Plum Tree Realty (513) 543-0754
BETH BOKON ONTHANK Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 505-8815
REBECCA ORTH Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 743-0582
MARIA OSOKINA
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 760-2404
NOVA OTTE
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (937) 654-6682
Led by Ellie Kowalchik, this all-star team boasts 20-plus years of real estate experience and specializes in digital marketing, utilizing innovative technologies to promote listings and match buyers with available homes for sale. Renowned for their customer-first approach, the full-service team consists of a client concierge, transaction coordinator, stager/designer, director of marketing, and eight licensed agents who have a clear understanding of the mindset of home buyers and sellers and in-depth knowledge of the regional housing market. They employ a multi-faceted strategy to skillfully and compassionately guide clients through every step of even the most complex real estate transactions.
524 WARDS CORNER RD., LOVELAND, OH 45140, (513) 697-SELL, WWW.MOVE2TEAM.COM
CHRIS OWENS
RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 257-3757
SUE PAI Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 477-6213
CYNDA PARKINSON Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 509-5647
JACQUELINE L. PATRICK Star One Realtors (513) 476-0848
KATHY PATTERSON Premier Properties Real Estate 1230 Bellview Dr. Greendale IN 47025 (513) 535-2877
kathyp@premierpropertiesre.com www.PremierPropertiesRE.com
LIBBY PAULINELLI
Sibcy Cline Realtors (317) 695-5197
AIMEE PELLETIER Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 750-1680
MEG PEREZ Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 658-7478
CHUCK PETERS Lohmiller Real Estate (812) 212-4701
KRISTEN R. PETERS HUFF Realty (859) 991-8464
SANDRA PETERS Comey & Shepherd (513) 300-2518
DIANA PFAFF Coldwell Banker Realty (859) 640-1860
HEATHER PILCHER Keller Williams Realty Services (208) 709-4778
MAUREEN PIPPIN Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 703-1993
DANI POWERS RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (513) 607-9233
JESSICA POWERS HUFF Realty (859) 445-5355
MARIANNE POWERS Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 484-3753
DONNA PRAMPERO Comey & Shepherd (513) 368-9364
JONATHAN PRICE Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 484-1415
SUZANNE E. PROCTOR HUFF Realty (513) 383-8372
RAUL PULIDO RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 477-7151
LUCIE A. PURCELL HUFF Realty (859) 441-6357
ROSE M. PUTNICK Star One Realtors (513) 368-4094
ROXANNE QUALLS Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 404-7263
JACKIE QUIGLEY eXp Realty (513) 615-4798
www.quigleyteamoh.com
FADIA RAWAS Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester Office (513) 884-9955
JUDY RECKER Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 518-2520
KELLI REDWINE Keller Williams Realty Services (513) 617-4469
THOMAS REESE HUFF Realty (859) 393-1293
SHERILYN REYNOLDS Lohmiller Real Estate (513) 266-3022
TO THIS YEAR’S ALL STARS!
WHEN MAKING A REAL ESTATE PURCHASE, PARTNER WITH AN AGENT WHO IS A REALTOR®.
SARAH RICKERT
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 801-5120
NICOLE RIEGLER
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 866-3261
GWEN E. RITCHIE
HUFF Realty (513) 218-1403
PAULA RITTER
Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 512-4630
BRIT ROBERTS
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 328-5484
KELLI ROBERTS
Comey & Shepherd (513) 969-4841
PHYLLIS ROBERTS
RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 490-1574
TINA ROBERTSON
Comey & Shepherd (513) 675-3729
LEE ROBINSON Robinson Sotheby’s International Realty (513) 470-7700
KATRINA ROBKE HOLTMEIER Keller Williams Realty Services (513) 504-0282 www.scarlettpg.com
CAROL ROD Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 319-5800
MATTHEW RODBRO Plum Tree Realty (513) 257-7237
WENDY ROGAN CAREY RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 479-6333
BROOKE ROSCOE Keller Williams (859) 803-3043
JULIE M. ROSE Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 317-7452 https://julierosehomes.com
SUSAN ROSE Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 378-2575
SHIFALI ROUSE Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 602-1400
BILLY RUMSEY Lohmiller Real Estate (812) 584-9498
CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL Plum Tree Realty (513) 378-4663
MOLLY RYBARCZYK Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 429-9462
CONNIE RYDZEWSKI Comey & Shepherd (513) 403-8077
KATHY SANDEL Coldwell Banker Realty (859) 380-9442
PRYIA SANGTANI Comey & Shepherd (513) 460-9969
KATHY SANTANGELO Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 237-2827
STEPHANIE SCHEID Realty Executives Select (859) 240-9296
YVONNE E. SCHEIDERER HUFF Realty (513) 505-2344
DERON G. SCHELL HUFF Realty (859) 640-5149
ROBBIE SCHLAGER Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 477-1751
STACIE A. SCHOEPLEIN Star One Realtors (513) 237-9623
DORY SCHRICKEL eXp Realty (513) 615-4798
JUDY A. SCHUERMANN HUFF Realty (513) 470-8464
Julie Rose is dedicated to providing her personal touch when helping you buy or sell your home, bringing enthusiasm and integrity to every real estate challenge. She knows that each situation is unique, and takes the time to understand your needs. Her knowledge ensures every sale makes it to the closing table.
“Excellent partner throughout the process. Very diligent and with great attention to detail. Julie helped us tremendously in building confidence as we purchased our home in an area we were less familiar with. She took care of everything with diligence and urgency, making it an easy/smooth process for us. That’s a big deal, especially in the midst of the complexities we are currently living in. We are very happy with the purchase and confident that Julie helped us make a GREAT choice!”
M. Bonilla6730 RUWES OAK DR., CINCINNATI, OH 45248, (513) 317-7452, HTTPS://JULIEROSEHOMES.COM
ADAM A. SCHUPP
Star One Realtors (513) 460-5336
MARK SCHUPP
Star One Realtors (513) 543-1477
LAKISHA N. SCRUGGS HUFF Realty (513) 518-3350
BRITTANY SEITHER
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (513) 518-2799
JUDIE SEITZ
Comey & Shepherd (513) 607-8925
ERIC SENFT
Lohmiller Real Estate (513) 377-2069
ANGIE SEXTON Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 702-3419 https://movingyouthrulife.com
DAWN P. SHEANSHANG
HUFF Realty (859) 322-4636
JASON SHEPPARD
Comey & Shepherd (513) 313-6991
PATTI SIBCY
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 254-1776
MAMADOU L. SIDIBE
HUFF Realty (513) 305-2275
BETH SILBER Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 317-6042
RAMNEEK SINGH
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 332-7442
MICHAEL SLAFKA Plum Tree Realty (513) 550-2652
LEAH SLICER Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 502-7753
JESSICA SMITH
Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 466-6657
KATHIE SMITH
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 509-9225
LAUREN N. SMITH HUFF Realty (859) 630-6820
ROBERT SMITH
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 604-6515
VERNON “SMITTY” SMITH Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 460-3513
ANDREA SNEED Bowling & Kugler Realty (513) 617-3257
KELLY SPARKS Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 907-3495
SALLY SPEARS Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 607-7151
JANELLE SPRANDEL
Comey & Shepherd (513) 236-9928
MORNA L. STANSBURY HUFF Realty (513) 205-3083
CINDY STEFFEN
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (859) 653-3571
STEPHANIE PELUSO STEFFEN
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 617-3172
DEBBIE STEINER HUFF Realty (859) 653-1328
SUSANNAH STEPHENS Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 409-7232
DONNA STEUTERMANN Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 226-6051
CASEY STEWART Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 600-2768
KIMBERLY F. STOLL HUFF Realty (859) 380-8789
Previously under the radar, with Ohio’s top 2 ranked mortgage brokers by residential volume production at same firm, Zipfel Capital is no longer a secret. (Tim O’Brien, $161 million / Mike Zipfel, $108 million, Scotsman Guide Magazine 2022). Catering to the affluent, with an average residential loan size exceeding $500,000, this boutique Hyde Park mortgage broker has been quietly leading the pack since 2006, with a 4.9 star Google rating as of this publication. Are you borrowing large sums of money, either residential or commercial? Zipfel Capital is the phone call.
The secret sauce? “Obtaining discerning borrowers the most aggressive terms the market has to offer, period,” says Owner Mike Zipfel. “In 2023, there is simply no place to pitch superior service or other fuzzy intangibles we all offer.”
3440 EDWARDS RD., CINCINNATI, OH 45208, (513) 321-0111, ZIPFEL@ZIPFEL.COM; TIM@ZIPFEL.COM WWW.ZIPFEL.COM
NMLS# 60903, 60861, 246789
BRAD STRUNK
Comey & Shepherd (513) 532-9229
ELLEN SULLIVAN
Keller Williams Advisors (513) 708-8098
VICKI SYLVESTRE
Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester Office (513) 967-0756
DIANE TAFURI
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 602-6610
ERIN TARANTINO
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 551-9167
LORI TAYLOR
Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 525-8888
LARRY THINNES
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 720-9900
BRIAN THOMAS
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 503-9763
ALLISON THORNTON
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 519-2820
DARLENE TODD
Comey & Shepherd (513) 779-6263
TRACY TOMER RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 404-0801
LUCUS TORO Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 814-6469
STEVE TRANTER
Comey & Shepherd (513) 703-6792
HUNG P. TRI-RUDOLF Star One Realtors (513) 616-2110
JIMITA M. TUCKER HUFF Realty (859) 363-6030
CARL F TUKE III
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 543-8504
SHAWN D. TURNER
HUFF Realty (859) 446-1111
JAVARIA USMANI Plum Tree Realty (513) 465-5412
CATHY S. VANDERVELDE HUFF Realty (513) 477-3263
JERI VICKERS Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 504-7196
JACK F. VILARDO HUFF Realty (513) 706-3821
KIM VINCENT
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 739-0493
JENNIFER WADDELL
Comey & Shepherd (513) 257-4277
MICHAEL WAGGONER
Keller Williams Advisors (513) 204-9247
ANNE WAGNER
Comey & Shepherd (513) 543-5806
DOUG WAGNER
RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (937) 433-4664
GAIL WAGNER
RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 505-1769
MIKA WALKER
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 218-8716
MICHAEL R. WALLET Star One Realtors (513) 266-6714
DUSTIN WALTERS
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 716-8935
PADDY WARD Comey & Shepherd (513) 235-3998
DAN WEBER
Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester Office (513) 678-7381
“While paying attention to the details and working tirelessly for my clients, I’m going to ‘knock it out of the park’ every time,” says Keller Williams Realty Services agent Katrina Robke Holtmeier. She works with sellers, buyers, investors, and developers in Northern Kentucky. Her knowledge and experience makes her equipped to handle each client’s unique situation. She will partner with you as your trusted advisor in this shifting market, setting you up for success while giving realistic expectations. Katrina is continually recognized as a top producer in her market center and was recognized as the No. 3 individual agent in listings taken in 2022. With skill, compassion, integrity, and an entertaining sense of humor, Katrina will be the one you’ll always call your Realtor.
7210 TURFWAY RD., FLORENCE, KY 41042, (513) 504-0280, WWW.SCARLETTPG.COM
KELLY M. WHELAN
Star One Realtors (513) 910-3405
SUMMER WIEDENBEIN
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 254-7101
KELI WILLIAMS
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 348-4548
LORI WILLIAMS
Lohmiller Real Estate (513) 227-0021
AMANDA WILSON
Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 667-2295
ROB WINTERMAN
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 300-6150
STEVEN WOLBER
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 659-8873
MAGGIE WOMACKS
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 312-1400
MICHAEL WRIGHT
Hoeting Realtors (513) 227-8344
PAIGE WURTZ
Premier Properties Real Estate
(812) 221-7031
ZACH ZEGAR Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 970-2500
KATIE ZEINNER
Lohmiller Real Estate (812) 584-1156
JOSEPH S. ZEMBRODT
HUFF Realty (859) 250-4557
MOLLY ZUCKERBERG Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 545-7050
TEAMS
#1 PROPERTY ADVISORS HUFF Realty (859) 525-5744
ALLRED GROUP Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 317-7869
With 13+ years of experience Jennifer is continuously recognized as a top-producing agent. She surrounds herself with a team that excels in their fields while exerting passion, professionalism, integrity, and industry knowledge. As a former Marine, her military mentality serves her clients well by adapting and overcoming obstacles while offering the polished edge of experience. Jennifer regularly gives back to the community, has served as a head coach for Girls On The Run, and was a ProKids CASA.
2721 ERIE AVE CINCINNATI OH 45208, (513) 344-9077
ANDREA DESTEFANO TEAM
Sibcy Cline Realtors (513) 265-7747
https://aldrealestate.com
BARBARA BROWNING GROUP
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 300-7990
BARRETT TEAM HUFF Realty (859) 907-5775
BOYLE GROUP
Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester (513) 295-5750
BRAD STRUNK TEAM Comey & Shepherd (513) 532-9229
BRYAN OGLETREE TEAM RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (937) 470-7264
BRYSON WARNER REAL ESTATE TEAM HUFF Realty (859) 384-4601
C&A HOME TEAM Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 322-3850 & (513) 545-8616
CALDWELL GROUP
eXp Realty (859) 376-5245
THE CAMERON GROUP
Sibcy Cline Realtors 7677 Voice of America Centre Dr., West Chester, OH 45069, (513) 519-7872, https:// CameronGroupRealEstate.com
CANNING TEAM Comey & Shepherd (513) 703-5430
CHASE & PAMELA, PARTNERS Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 237-6495
CHERYL FERRY Keller Williams Advisors (513) 289-2320
CHRIS K GROUP RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates (937) 371-9900
CINCINNATI MODERN (RISSOVER) TEAM
Keller Williams Advisors (513) 731-1953
CINCINNATI SUBURBAN HOMES
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 503-9309
CINDY BRUNER & ASSOCIATES
HUFF Realty
(513) 708-6642
CLENDENIN HOME TEAM
HUFF Realty
(859) 525-5727
CUTTING EDGE PARTNERS
Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 308-8995
DAWSON DREAM HOMES
eXp Realty (513) 560-0660
DEBI MARTIN TEAM
Keller Williams Advisors (513) 313-9390
DEUTSCH TEAM
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 460-5302
DOUG SPITZ DWELL513
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 616-3798
DRAZNIK GROUP Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 616-0490
DUFFY TEAM Comey & Shepherd (513) 317-1000
ECKER KEHOE GROUP HUFF Realty (513) 658-5042
EISENMAN GROUP Sibcy Cline Realtors (859) 815-9972
ELLIS HOME TEAM Keller Williams Advisors (513) 607-2618
GERBUS AKELEY GROUP Comey & Shepherd Realtors (513) 535-2103
GIFFORD GROUP Keller Williams Advisors - West Chester (513) 290-1443
HAVEN HOME GROUP Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 544-2231
HEIMBROCK GROUP Sibcy Cline Kathy Heimbrock (859) 512-8383
Blake Heimbrock (859) 512-4795
heimbrockgroup@sibcycline.com
HINCKLEY GROUP Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 533-8080
HODGE TEAM Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 315-8420
HOETING-WISSEL TEAM Hoeting Realtors (513) 256-6934
HOLLY STYRCULA AND ASSOCIATES HUFF Realty (513) 315-2774
HORNSBY GROUP HUFF Realty (513) 218-6621
JON BOWLING’S TEAM RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 325-2171
jon@jonbowling.com www.jonbowling.com
JEANNE RIEDER TEAM Hoeting Realtors (513) 253-3992
JULIE M. ROSE REALTOR GROUP Coldwell Banker Realty 513) 317-7452 https://julierosehomes.com
KATIE ROBBINS TEAM Keller Williams Realty Services (859) 816-2502
KEY PROPERTY PARTNERS Keller Williams Advisors (513) 907-0468
LETTIE & LAFRANCE RE/MAX Preferred Group (513) 310-6922
Real estate is a deeply personal investment for most of us and whether you or selling or buying, as your agent, I am here to represent your best interests for you, your family, and your unique journey. Let me put my 19 years of experience and my background in construction to work for you. From the initial meeting until the transfer of keys, I want to give you an honest, empathetic, and smooth journey.
2721 ERIE AVE., CINCINNATI, OH 45208, (513) 702-3419, HTTPS://MOVINGYOUTHRULIFE.COM
LEWIS & DONOHOO TEAM
HUFF Realty (513) 502-4898
LINDEN-KAMP REAL ESTATE GROUP
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 207-1040
LISA IBOLD TEAM
Hoeting Realtors (513) 328-1484
LISA PHAIR & ASSOCIATES
Coldwell Banker Realty (513) 604-9151
MAHONEY GROUP
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NNotions of class and whiteness, the dimensions of racism that serve to elevate white people over people of color, lie at the heart of Western nursing’s historical story. While past leaders of nursing in the United States avoided class distinctions, whiteness has remained embedded in the profession and, with a few exceptions, historical contributions of Black nurses tend to remain invisible.
With this in mind, we are centering the 31st Torch of Excellence Nursing Awards around Mary Seacole (1805–1881), a Jamaican nurse and businesswoman of mixed race who provided sustenance and care for British soldiers at the battlefront during the Crimean War. After several failed attempts to travel to Crimea with the British forces, Seacole decided to fund her own trip and established the British Hotel, a place of respite for sick and recovering soldiers. At the end of the war, Seacole returned to Britain with very little money and those who admired her held a fund-raising gala attended by more than 80,000 people over four nights on the banks of the River Thames.
Despite the widespread recognition of her heroic efforts during the war, Seacole was lost in history for more than 100 years. In 2004, she was voted the top Black Briton and, in 2016, a statue in her honor was erected in front of the St. Thomas Hospital, in London. It is the fi rst public statue of a named Black woman in the United Kingdom.
Nursing—the largest segment of healthcare providers and most trusted profession in the U.S.—has the collective power and influence to lead systemic change and advance equitable health care. The University of Cincinnati College of Nursing is proud to recognize Greater Cincinnati area nurses who provide quality, equitable and safe care to all. We are thankful for this year’s nominees’ coworkers, patients, family members and supervisors, who took the time to share the incredible commitment and dedication of more than one hundred nurses in the region.
Gordon Gillespie, PhD, DNP, RN, FAAN Interim Dean University of Cincinnati College of Nursing
We’re proud of all our nurses who work tirelessly to provide personalized care to our patients. Time and time again, you’ve proven what it means to care compassionately while maintaining a spirit of innovation and professional excellence.
It’s because of you that we are able to carry out our mission of improving the health and well-being of our communities. We’re honored you’ve chosen to share your passion and talent with us.
If you’re looking for a team that celebrates and rewards nurses, you belong here. Visit careers.mercy.com to learn more.
AUSTIN NILLES
Mercy Health — West Hospital
ALICE WHITTON
Mercy Health — Clermont Hospital
BETH WAHL
Mercy Health — Clermont Hospital
A kind and compassionate nurse, Brenda Demeritt is also a strong, focused leader praised by colleagues as “a visionary” for efforts to improve outcomes for patients on the medical/surgical unit she directs at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. To illustrate her work as a “transformational leader,” a colleague explains how Demeritt initiated and improved RN handoff at the bedside within her unit, a system that has enhanced quality care and patient safety and improved the hospital experience for patients and families. In addition, Demeritt has embraced unit-specific Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. Her work with a multidisciplinary team yielded a grant that provides daily meal cards to caregivers of patients with Medicaid and self-pay plans. Under Demeritt’s leadership, her unit was also the first to implement an electronic screening tool to assess social risk and needs among patient families, identifying issues such as food security, caregiver education and health, housing, transportation, and firearm storage safety. An active listener and advocate for work/life balance, Demeritt developed a “tap out” system so staff under duress can hand off duties for a 15-minute break. Such care for colleagues, on both a personal and professional level, is very much appreciated by a team that recognizes her as “the most amazing RN and boss.”
Twin Lakes Retirement Community
Though Jacqueline Huston is a clinical nurse at Twin Lakes Retirement Community, her title reflects only a portion of the role she embraces serving the approximately 300 independent-living residents on the campus. Whether visiting residents in their homes for a routine blood pressure check, collaborating with the chaplain on advance directive counseling, or working with Health Committee members to solve a community problem, she shows a deep concern and compassion for all, notes an admirer, adding, “no one ever has anything but good things to say about her.” Huston is “a jewel” to residents and colleagues alike and appreciated for her positive attitude as well as her willingness and ability to help wherever and whenever needed. A member of the Twin Lakes team for 16 years and former manager of the community’s 24-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility, Huston is also admired for her nursing skills, leadership, and work ethic. During the recent pandemic, she organized COVID clinics to test, treat, and immunize residents. “Her confident manner made us realize that we should just stay calm, that we would get through the pandemic together. And we did,” states a resident. “Her reassurance and caring go far beyond the call of duty,” says another.
Hospice of Cincinnati (HOC)
During the most difficult and vulnerable days of their lives, patients receiving hospice care and their families are grateful that Chava Vidal is bedside. She is a focused and respectful caregiver, skilled not only at providing direct care, but willing to spend time talking with families to ease their anxieties. Her positivity is appreciated by those she works with and the individuals she serves. Vidal was a hospice nurse in Dayton before joining HOC in 2021 and familiar with the challenges of caring for the sick and dying. Yet, she never allows her worries or tough days show, say co-workers. Rather, she developed a journal club for caregivers at HOC to help them cope and learn; it’s a space for them “to discuss the hardships, goal outcomes, and how to be better nurses,” explains a colleague. Described as a mentor, leader, team player, and cheerleader at HOC, Vidal is known to step in whenever needed, fulfilling the role of charge nurse if necessary and taking on a variety of projects. Perhaps the finest compliment comes from a colleague who writes, “If a family member of mine needed to receive care, I would want it to be from Chava.”
St. Elizabeth Healthcare
Labor and delivery nurse
Gayle DeRoche is committed to her patients, her team, and her community with extraordinary energy and passion. Her organizational skills and “quiet confidence,” coupled with her efforts to stay professionally current and innovative, have had a positive impact on nurses, role transition students, and clinical students. DeRoche is chair of the Education Council, and has been “a driving force behind researching the physiology of birth and educating nurses on different techniques and positions to safely labor and deliver our patients while trying to decrease cesarean sections,” states a colleague. She serves as a unit Wellness Champion and is a representative for the hospital-wide Clinical Ladder Committee while also working with variety of committees, including the “Moms Own Milk” work group. Formerly a senior airman in the U.S. Air Force, DeRoche’s ability to remain calm, “react quickly and appropriately,” communicate effectively, and collaborate with peers for the good of the patients have made her an exceptional role model. Additionally, DeRoche is active in her church, organizes a Thanksgiving food drive, collects products for a local women’s shelter, and contributes to other events within the community.
Compassion, calmness, positivity, and the ability to think critically are desirable traits for an oncology nurse, and Kathy Roe has these and so much more, according to those who work with her. A radiation oncology nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital and primary nurse for Dr. Anton Khouri, Roe is recognized for her kind and patient dedication to those undergoing radiation treatment—particularly those in the most challenging circumstances—and for her extraordinary work to provide them with the best experience possible. While supporting a patient who has survived sexual abuse, assisting another experiencing homelessness, or encouraging a patient along her weightloss journey, Roe wants each person “to know and feel that someone is caring for them,” says her manager. She is also lauded for her efforts to educate patients and their family members. Formerly an inpatient radiation nurse and clinical adjunct nursing instructor, Roe is a respected preceptor, always encouraging the next generation of nurses. She is an oncology-certified nurse with a radiation certificate, as well as a longtime member of the Oncology Nursing Society and leader of the Shared Leadership Committee in Radiation Oncology. Roe is a “true professional oncology nurse,” notes a colleague.
As a Certified Nurse Midwife, Michelle Zamudio’s excellent clinical skills have saved lives, states a colleague at The Christ Hospital. Zamudio is also a leader, recognized state-wide as a fierce advocate for women’s health. Additionally, she is the first nonphysician professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and an educator at her alma mater, the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing. A nurse for 36 years and a midwife for 27, Zamudio is also a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Air Force. Yet, she remains “humble and steadfast,” as she strives to improve the healthcare system, notes a co-worker. Zamudio is trained and certified in CenteringPregnancy, a program focused on improving maternal outcomes for the most vulnerable. She also worked with physicians to develop the Ujima Project in Cincinnati to reduce maternal mortality and reduce hypertension morbidity in the community. Former patients readily share their gratitude for her care and respect, even crediting her as the impetus for their careers in nursing. Zamudio has served on the Ohio Board of Nursing, the American College of Nurse Midwives (Ohio affiliate), and on the Board of Directors for the Ohio Association of Advanced Practice Nurses (OAAPN). She “personally was able to get immediate newborn care for nurse midwives, helped draft verbiage for laws regarding opioid prescribing, and has ensured a voice for nursing on her state committees…I have never met a more impactful provider who demonstrates such passion and dedication,” states an admirer.
Among patient families and co-workers in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UC Health, Taprica Mosley is known as an “angel” for her “selfless acts to heal and make others happy,” says a team member. With a smile on her face, she “talks and walks with grace and confidence,” notes a colleague, as she tends to the tiniest and most fragile patients in the healthcare system. Mosley joined UCMC in 2013 and “truly adores being a nurse,” states a co-worker. She always maintains professionalism and is appreciated for her willingness to lend a helping hand, traits demonstrated most distinctly in 2022 when she delivered and then saved the life of a breech premature infant while she was off-duty, vacationing on a cruise ship. During this emergency, Mosley delegated tasks to medical personnel on the ship and “ran the entire code,” recounts an admirer. The baby required full resuscitation including intubation (by the ship’s dermatologist), chest compressions, and hypothermia resuscitation. Despite not having proper equipment, Mosley devised makeshift materials from items on hand to keep the baby warm. Her experience and knowledge have been lauded by the doctors and nurses on board who trusted her to make the appropriate decisions. “All ended well and the baby is now at a NICU in Florida doing great,” reports Mosley’s associate.
We are honored for the opportunity to celebrate nurses who improve health outcomes for our community and raise the standard of health care for all patients.
Since its inception just three years ago, the Every Child Succeeds (ECS)/ Nurse-Family Partnership Team, led by clinical supervisor Stacie Wilson, has had “measurable lifesaving impacts” on underserved families in Hamilton and Clermont Counties. With the goal of strengthening families, supporting healthy environments, and optimizing infant/toddler development, Wilson and her team of seven specialty-trained nurses provide services to families in their homes, thus removing barriers such as transportation and childcare. “The core job of the nurse home visitor is to guide each of the 25 families on her caseload through the emotional, social, and physical challenges and systemic barriers in healthcare they face as they prepare for a healthy birth and to care for an infant,” explains a nominator. A Kentucky native, Wilson has extensive nursing experience in multiple healthcare systems locally and elsewhere. In 2022, 99 percent of the children in the program are up to date on immunizations; 94 percent of babies were born at a healthy gestational age; and 242 depression screens were administered with 100 percent follow-up for moms who needed clinical referrals. Data aside, testimony from one program participant demonstrates Wilson’s team’s success: “Thank you for making what should have been the hardest time of my life, becoming a mother, the easiest time. With your time, generosity, and kindness, I was able to be a good mother.”
www.cincinnatichildrens.org
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The University of Cincinnati College of Nursing relies on the generosity of our alumni and friends to continue educating and honoring outstanding nurses. For information about making a charitable gift to one of the many funds within the college, please contact the Office of Development at (513) 558-5386 or visit uc.edu/give.
project to research his parents’ ancestry. It was then his sister Bassima, three years older, sat down with him for the talk. “She told me Dad lives in Egypt because he’s a refugee of this war that happened in Palestine,” he says. “It was the first time I had even heard of Palestine or that there was a war there. They don’t teach you anything about Palestine in American schools.”
Al Ghussein had met his father only twice before then: a month-long visit from him during Al Ghussein’s early school years, and his own trip to Cairo as a young teenager. “My dad was mostly a voice on the phone,” he says.
he spotted a clothing store with graffiti Tshirts in the window. Hoping to pitch and sell his own designs to the shop’s owners, Al Ghussein hopped off at Gilbert Avenue and McMillan Street in Walnut Hills, only to find the shop closed.
With nothing to do until the next bus arrived, he began exploring the neighborhood when he heard a man speaking Arabic through the open door of a cellular phone store. Al Ghussein entered and greeted the man with the little Arabic he knew: “Ahlan wa sahlan,” or “welcome to my place,” a reversal of his role as visitor.
Despite the gaffe, a friendly conversation in English ensued, and the two men learned their families were from the same village in Palestine. “What’s your family’s name?” the clerk asked. When Al Ghussein answered, the man said, “Oh, the rich family.”
“You know the name?” Al Ghussein asked. “Of course,” the clerk said, and, taking both of Al Ghussein’s hands in his, added, “Thank you for everything your family
Bank. Israel responded with the arrests of hundreds of Palestinians. Hamas replied with more rocket fire from Gaza, and Israel countered with devastating air and missile strikes. Over a seven-week period, Israel used its overwhelming military might to pummel Gaza, its civilians, and its tottering infrastructure.
According to the UN, 2,251 Palestinians were killed—with 1,462 of them believed to be civilians, including 551 children and 299 women. Sixty-six Israeli soldiers and five Israeli civilians, including one child, were also killed. In all, nearly 20,000 homes in Gaza were destroyed or damaged along with more than 90 schools and health clinics sponsored by the UN Relief and Works Agency. The conflict displaced almost 500,000 Palestinians at its peak.
Many Americans who saw the carnage and destruction on TV were shocked at its brutality. Those like Al Ghussein who had social media access to Palestinian sources on the ground saw up-close and in graphic detail the human suffering in Gaza. For the first time, he had a truly emotional connection with the plight of his ancestral land.
Al Ghussein bought his first keffiyeh, ordered from the last remaining textile factory in Palestine. It’s the same keffiyeh he would later give to Roger Waters.
A self-described “surfer dude,” Al Ghussein was born in Southern California after his parents separated and his mother returned to the U.S. along with his two older sisters. When he was 10, the family moved again, this time to Hawaii, where he spent much of his time surfing the monster waves on Oahu’s storied North Shore. After graduating from high school, he wanted a change of scenery and a reconnection to the mainland. He was 18 when he came to live with his maternal grandmother in suburban Cincinnati and started classes at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.
Al Ghussein’s first-ever meeting with a Palestinian outside of his own family happened a month after his arrival here, totally by happenstance. He was on his way back from classes at Cincinnati State—a two-hour Metro ride to Kenwood—when
has done for the Palestinian people.”
The stranger’s affirmation made real to Al Ghussein what had only been part of his family lore. It wasn’t until his father’s death three years later, on Al Ghussein’s 21st birthday, that he began to explore in earnest his Palestinian roots. “The way that I dealt with the loss of my father and my grief was by trying to learn more about him and his life and my heritage,” he says.
Al Ghussein started growing closer to his Palestinian relatives overseas through Facebook and other social media. But the picture of his heritage wasn’t really complete until 2014, the same year as the Gaza War and the deadliest conflict between Israel and Palestine in decades.
In the spiral of violence that’s become the signature of Mideast conflict, the war began with the Hamas-led kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West
LIKE HIS JOURNEY OF FAMILY AND ETHNIC discovery, Al Ghussein’s decision to paint his Jaffa oranges mural was a step-by-step process. It began with the COVID pandemic in 2020, “when I was bored and couldn’t hang out with my friends,” he says. “I just got tired of looking out my front windows at the ugly gray concrete wall on the abandoned building across the street.”
With little work to do during the pandemic and some extra money stashed away in his savings, he decided to paint over the wall with a mural. He wasn’t sure what that mural would be, but it would have to be colorful and, to meet his limited budget for paint, simple in design.
But first Al Ghussein would have to find the building’s owner and ask permission. A thorough search of county property tax and deed records as well as state corporate registrations led to a phony shell company without a real address or reachable signatory for a building that had been abandoned
“I’M NOT ABOUT INCREASING THE TENSION,” SAYS JASON AL GHUSSEIN. “I’M ABOUT COMMUNICATION AND ENJOYING THE ARTS AND FORMING BONDS BETWEEN PEOPLE.”
since the 1980s. Al Ghussein decided to go ahead and paint it, he says, “and if anyone had a problem with that, I’d deal with it when it happened.”
The first order of business was clearing out the piles of trash in the empty lot at the corner of Frintz and East Clifton adjacent to the building. He then leveled the lot with a rented Bobcat and dumped 20 tons of gravel on the site to support a boom lift. Toying with different mural subjects in his head, he remembered his father telling him about the smell of his own father’s orange groves as a child, a sweetness that had signified the beauty and bounty of pre-1948 Palestine. A mural with that theme would both brighten his day and remind him and other Palestinians of their home.
In the end, Al Ghussein chose a close-up of a few branches and oranges against an azure sky—a design he could do freehand without a grid or the worry of boom lift rental costs piling up. Even so, the project used close to 100 gallons of paint, including 10 gallons just for the primer on the thirsty concrete wall. Using an industrial sprayer for the primer and blue background, he completed the painting with smaller rollers in eight days at a personal cost of $10,000.
His neighbors loved it. “To have an abandoned building and watch him turn it into a mural with a message was exciting,” says John Wulsin, who lives across Clifton Avenue from Al Ghussein. And without being able to reach the building’s owner for permission, “it was a ballsy thing to do.”
Even ballsier, Al Ghussein later applied to include his mural among the animated exhibits in the 2022 BLINK weekend. Located several blocks east of BLINK’s Findlay Market Zone, the mural was rejected as being too off-the-beaten path for the official exhibition. But Al Ghussein was invited to participate in other BLINK-related events.
As an artist and advocate, he wasn’t deterred. Animation and 3D had been part of his studies at Cincinnati State. With just six weeks to go before BLINK’s launch on October 13, 2022, he put together a $20,000 GoFundMe campaign and met with friends who could help him
animate and light the exhibit. “To leave a marginalized group of people in the dark just didn’t feel right,” he says. “I thought to myself, Let me just give it a shot.”
Despite a $4,000 donation from his family and local contributions from his friends, the effort got off to a slow start in the first few weeks. But then Al Ghussein reached out to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a Palestinian advocacy group. An IMEU social media post about the mural garnered nearly 20,000 likes, and money began pouring in from as far away as California and Kuwait.
At the $8,000 level, a matching anonymous donor emerged and assured the fund-raising goal would be reached in time. Al Ghussein says he was honored that so many people had supported his work, including several of his Jewish friends.
The money was needed to rent scaffolding and projectors for the four days of BLINK and to compensate those who helped with labor, technical planning, and animation. In addition, Al Ghussein was able to pay himself $1,000 for his lost freelance income and for the hours he devoted to the project, when he often pulled coffee-fueled all-nighters.
He and his friends developed an app for fi nding BLINK exhibits, including the rogue Jaffa Oranges, and named it BLONK to avoid copyright infringement. Released under Al Ghussein’s Nerdy Surfer label just days before BLINK opened, BLONK registered nearly 10,000 downloads over the October weekend.
Al Ghussein isn’t about to let his mural go unnoticed. He plans to invite other touring musicians who support the Palestinian cause to meet him for photo shoots. He’d also like to start an annual outdoor event bringing together a wide range of Palestinian supporters as well as those who are Jewish.
“I want it to be something that brings us together,” he says. “I’m not about increasing the tension. I’m about communication and enjoying the arts and forming bonds between people. Even if it’s difficult to have this conversation, I want the mural to be a unifying experience.”
Our partnership with the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm has allowed Carmel Manor to provide the highest quality staff and services. We offer Skilled Nursing, Memory Care, Personal Care, and Short-Term Rehab.
I knew was like us, except the Hubbards.” The connection came through her parents’ friends from Madison, Indiana, who introduced them to Anna and Harlan. The Hubbards visited Madison regularly, paddling upstream for supplies at the hardware store and sometimes art supplies. They made frequent visits to the public library in town.
Turcotte’s family stopped at Payne Hollow on summer trips, when they would trailer their boat for long weekends to cruise the Ohio River. They’d write the Hubbards to announce their arrival. “I loved that they were happy with their lives and
that they designed them rather than just living like everyone else,” says Turcotte. “They were thankful for little things, like the roll of paper that washed up on the shore and became their stationery and the fruits of their garden and the goats’ milk. They did not need a car, or even much money. But I never once had the idea that they were poor.”
ACCORDING TO WRITTEN AND ORAL ACcounts, the Hubbards welcomed all of their guests graciously to Payne Hollow, whether they were the news media, a gaggle of college students, or curious neighbors. When Turcotte arrived with her family, Anna and Harlan were usually tending the garden, hand-washing laundry or dishes, cooking, or cleaning—but they’d stop what they were doing to show people around and have a proper visit.
Harlan hung large metal bells for visitors to ring upon approach, one on the trail a little ways from the house and another
across the river on the Indiana shoreline. When visitors rang from Indiana, he would paddle over, collect them, and provide a return trip. Each guest was asked to sign the Hubbards’ guest book.
Ted Steinbock, another Payne Hollow on the Ohio board member, spent a weekend with the Hubbards as a teenager in the 1960s, and their elegant lifestyle and closeness to nature never left him. “I was simply in awe of Harlan,” he says. “I spent more time talking with Anna on the stone steps outside their simple home on a beautiful fall day with leaves falling and the last of their garden being harvested.”
Steinbock spent much of his childhood and teenaged years outdoors with his family, tent camping and visiting places like Yellowstone National Park and the Canadian Rocky Mountains in a converted school bus his father outfi tted with bunk beds. Harlan’s writings and way of life resonated with his own belief that spending time in the outdoors is not about the destination
but the personal experience that can be had in the journey.
The Hubbards accepted many visitors but truly valued their solitude and time together, where they tried to blend in with their surroundings and relax in the joy of nature and quiet. “Today a fresh wind was blowing up the river but I felt none of it as I hoed and chopped,” Harlan writes in Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society (1974), which he published about his and Anna’s unique lives. “What greater joy is there than to refresh oneself after labor? To get hot, dusty, thirsty, hungry and weary, then, at the call of a sweet voice, to lay down my tools, go to the river to bathe and swim, enter a clean cool house, put on dry, light clothing and eat the good food we gathered together.”
The Hubbards’ love for wilderness and for the river resonated with David Wicks, who was working as an outdoor educator for Louisville’s Jefferson County Public Schools and Outward Bound when he first
became aware of them. Before he moved to Kentucky, Wicks had fallen in love with exploring the waterways of New Jersey and New York, where he grew up.
Wicks led youth groups to explore nature and directed environmental education camps at Blackacre State Nature Preserve in Louisville, where he lived with his young family. “I have spent my life drifting, now over 60 years, in a canoe,” he says, “but I only became aware of Mr. Hubbard’s art and writing when I moved to Kentucky. His words and drawings called to me then as they still do today.”
Wicks is an adjunct professor in the Honors Program at the University of Louisville and will co-teach a seminar this fall on Payne Hollow. He’s board chair of Payne Hollow on the Ohio and is glad that the Hubbards’ industrious home will be preserved.
By the end of their lives, Harlan and Anna had grown Payne Hollow to about 60 acres. They became expert foragers, plant-
ed several gardens, raised goats, and kept bees and dogs. The two main buildings— the house and Harlan’s studio—were constructed entirely by hand with only hand tools. Even as they got older, Harlan could not be convinced to buy anything electric or gas-powered. He found such tools unnatural and writes of them being noisy, smelly, and unreliable—destroying everything he loved, actually.
Most construction materials were scavenged for, such as river rock that became part of the buildings’ foundations and tree trunks that became thick ceiling beams. Materials they couldn’t find on their land were bartered for with things like honey or homemade jam or purchased with money Harlan made from his art.
The Hubbards built stone terraces into the hillside at various levels where they could sit outside, read, play music, or simply watch their beloved river. Anna was a passionate homemaker and kept their living spaces, inside and out, impeccably
clean and orderly. Harlan wrote that imagining life without Anna was “a waste of time.”
The Hubbards were often alone, but they weren’t recluses. They had friends in Milton and Madison, were patrons of the arts, and attended various cultural events around the area, including at Hanover College, just west of Madison.
Harlan painted murals for local churches in Milton and held art exhibitions. Later in life he began reaching out to area institutions and museums to see if they wanted a donation of his art, including the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington. The director at the time quickly said yes and found his way to Payne Hollow, where the artist donated many pieces, says Jason French, Behringer-Crawford’s current curator. The museum’s collection has grown to include Hubbard treasures from other collectors, all of which are on permanent display.
“The Hubbards have shown people that a simpler life can be rewarding even with all its hardships,” says French. “It takes very dedicated and highly skilled individuals to be successful in a world of their own making. Harlan and Anna were dedicated to living deliberately. Though they may have spent years floating down a river, they didn’t float through life as so many of us do.”
Harlan’s studio in Ft. Thomas is also open to visitors, maintained by the Ft. Thomas Forest Conservancy. “If you go, just keep looking around, because there are always little artsy touches to his buildings,” says Bob Canida. “It’s just fun to look around and see where the artist has been.”
ANNA DIED OF KIDNEY CANCER IN 1986 at age 83. Harlan died two years later at age 88 of colon cancer, discovered after he was hospitalized for a copperhead snake bite. They left the property to a longtime friend, Paul Hassfurder. Payne Hollow on the Ohio was able to acquire it in October 2022. After the nonprofit stabilizes the property, it plans to create an artist-in-residency program there and find other ways to preserve the Hubbards’ legacy.
“We are now actively in the process of carefully cleaning up the property,” says Steinbock. The home and studio, he says, will be restored with input from experts in historic preservation to maintain the integrity of the property “while using it to inspire artists, writers, biologists, nature lovers, and the general public about the beauty of simple living in close connection with our surroundings.”
Turcotte is glad the property is being preserved, saying the Hubbards’ way of life can inspire others as it did for her. That less is more, and there is peace in simplicity. “If you had asked them, they would have told you they weren’t trying to prove anything to anyone else,” she says. “They never sought attention or accolades. They were just living the way they wanted to, the way that felt true to them. They were partners, bringing out the best in each other. Their love was sweet and productive and harmonious. They valued their life on the river enough to write about it, welcome guests, and paint and sketch it.”
Turcotte says she and her husband don’t live without electricity, running water, or automobiles, but they do challenge one another when they see themselves tending toward excess or complications. After 32 years of marriage, she still lights candles every evening at dinner, no matter the meal.
It wasn’t until Harlan was almost 80 that he allowed Canida and some younger men to help him chop firewood. After Anna died and Harlan could no longer live at Payne Hollow, he moved into the Canidas’ house overlooking the Ohio River. For the last six weeks of his life, he painted, accepted visitors, and read with the family. They didn’t own a television because of the Hubbards’ influence, and Canida thinks Harlan liked the place for its quietness.
Harlan once wrote, “No accomplishment can offset bad living.” His and Anna’s lives offered plenty of examples, says Canida. “Part of the process is just evaluating every choice that we make. Do we need this thing or that thing? He wanted us to look at the world through the eyes of an artist who saw beauty everywhere around him.”
JUST DESSERT
Exactly how many ingredients are there in Christine’s Casual Dining’s
Find out on page 98.
AMERON KELLEY KNOWS THE WORD UNIQUE GETS THROWN AROUND A LOT, BUT he still thinks it’s the best way to describe For the Life of the World Café in Norwood. Other establishments might serve coffee and a rotation of breakfast items, such as bagels, eggs, and waffles. Their menus might be seasonal, farm to table, or from scratch. But can they say that most of their ingredients are grown and harvested within a one-mile radius?
On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, Robert Lockridge and a staff of one or two others open the café doors to patrons—some who pay, some who pay less, and some who pay nothing. That might be the most unusual aspect of For the Life of the World Café. “You decide,” he explains. “Maybe it’s what you would spend on breakfast at McDonald’s or at a fancy restaurant downtown.”
Lockridge trusts that whatever comes in will be enough to support his family of four and keep the business running. He calls himself a parish farmer, led by his Christian faith to grow food in West Norwood and feed his neighbors with it. “It’s nourishing to me to do the work,” he says, “and it’s nourishing to others to receive the food.”
Kelley stops in the café often, and he first met Lockridge in 2010. He had finished up some maintenance work on a rental property he owned in the neighborhood and was walking back to his truck when he passed Lockridge, digging up the front yard of a former convent with a pickax.
“I introduced myself and asked what he was doing,” Kelley says. “He said, ‘My name is Robert. I just moved here, and I came here to farm the land.’ I thought, he came to farm the land of Norwood?”
But Lockridge did just that. He began parish farming while earning a theology degree in Vancouver, British Columbia. Friends invited the Virginia native to Norwood after graduation. He was looking for a place to live, liked the community, and decided to stay.
He spent his first few years identifying places to plant gardens, working on empty lots and a city park, with the support of volunteers from the surrounding Vineyard Central Church community. He met and married his wife, Erin Tuttle, who believed in his vision and jumped in to help. Soon, there was enough food production going on in the neighborhood to try something.
First came Moriah Pie, a Friday night pizza party for the neighborhood. Every week, the Lockridges and an ever-growing band of volunteers sold pizzas, salads, sides, and desserts, with seasonal choices like garlic leek pizza, pan-fried okra fritters, and peach pie.
“The first e-mail went to a small group, and it said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this thought we’re gonna serve pizza,’ ” Kelley says. “The next e-mail was, ‘Hey, it worked. We’re gonna do it again.’ It turned into a huge e-mail chain—it was the most organic thing I’ve ever seen.”
Neighbors helped gather black walnuts, maple syrup, pawpaws, other fruits, and wild edibles. Sometimes there were shortages, but lean times taught them to do more with less, the Lockridges say. When apples and pears were sparse, they focused on an abundance of crab apples, creating tarts, custard pies, sauces, and chutneys.
“It took a village,” says Don McNeel, another regular customer at For the Life of the World Café, who volunteered a lot with Moriah Pie. The pizza was popular. They added concerts on a nearby piazza to the neighborhood gathering. It went on for eight years.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and everyone was forced
indoors into small groups. The Lockridges took the time to reflect. With two young children, the weekly marathon commitment to Moriah Pie wasn’t sustainable. Erin felt compelled to teach more nature programming at a nearby Montessori preschool and Robert needed a different rhythm.
The neighborhood was still producing food and people were still hungry. What manifested next was For the Life of the World Café, which opened in July 2021.
Now, three days a week, Robert starts work at 4:30 a.m., sometimes snipping rosemary from his neighbor’s plant on the way into work for the bagels. Before the café opens at 6:45 a.m., he brings a hot cup of coffee to his wife, and then works the flat top grill and the front counter until the café closes at 11 a.m.
“People don’t realize the amount of energy and effort that goes into it,” Kelley says. “But Robert’s economics are different from the world’s economics.”
McNeel loves that he sees all walks of life at the café, from students and professors from nearby Xavier University to folks from the neighborhood who just want a space where they feel welcome. He loves that some days, when the fruit is in season, he can order cherry waffles from Lockridge—with cherries picked from a tree in his own neighborhood.
It’s not a bar, but café regulars call the place their own Cheers, and like that old television show, everybody knows your name. It doesn’t matter if you’re a millionaire or homeless.
Lockridge says these efforts are about discovering how he can be a force of peace in the world.
“Limiting our gaze to the gifts before us, rather than insatiably looking at all options, is teaching us to cook—and indeed—see the world in new way,” Lockridge wrote in The Moriah Pie Cookbook, which he and his wife published last year. “It is enabling us to discover profound and mysterious beauty right where we are, and it is bearing within us the fruit of authentic gratitude and love.”
FARM HANDS (Fromleft) Erin and Robert with their children; this sweet potato was grown in a jar at the restaurant; the breakfast stir fry, made with sweet potatoes, watermelon radishes, shredded butternut squash, and green beans, and topped with eggs or tofu.
THERE’S A DEFINING RULE TO THE MENU AT GRUB LOCAL: EVERYTHING (AND THAT means everything) has to feature some kind of locally produced component. Order a plate of pretzels for the table and you’ll get a stack of sticks straight from the ovens of Tuba Baking Co., just a few miles down the road. The charred Caesar, with its crisped-to-perfection Brussels sprouts, is generously sprinkled with Urban Stead’s Street Ched. Even the caviar that comes as an optional add-on to the chips ’n dip is from Clermont County’s Big Fish Farms. Talk about living up to your name.
Tucked inside a walk-up window at The Well, a hip, clubby new bar off Covington’s Madison Avenue, Grub Local is the second concept eatery from Mitch Arens, the mind behind down-home catering company Southernly. But don’t mistake Arens’s Southern creations for lowly bar fare. The hot dogs are decidedly gourmet, smothered in rich toppings like lamb birria and 80 Acres tomato confit, and the “belly ribs” (strips of crispy pork belly) are served up Memphis-style with Kentucky flair in an Ale-8 ginger glaze. The Nashville-hot fried chicken skewers, resting atop a Texas Toast pillow, are a doublewhammy of local flavor with Hen of the Woods ranch and honey from Carriage House Farms. Order a handful of small plates to-go or stick around to wash down your Southern feast with one of The Well’s specialty cocktails.
—LAUREN FISHERTHE FOUNDER OF CINCINNATI Alchemy Fest has planned a bigger, better event this year.
How did you come up with the idea for Alchemy Fest? I’ve always been interested in events that build community and have run a few in the past, so sitting at Arts on the Ave one day, I pitched the idea to co-owner Byron Thomas Jr. We’d become good friends so it seemed like a natural fit.
Explain the contest structure. We get three distilleries to sponsor a round each, and each round has five bartenders for 15 total competitors. The distillery puts up three of their products and donates whatever the bartenders in their round choose to make their cocktails with. The top two vote-getters from each round go to the finals. The finals are judged by Molly Wellmann, Allie Martin, and Jade Colwell, who won the 2022 competition.
What are the judges looking for?
The six finalists [are] scored on visual presentation, taste, aroma, body. The judges are also asking questions about the cocktail as the bartender explains the ingredients and the idea behind the drink.
What have you learned about local craft cocktail consumers since you started the event? [They’re] awesome people. The love they show to everyone is contagious and makes me continually proud of what we’ve been able to build in a short amount of time. — AIESHA D . LITTLE
FYI Alchemy Fest takes place on May 21 at Smoke Justis in Covington. For more info, visit cincinnatialchemyfest.com
CINCINNATI MAGAZINE’S ANNUAL BEST RESTAURANTS ISSUE CAME TO LIFE AT MADTREE BREWING, CELEBRATING THE CITY’S STRONG CULINARY SCENE
Cincinnati Magazine readers and local foodies gathered to enjoy small bite offerings from the top 10 restaurants named in our March issue as well as past honorees. Guests nibbled on lamb chops, ceviche, oysters, and more as they enjoyed MadTree craft beers and Sway vodka sodas, wine from Revel Urban Winery, and the Gold Rush Cocktail courtesy of Maker’s Mark.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:
Presenting Sponsor: MadTree Brewing
Additional Sponsors: FIJI Water, McCormick, Thai Kitchen, Maker’s Mark, and Revel Urban Winery
Cornflakes
Halo-halo, which means “mixed up” in Tagalog, is the unofficial national dessert of the Philippines. And after giving it a try, we understand why. It’s an amalgamation of sweetness with a ridiculous number of ingredients. The next time you’re in Western Hills, snag one—in a goblet, no less— at Christine’s Casual Dining. —AIESHA D. LITTLE
Wafer Straw
A handful of this breakfast cereal tops off this dish with some crunch.
Shaved Ice
Layered between ingredients, these ice shavings help keep everything cool.
Pretty self explanatory!
Ube Ice Cream This vanilla-ish– flavored purple ice cream (made from ube powder or extract) has become increasingly popular outside of the Philippines in recent years.
Ube Halaya This jam made from purple yam is served frozen and doled out in scoops.
Creamed Corn
This may seem out of place, but it works. Besides, who doesn’t want vegetables in their dessert?
Leche Flan
This Filipino variation of the traditional Mexican dessert takes on a sweet potato pie consistency when added here.
Sweetened Milk
When the ube ice cream, ube halaya, and shaved ice melt, the milk helps turn what’s left of the dish into a giant milkshake.
Fried Bananas
Imagine the banana from your standard banana split, but ripe and fried.
Tapioca Pearls Typically found in boba drinks (bubble tea), this squishy topping is packed with sweetness.
Gelatin Jell-O has nothing on the red and green cubes, which are buko pandan flavored (coconut and fragrant screwpine leaves).
Black and White Sweet Beans
These beans get their slightly candied taste from being cooked al dente in a sugar-y water mixture.
Jackfruit
This chewy fruit, typically grown throughout Asian, African, and South American countries, adds a pop of the tropics.
Shredded Young Coconut
Young coconuts are harvested before they have fully aged, which makes for a more gelatinous te xture.
Christine’s Casual Dining, 3360 Westbourne Dr., Western Hills, (513) 574-1273, christinescasualdining.com
W alking past Blue Oven Bakery in the mornings is a dangerous proposition. The smell of baked bread wafting around Findlay Market is like a siren’s call—you simply must stop by, especially for a just-outof-the-oven Blue Oven Slider. The soft, chewy bun is heavenly, each row stuffed with a different savory flavor. The Classic Pizza’s pepperoni and cheese is like a mini calzone, while the Jalapeño Popper’s jalapeño jam with honey sugar gives its cream cheese, red peppers, and garlic a pop of sweetness (an additional garlic-y glaze and parmesan crust further complement the sweet-and-savory taste). And the Classic Hamburger is just the right ratio of ground beef to gooey cheese. New flavors could hit the glass case this spring. When they do, we’ll be there.
—AIESHA
dining guide is compiled by our editors as a service to our readers.
The magazine accepts no advertising or other consideration in exchange for a restaurant listing.
The editors may add or delete restaurants based on their judgment. Because of space limitations, all
of the guide’s restaurants may not be included. Many restaurants have changing seasonal menus; dishes listed here are examples of the type of cuisine available and may not be on the menu when you visit.
To update listings, e-mail: cmletters@cincinnati magazine.com
KEY: No checks unless specified.
AE American Express, DC Diners Club
DS Discover, MC MasterCard, V Visa
MCC Major credit cards: AE, MC, V
$ = Under $15
$$ = Up to $30
$$$ = Up to $49
$$$$ = $50 and up
= Named a Best Restaurant March 2023. Top 10
On any given evening, guests nibble at spicy hummus served with French breakfast radishes and pita bread while sipping slightly spumante glasses of Spanish Txakolina. And while the dinner menu reads strictly casual at first glance—soups, salads, and sandwiches and sharing plates—the preparation and quality are anything but. A chef salad with chopped romaine, sweet peas, applewood smoked bacon, hard-boiled egg, and sunflower seeds surpassed many versions of the bistro classic. And both the Brussels sprouts and fingerling potato sides refused to play merely supporting roles. Both were sensational studies in the balance of sweet, spicy, and acidic flavors.
702 Indian Hill Rd., Terrace Park, (513) 8315678, thebirchtp.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MCC, DS. $
Boomtown leans hard into the Gold Rush theme: prospector-style overall aprons on servers, bluegrass tunes humming, and rustic decor details. And the dense grub isn’t for the faint of heart. Arrive with an empty belly, ready for a carbo load. The biscuits are all they’re cracked up to be, and the gravy’s not playing around, either. Sample its biscuits and gravy styles with a gravy flight. Or try The Yukon, an anytime breakfast sandwich, featuring fried chicken on par with the best the city has to offer. By the end of the meal, you’ll feel a little out of place without your own denim getup.
9039 U.S. Route 42, Suite H, Union, (859) 384-5910, boomtownbiscuitsandwhiskey. com. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner Tues–Sat. Breakfast and lunch Sun. MCC. $
If you haven’t had a plate of Shawn McCoy’s design set in front of you, it’s about time. Many of the menu’s dishes show his knack for the plate as a palette. A trio of grilled lamb t-bone, boar tenderloin, and prawns in scampi butter is a standout. The eye for detail and contrasts of colors and textures belongs to someone who cares for food.
The Brickery Café & Play, a 3,100-square-foot Lego café, will open at Newport on the Levee this summer. Created by Queen City native Daniel Johnson, the café will feature a kids’ play and discovery area as well as a menu of light refreshments and mocktails. newportonthelevee. com/the-brickery-cafeplay
1000 Summit Place, Blue Ash, (513) 794-1610, browndogcafe.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat, brunch Sat. MCC, DS. $$
COPPIN’S
With wine on tap and an extensive local beer list, Coppin’s is an ideal place to meet for drinks. In addition to plenty of Kentucky bourbon, much of the produce, meat, and cheese comes from local growers and producers. House-cured meat and cheese from Kenny’s Farmhouse and cheese from Urban Stead populate the “Artisan Cheese and Charcuterie Board,” which dresses up the main attractions with honey, dijon mustard, house pickles, and Sixteen Bricks purple barley bread. The mussels—made with seasonally rotating sauces and chorizo from Napoleon Ridge Farms in Gallatin County—were served with a peppery tomato sauce, perfect for sopping up with bread. The seven-ounce Sakura Farms Wagyu ribeye with wild mushrooms, roasted parsnip, and beef jus is a must have. Or try the striped bass with grape farro roasted broccolini and mussel cream sauce. 638 Madison Ave., Covington, (859) 9056600, hotelcovington.com/dining/coppins. Breakfast seven days, lunch Mon–Fri, and dinner Thurs–Sun. MCC. $$
The revamped post office at 13th and Vine feels cozy but not claustrophobic, and it has distinguished itself with its stellar fried chicken. Even the white meat was pull-apart steamy, with just enough peppery batter to pack a piquant punch. Diners can order by the quarter, half, or whole bird—but whatever you do, don’t skimp on the sides. Bacon adds savory mystery to crisp corn, green beans, and edamame (not limas) in the succotash, and the crock of mac and cheese has the perfect proportion of sauce, noodle, and crumb topping. The Eagle OTR seems deceptively simple on the surface, but behind that simplicity is a secret recipe built on deep thought, skill, and love.
1342 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 802-5007, eaglerestaurant.com. Lunch Fri–Sun, dinner Mon–Thurs. MCC. $
EMBERS
The menu here is built for celebration: poshly priced steak and sushi selections are meant to suit every special occasion. Appetizers are both classic (shrimp
cocktail) and Asian-inspired (shrimp tempura); fashionable ingredients are name-checked (microgreens and truffles); a prominent sushi section (nigiri, sashimi, and rolls) precedes a list of archetypal salads; Kobe beef on sushi rolls sidles up to steaks of prime; non-steak entrées (Chilean sea bass or Dover sole with haricots verts and almondine) make for high-style alternative selections. Talk about a party. 8170 Montgomery Rd., Madeira, (513) 9848090, embersrestaurant.com. Dinner seven days. MCC, DC, DS. $$$$
Cumminsville is home to arguably the best hot chili cheese mett and chocolate malt in Greater Cincinnati. A family owned business that began as a simple hot dog stand more than 50 years ago, Mr. Gene’s still attracts lines of loyal customers at its windows. Can’t stand the heat? Order the mild chili mett—more flavor, fewer BTUs. And if you still haven’t embraced Cincinnati-style coneys, try the Chicago-style hot dog with pickles, onions, relish, mustard, tomato, and celery salt; a pork sandwich ; or wings (a sign proclaims “So hot they make the devil sweat”). Although the chocolate malt is the biggest seller, we love the $3.75 pineapple shake, made with real pineapple.
3703 Beekman St., South Cumminsville, (513) 541-7636, mrgenesdoghouse.com. Open Feb–Oct for lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MC, V. $
The third restaurant from chef Jose Salazar, Goose & Elder is a more everyday kind of joint compared to his others. The prices are lower, and most of the dishes, from burgers to grits, are familiar. Salazar’s menus have always hinted that the chef had a fondness for, well, junk food. But junk food is only junk if it is made thoughtlessly. Everything here is made with little twists, like the cumin-spiced potato chips and delicate ribbons of housemade cucumber pickles with a sweet rice wine vinegar. Even the fries, crinkle cut and served with “goose sauce,” a mildly spiced mayonnaise, are wonderfully addictive. The restaurant demonstrates that what we now consider “fast food” can be awfully good if someone makes it the old-fashioned, slow way.
1800 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 579-8400, gooseandelder.com. Breakfast and lunch Mon & Wed–Fri, dinner Mon & Wed–Sun, brunch Sat & Sun. MCC. $$
The classics are here—prime rib with horseradish and au jus; liver and onions; an eight-ounce filet with bernaise— plus some new favorites, including short rib pasta. Or have breakfast, English-style: fried eggs, bacon, sausage, stewed beans, roasted tomatoes, and buttered toast. The dinner menu also features burgers, risotto, pasta, seafood, and plenty more lighter options.
6880 Wooster Pke., Mariemont, (513) 271-2103, nationalexemplar.com. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$
In Northstar’s first outpost beyond the Greater Columbus area, the space itself reflects the ethos of the food: warm and comfortable, but still modern and fresh. The dinner and cocktail menus are fab, as is the large bar. But breakfast is worth waking up early for. Take the mushroom frittata, made with meaty mushrooms, caramelized sweet onions, and Gruyère. The portions are no joke—that frittata comes with breakfast potatoes and arugula—yet it doesn’t feel gluttonous or excessive. In large part that’s due to the freshness (e.g., the sausage made in-house daily) and the abundance of healthy options. One of our favorites: the shooting star juice, a balanced blend of carrot, ginger, orange, and lemon.
7610 Sloan Way, Liberty Township, (513) 759-0033, thenorthstarcafe.com. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days. MCC. No cash. $
OTTO’S
Chef/owner Paul Weckman opened Otto’s, named after his father-in-law, with $300 worth of food and one employee—himself. Weckman’s food is soothing, satisfying, and occasionally, too much of a good thing. His tomato pie is beloved by lunch customers: Vine-ripe tomatoes, fresh basil, and chopped green onions packed into a homemade pie shell, topped with a cheddar cheese spread, and baked until bubbly. Weckman’s straightforward preparations are best. The shrimp and grits with sauteed shrimp spinach, mushrooms, Cajun beurre blanc atop a fried grit cake, short ribs braised in red wine and herbs, served over mashed potatoes with green beans and caramelized baby carrots that will bring you the comfort of a home-cooked meal. This is, at its heart, a neighborhood restaurant, a place with its own large, quirky family.
521 Main St., Covington, (859) 491-6678, ottosonmain. com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Fri, brunch and dinner Sat–Mon. MCC. $$
The quintessential neighborhood dive, Quatman’s sits in the shadow of the Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center, serving up a classic bar burger. Look elsewhere if you like your burger with exotic toppings: This half-pound of grilled beef is served with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickle. Sometimes cheese. The no-frills theme is straightforward and appealing. A menu of standard sandwich fare and smooth mock turtle soup; beer on tap or soda in cans (no wine or liquor); and checkered tablecloths, serving baskets, and plenty of kitsch is served daily. Peppered with regulars, families, and political discussions, Quatman’s is far from fancy. But it is fun, fast, and delicious.
2434 Quatman Ave., Norwood, (513) 731-4370, quatmancafe.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MC, V, DS, MCC. $
Historically peasant-grade cuts of meat get the full Pygmalion treatment at Red Feather in Oakley, where there’s deep respect for the time and tending necessary to bring a short rib, pork chop, or steak to its full potential. After a quick sear to lock in juices, the steak takes a turn in the wood-fired oven. While primal cuts play a leading role, the supporting cast is just as captivating. The French onion soup is especially warming on a winter evening and the crispy skin on the salmon acts as the foil to the plump, rich flesh. Service here only improves the experience.
3200 Madison Rd., Oakley, (513) 407-3631, redfeatherkitchen.com. Dinner Wed–Sat, brunch Sun. MCC. $$$
At its best, Red Roost Tavern—located in the Hyatt Regency, downtown—meets its singular challenge with verve: offering a locally sourced sensibility to an increasingly demanding dining public while introducing out-of-town guests to unique Cincinnati foods. Take the goetta, rich pork capturing the earthiness of the steel-cut oats, served as a hash with sweet potatoes and poached eggs. The seasoning added a restrained, almost mysterious hint of black pepper. But the kitchen’s talent seems straightjacketed. Chefs thrive on instincts not covered by the five senses; restaurants thrive by taking careful risks. Red Roost seems to be struggling to find its third eye, and sometimes the entrées don’t live up to their ambitions.
151 W. Fifth St., downtown, (513) 354-4025, redroosttavern.com. Breakfast and lunch Sat & Sun, dinner seven days. MCC,DS. $$$
They stake their reputation on their fried chicken, serving 10,000 pieces weekly. It takes a few minutes, since each batch is made to order. Ron’s also serves chicken 18 other ways, including chicken livers in gravy. It’s all about the chicken here, but that’s not all they have. The menu is five solid pages of stuff good enough to be called specialties: Oktoberfest sauerbraten, Black Angus cheeseburgers, fried whitefish on rye, hot bacon slaw, lemon meringue pie (homemade, of course), and the best Saratoga chips this side of Saratoga.
3853 Race Rd., Bridgetown, (513) 574-0222, ronsroost. net. Breakfast Sun, lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$
An old flag stands in one corner and pictures of Abe Lincoln and the first George W. hang on the wall of this Civil War–era schoolhouse. The daily menu of familiar Midwestern comfort fare is written in letter-perfect cursive on the original chalkboard. Once you order from a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to your high school lunch lady, the elevated lazy Susan in the center of the table begins to fill up with individual bowls and baskets of corn bread, slaw, salad, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, and vegetables. The deal here is quantity. More mashed potatoes with your fried chicken? More corn bread with your baked ham? You don’t even have to raise your hand.
8031 Glendale-Milford Rd., Camp Dennison, (513) 8315753, theschoolhousecincinnati.com. Lunch Sun, dinner Fri–Sun. MCC, DS. $
You no longer need an event to celebrate with a fish fry. At Candice Holloway’s restaurant, Soul Secrets, fried chicken and fish are always on the menu. Servers wearing T-shirts that read “my ancestors sent me” introduce guests to a trim menu full of the best soul food. You can’t go wrong with the fish platters. The whiting is good, but the catfish is divine. The cornmeal breading is so perfectly seasoned you won’t need salt, and the light crunch it adds doesn’t hide the star of the show. So soft it’s nearly fluffy, the catfish melts in your mouth. Each catfish platter delivers two enormous pieces of fish along with two sides and a cornbread muffin that may be the best in Cincinnati. This is the kind of meal you take home with you—not just in your heart but in a box—because chances are low you’ll conquer all the fish and sides in one go.
1434 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 721-7685, soulsecretscincy.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $
This Paddock Hills diner, with other locations in Over-theRhine and Blue Ash, has been dishing up wispy-thin pancakes and football-sized omelettes to Cincinnatians since FDR was signing new deals. Breakfast and lunch offerings mix old-hat classics like steak and eggs, corned beef hash, and basic burgers with funky iterations that draw on ethnic ingredients such as chorizo and tzatziki. Get here early if you don’t want to stand in line.
4381 Reading Rd., Paddock Hills, (513)242-3521; 1203 Sycamore St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 762-0390; 10275 Summit Pkwy., Blue Ash, (513) 447-6453, eatsugarnspice.com. Breakfast and lunch seven days. MCC. $
Tucked into a West 14th Street Italianate directly around the corner from Music Hall, this place feels like a private dinner club. There’s a preferred by-reservation policy. Check the web site for the weekend’s five-course menu, a slate of “new American” dishes that changes monthly. You can see the reliance on local produce in the Greek lemon chicken soup. Salads are interesting without being busy, and the lemon lavender sorbet is served as the third course palate cleanser with the five-course menu. Main courses of panseared rainbow trout, grass-fed strip steak, and a veggie burger hit all the right notes, and you can end with a sweet flourish if you choose the strawberry lavender shortcake.
210 W. 14th St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 721-3353, symphonyhotel.com. Dinner Fri & Sat. $$
This Loveland bistro is comfortable, with reasonably priced food and amenable service. The menu is tidy—25 or so dishes divided between appetizers, salads, and entrées, plus two or three specials—its flavor profile partially influenced by a childhood growing up in a third generation Italian family. Most of Tano Bistro’s main courses lean toward the comfortable side of American. For instance, Williams serves a stuffed salmon and an allegiance pork chop. The sprout & snout appetizer is also worth a trip to Loveland, combining balsamic-drizzled brussels sprouts with sliced pork belly.
204 W. Loveland Ave., Loveland, (513) 683-8266, foodbytano.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$$
Classically conceived but casually executed comfort food, including a royale with cheese, mac and cheese topped with a Mr. Pibb–braised pulled short rib, and steak frites with garlic aioli. Servers are slightly scattered, yet enthusiastic and friendly, with a good grasp of the beverage program.
1212 Springfield Pke., Wyoming, (513) 821-8352, telabarandkitchen.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$
Wildflower Café is not the sort of place that tries to wow anyone with feats of inventiveness. Its formula is simple but satisfying: lots of mostly local meat and produce, a menu that continuously changes with available ingredients, a nice selection of wine and beer, and well-made, homey food. The small, focused menu has a classic American quality (salads, steaks, burgers) with enough surprises to keep things interesting. Many of the dishes are designed with open spaces to be filled with whatever is available in the kitchen that day, an advantage of an unfussy style. You don’t go to Wildflower expecting a certain kind of perfection; you accept that your favorite dish from last time might be made differently tonight, or no longer available. Like the farmhouse that Wildflower occupies, the imperfections are part of the charm.
207 E. Main St., Mason, (513) 492-7514, wildflowermason.com. Dinner Mon–Fri. MCC. $$$
Five blocks from the Newport riverfront, Terry and Betsy Cunningham have created the sort of comfortable, welcoming environment that encourages steady customers. A dependable menu and quirky atmosphere appeal to a broad range of diners, from non-adventurous visiting relatives to non-attentive children. Desserts have always been one of the stars: flourless chocolate hazelnut torte, bittersweet, rich and moist; butter rum pudding that would be equally at home on a picnic table or a finely dressed Michelin-starred table. 738 York St., Newport, (859) 261-9675, yorkstonline. com. Lunch Tues–Fri. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC, DS. $$
You’ll want to get to Bee’s Barbecue in Madisonville early if you want to avoid the line of friendly regulars. The restaurant’s smoker churns out a variety of meats—including brisket, pulled pork, ribs, turkey breast, and two kinds of sausage—so it’s easy to see why they keep coming back. If you enjoy the spicy grease that oozes out of a good chorizo,
you’ll love the Cincinnati Hot Link, which tastes like the delicious love child of a chorizo and a hot mett. Word to the wise: Bee’s opens at 11 a.m. and closes when they run out of meat. Understandably, this doesn’t take long.
5910 Chandler St., Madisonville, (513) 561-2337, beesbarbecue.com. Lunch and dinner Wed–Sat. MCC. $
ELI’S BBQ
Elias Leisring started building his pulled pork reputation under canopies at Findlay Market and Fountain Square in 2011. Leisring’s proper little ’cue shack along the river serves up ribs that are speaking-in-tongues good, some of the zazziest jalapeño cheese grits north of the MasonDixon line, and browned mashed potatoes that would make any short order cook diner-proud. The small no-frills restaurant—packed cheek-by-jowl most nights—feels like it’s been there a lifetime, with customers dropping vinyl on the turntable, dogs romping in the side yard, and picnic tables crowded with diners. The hooch is bring-your-own, and the barbecue is bona fide.
3313 Riverside Dr., East End, (513) 533-1957, elisbarbeque.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $
SINNERS & SAINTS TAVERN
You won’t leave this Texas smokehouse/sports bar hungry. From the brisket—served with Texas BBQ sauce, white bread, and pickles, or on toasted sourdough—to the chicken thighs, you can’t go wrong with these richly smoked flavors. Several dishes, like the Korean style pork belly, the pulled pork naan tacos, and Bigos stew, draw on global influences, while the sides take flavors back to the country (try the creamy coleslaw, the house-made mac and cheese, and chili-spiced cornbread). The restaurant’s character shines through its decor, which includes hanging hockey memorabilia, pictures of public figures and tables made from real NBA courts.
2062 Riverside Dr., East End, (513) 281-4355, sinsaintsmoke.com. Lunch Sat & Sun, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $$
A Northern Kentucky institution returns. Roughly 750 pounds of ribs per week are pit-fired in a small building in front of the restaurant, with a smaller dedicated smoker out back for brisket and chicken. Walt’s ribs begin with several hours in the smokehouse and then are quick-seared at the time of service. This hybrid method takes advantage of the leaner nature of the baby-back ribs they prefer to use. Each rib had a just-right tooth to it where soft flesh peeled away from the bone. One hidden treasure: Walt’s housemade tomato and garlic dressing. Slightly thicker than a vinaigrette yet unwilling to overwhelm a plate of greens, the two key elements play well together.
3300 Madison Pke., Ft. Wright, (859) 360-2222, waltshitchingpost.com. Dinner seven days. MCC. $$
More than 800 miles from New Orleans, this may be as close as you can get to the real deal here in your own backyard. The menu fully leans into Chef Michael Shields’s penchant for cuisine from the Crescent City. His six years of training under NOLA’s own Emeril Lagasse comes through in a scratch kitchen menu that spans a range of the city’s classics. The enormous shrimp and oyster po’ boys—the former protein fried in a light and crispy beer batter and the latter in a hearty cornmeal breading—are served on fluffy French bread loaves and dressed with lightly spicy rémoulades. The jambalaya packs all the heat of a late summer day in the French Quarter without masking a hint of its satisfying flavors. Paired with a Sazerac and nightly live jazz, you may just feel tempted to start a second line.
4632 Eastern Ave., Linwood, (513) 861-2484, brewrivercreolekitchen.com. Dinner Tues–Sun, brunch and lunch Sat & Sun. MCC. $
At first blush, this place is a dive where homesick Cajuns can find a good pile of jambalaya. But thoughtful details like draft Abita Root Beer and char-grilled Gulf Coast oysters on the half shell signal its ambition. Bayou standards like jambalaya, gumbo, and fried seafood also make an appearance. But the extensive menu also features amped up pub-style items for those who may be squeamish about crawfish tails (which can be added to just about anything on the menu). You’ll also find a roundup of oyster, shrimp, catfish, and alligator Po’Boys, as well as a selection of hardwood-smoked meats.
3742 Kellogg Ave., East End, (513) 834-7067, swampwatergrill.com. Lunch and dinner Wed–Sun, brunch Sat & Sun. V, MC, DS, AMEX. $$
The Pine serves some of the best Louisiana home-style food you’ll find this far north of New Orleans. Taste the fried catfish filets with their peppery crust, or the garlic sauteed shrimp with smoky greens on the side, and you’ll understand why it’s called soul food. Between March and June, it’s crawfish season. Get them boiled and heaped high on a platter or in a superb crawfish etouffee. But the rockin’ gumbo—a thick, murky brew of andouille sausage, chicken, and vegetables—serves the best roundhouse punch all year round. As soon as you inhale the bouquet and take that first bite, you realize why Cajun style food is considered a high art form and a serious pleasure. And you’ll start planning your return trip.
6302 Licking Pke., Cold Spring, (859) 781-2200, theknottypineonthebayou.com. Dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $$
A sense of energetic fun defines this tiny Chinese spot with a robust beer list. The glossy paper menu depicts Master Chef Rich Chu as a “Kung Food” master fighting the evil fast-food villain with dishes like “fly rice,” “Brocco-Lee,” and “Big Bird’s Nest.” Freshness rules. Pot stickers, dumplings, and wontons are hand shaped. The Dragon’s Breath wontons will invade your dreams. Seasoned ground pork, onion, and cilantro meatballs are wrapped in egg dough, wok simmered, and topped with thick, spicy red pepper sauce and fresh cilantro. Noodles are clearly Chef Chu’s specialty, with zonxon (a tangle of thin noodles, finely chopped pork, and mushrooms cloaked in spicy dark sauce and crowned with peanuts and cilantro) and Matt Chu’s Special (shaved rice noodle, fried chicken, and seasonal vegetables in gingery white sauce) topping the menu’s flavor charts.
521 Madison Ave., Covington, (859) 261-6121 , amerasia. carry-out.com. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Sat. MCC. $
Although the (24-page!) menu features classic dishes in every style, the specialty at Great Tang is the refined coastal cuisine of Zhejiang. If you like spice, you can get still the Sichuanese and Hunanese classics. One dish will hint at the surprises in store for people who are mainly used to Chinese takeout: the lovely Xian cold noodle. The dish is exquisitely layered: the creamy and nutty undertone of sesame paste, mixed with notes of tang and spice, topped with the bright pop of cilantro. The combination of textures is also delightful, with crunches of cucumber and sprouted mung and the softness of the flat noodles. And that tofu! It was wonderfully meaty, with dense layers, substantial and satisfying as a counterpart to the noodles. Be as brave as you are in the mood to be. Ask for some suggestions and prepare to be astonished.
7340 Kingsgate Way, West Chester, (513) 847-6097, greattangohio.com. Lunch and dinner Wed–Mon, dim sum Sat & Sun. V, DS, MC, AMEX. $$
TThe monster of a menu can be dizzying. Ease in with some top-notch Korean Wings. These slightly bubbly, shattercrisp wings are painted with a thin gochujang chili sauce (a foil to the fat). It takes 24 hours to prep the Cantonese duck, between a honey-vinegar brine to dry the skin, a marinade of star anise, bean paste, and soy within the re-sealed cav-
ity, and the crispy convection oven finish. Dolsot bibimbap had plenty of crispy rice at the bottom of the stone bowl, and the accompanying banchan were soothing yet flavorful. Even dishes like a Malaysian goat stew resonated with rich, original flavors.
8300 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, (513) 898-1833, thepacific.kitchen. Lunch and dinner Mon & Wed–Sun, dim sum lunch Sat & Sun. MCC. $$
It has all the elements of your typical neighborhood Chinese restaurant: Strip mall location. General Tso and kung pao chicken. Fortune cookies accompanying the bill. The dragon decoration. But it is the nontraditional aspects of Raymond’s Hong Kong Café that allow it to stand apart. The menu goes beyond standard Chinese fare with dishes that range from Vietnamese (beef noodle soup) to American (crispy Cornish hen). The Portuguese-style baked chicken references Western European influences on Chinese cuisine with an assemblage of fried rice, peppers, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, and squash all simmering together in a creamy bath of yellow curry sauce. Deciding what to order is a challenge, but at least you won’t be disappointed.
11051 Clay Dr., Walton, (859) 485-2828. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $$
Long before sushi somehow un-disgusted itself to the Western World, China had houses of dim sum. Uncle Yip’s valiantly upholds that tradition in Evendale. This is a traditional dim sum house with all manner of exotic dumplings, including shark fin or beef tripe with ginger and onion. As for the seafood part of the restaurant’s full name, Uncle Yip has most everything the sea has to offer, from lobster to mussels. The menu has more than 160 items, so you’ll find a range of favorites, from moo goo gai pan to rock salt frog legs.
10736 Reading Rd., Evendale, (513) 733-8484, uncleyips.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, discount for cash. $$
Most people who’ve eaten at Abigail Street have favorite dishes that they order every visit: the Moroccan spiced broccoli, for example, or the mussels charmoula, with its perfect balance of saffron, creaminess, and tomatoey acidity. Many of the new items on the menu have the same perfected feeling as these classics. Working within a loose framework of Middle Eastern and North African flavors, Abigail Street has never fallen into a routine that would sap its energy. New offerings like the wood-grilled kefta, with charred tomatoes, peppers, and whipped tahini, feel just as accomplished as old favorites like the falafel, beautifully moist and crumbly with a bright parsley interior.The restaurant is always watching for what works and what will truly satisfy, ready to sacrifice the superficially interesting in favor of the essential.
Top 10
1214 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 421-4040, abigailstreet.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC, DS. $$
Normally diners aren’t pleased when a restaurant runs out of something. At Bouquet, though, surprise changes to the menu are simply a sign of integrity. Chef-owner Stephen Williams is serious about using seasonal ingredients, and if the figs have run out or there is no more chicken from a local farm, so be it. The flavors at Bouquet are about doing justice to what’s available. Preparations are unfussy, complexity coming from within the vegetables and proteins themselves. A spring salad—wonderfully fresh and vibrant, so you know the strawberries included have just come off a nearby vine—is dressed with candy-striped beets, jerkseasoned pepitas and whipped goat cheese. This determination to make something delicious out of what’s on hand, to embrace limitations, gives the food at Bouquet a rustic, soulful quality.
519 Main St., Covington, (859) 491-7777, bouquetrestaurant.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC, DS. $$
This Walnut Street spot draws on authentic Argentine recipes, including the empanadas. Choose from more than a dozen different crispy, perfectly cinched dough pockets, with fillings ranging from traditional (a mixture of cuminspiced beef, hard-boiled egg, and olives) to experimental (mushrooms, feta, green onion, and mozzarella). There are also six different dipping sauces to choose from, but you need not stray from the house chimichurri.
1342 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 345-8838, checincinnati.com. Lunch Tues–Sun, dinner seven days, brunch Sat & Sun. V, MCC, DC, AMEX. $$
GASTROPUB
What makes Crown Republic special isn’t its handful of outstanding dishes. It’s the place’s sheer consistency. No single dish is absolutely mindblowing or completely original, but when almost everything that comes out is genuinely tasty, the service is always friendly and attentive, and (stop the presses!) the bill is quite a bit less than you expected, you sit up and pay attention. The crab and avocado toast, served on toasted bread with lime juice and slivers of pickled Fresno chiles, is a prime example of what makes Crown Republic tick. The cocktails are equally unfussy and good, like the Tequila Honey Bee, made with tequila reposado, honey thyme syrup, lemon, bitters, and mezcal rinse, which adds a smoky kick.
720 Sycamore St., downtown, (513) 246-4272,
crgcincy.com. Brunch, lunch and dinner Wed–Sun. V, MC, DS, AMEX. $$
This Milford restaurant playfully elevates diner classics. Breakfast is available all day so if you’re looking to greet the morning with decadence, try the ricotta toast, a thick slab of brioche toast smothered in ricotta and fresh, seasonal jams. Sandwiches also get an inventive twist here. The “Governor Tso’s chicken”—a crispy fried chicken breast glazed with a General Tso’s–inspired sauce, topped with apricot slaw and served on a toasted brioche bun—is a gigantic, happy mess of a sandwich, but the sweet glaze faintly evokes the namesake “General” while letting the sublimely fried chicken lead the charge. Order a side of crinkle cut fries and ask for the housemade Maple Thousand Island dipping sauce. (You’ll thank us later.)
231 Main St., Milford, (513) 239-8298, governordiner.com. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days. Brunch and lunch Sun. MCC. $
Inside a modest 1,500 square-foot space on Spring Grove, just south of Hamilton Avenue, at least 70-odd bourbons behind the bar drive this little restaurant’s philosophy. The menu is meant to be limited, the better to support and celebrate the bottled flavors up front. There are surprises: a faint hint of curry powder deepens the moody cauliflower fritters; skewered golf-balls of mild, peppery ground lamb get a faint crust from the final sear. You’ll also want to order the smoked pork katsu. Panko crusted cutlets of pork, topped with tonkatsu sauce, served with sesame ginger slaw and kewpie mayo. The signature chicken and corn chowder is exactly what you need on a cold winter’s day.
3934 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, (513) 3867570, littlefieldns.com. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Sat & Sun. V, MC. $
At Maplewood, you order at the counter, then find a table, and a server will deliver what you’ve selected. There’s no cohesive cuisine, rather, the menu takes its cue from all corners of the globe: chicken tinga, spaghetti pomodoro, a New York Strip steak, guajillo chicken are all represented, along with a satisfying pappardelle with housemade sausage. Brunch is available all day so try the light lemon ricotta pancakes or the satisfying avocado benedict.
525 Race St., downtown, (513) 421-2100, maplewoodkitchenandbar.com. Breakfast and lunch seven days. MCC. $$
After serving mofongo at Findlay Market for nearly four years, Mashroots opened its first brick-and-mortar spot in College Hill this year. For the uninitiated, mofongo is a traditional Puerto Rican dish of mashed fried plantains with garlic and olive oil, typically served with protein and sauce. Here, you can get plantain, yuca, or sweet potato as your root and a protein, like skirt steak or pulled chicken. Top it off with veggies (pinkslaw, vinagrete, citruscarrot) and a sauce (pink mayo, anyone?), and wash it all down with refreshing cocktails made with rum and harderto-find spirits.
5903 Hamilton Ave., College Hill, (513) 6204126, mashroots.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat, Lunch and dinner Sun. MCC. $
In this Northside sandwich joint, the restaurant’s name pretty much dictates what you
uGOgelato’s María Liliana
Biondo recently placed third at the Carpigiani Gelato Festival World Masters regional competition in Chicago. By doing so, she secured a spot in the semifinals, which will be held in September in Los Angeles. The global competition began in 2022 and wraps up in Italy in 2025. gelatofestival.com
should get. Diners have their choice of sandwiches, including the vegetarian cheesesteak—seitan (a meat substitute) topped with roasted onions, peppers, and provolone—and the J.L.R. Burger, a black bean or veggie patty served with cheese, tomato, lettuce and housemade vegan mayo. For those who require meat in their meals, try the verde chicken melt: juicy pieces of chicken intermingle with pesto, zucchini, and provolone. Not sure you’ll want a whole sandwich? Try one of the halvesies, a half-salad, half-soup selection popular with the lunch crowd.
4100 Hamilton Ave., Northside, (513) 818-8951, meltrevival.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Fri, breakfast, lunch, and dinner Sat, brunch Sun. MCC, DS. $
Metropole has been remarkably stable since it opened in 2012. Even when chefs have left, the organization has promoted from within, kept pop-ular dishes on the menu, and maintained a certain vibe, a balance between sophistication and rustic-ity. Its vegetarian fare contains many of its most inventive and delightful creations. The seared salmon is served with beluga lentils, green tomato, cucumber, brown butter, and smoked onion. The blistered shishitos, served with refreshing watermelon, goat cheese, yuzu, and spiced almonds, encapsulates Metropole at its best: fun and whimsical, but rooted in careful execution of deep and satisfying flavors.
609 Walnut St., downtown, (513) 578-6660, metropoleonwalnut.com. Dinner seven days. V, DS, MC, AMEX. $$
Top 10 MITA’S
It’s fitting that chef Jose Salazar named this restaurant after his grandmother, because there is something deeply homey about the food at Mita’s. With a focus on Spanish and Latin-American tapas, it always feels, in the best possible way, like elevated home cooking. Its sophistication is modestly concealed. The flavors are bold
and direct, whether the spicy freshness of the ceviche de camarones with passionfruit leche de tigreor the intensely bright sourness of the pozole verde. In dishes like the alcochofas y hongos, the chef hits every register: the acid of red espelette peppers to balance the earthy ramp-garlic hummus, the crunchy pistachios against the soft sautéed mushrooms and artichoke hearts. But what mainly comes through is the warm-hearted affection a grandmother might have put into a meal for a beloved grandson. It’s the kind of big hug everyone needs from time to time.
501 Race St., downtown, (513) 421-6482, mitas.co. Dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $$$
NICHOLSON’S
To remind local diners that they were here before those young dog-toting punks with their exposed brick and crafty ales in Over-the-Rhine, Nicholson’s branded themselves Cincinnati’s “first and finest gastropub,” and revamped the menu to include plenty of snacks and small plates for grazing, and not-quite-brawny, straightforward sandwiches and main dishes. Try the Faroe Island salmon, bowl of cocka-leekie soup, or check out the shepherd’s or Scottish BBQ style burgers or the turkey reuben with Russian dressing. And the bar’s clubby intimacy makes it easy to belly up and enjoy their impressive collection of single malts or a Scottish ale.
625 Walnut St., downtown, (513) 564-9111, nicholsonspub.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $$
NOLIA
Chef/Owner Jeffery Harris, a New Orleans native, prepares the cuisine of his beloved city with sophistication and flair, drawing on all the influences that have contributed to the cuisine of the Big Easy—from West African to French to Japanese to Haitian. The menu changes seasonally, with almost a complete overhaul each time. If classic New Orleans dishes do show up on the menu, they’re likely to get delightfully unexpected touches. Take the duck and oyster
gumbo. Harris deconstructs the typical stew, building on a base of popcorn rice, instead of the more typical long grain, and a decadent duck fat roux. It’s exquisitely prepared food served in a funky, laid-back atmosphere.
1405 Clay St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 384-3597, noliakitchen.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$
This lively mash-up is a telling symbol of Earth+Ocean Restaurant Group’s flexible approach to traditional food. In what other Greek restaurant would the best cocktail be a smoky, chile-laced paloma, normally associated with Mexico? Or would the dish of lamb chops come dressed with gremolata, which we’ve never seen on anything but Italian food? E+O has always prided itself on its eclectic take on regional cuisine and they serve up something similarly fun and varied here. Those looking for classic Greek food will find plenty to satisfy them. The lamb kebabs, served ground, with the classic roasted tomato on the side; or the Via bowls, featuring tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, feta, red onion, tzatziki, and your choice of protein served atop a bed of couscous. The fun Okto has with Greek cuisine means there is already plenty that is good, plus plenty of room to grow.
645 Walnut St., downtown, (513) 632-9181, oktocincinnati.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$
Much like American food, Argentine cuisine is a melting pot shaped by immigration, particularly from Italy and Germany, and with plenty of meat on the plate. You see that mix in the menu, but Pampas puts parrillada, the Argentine method of cooking over an open flame, front and center. The chimichurri appears throughout the menu, and does wonders wherever it goes. Spicy, tart, and filled with the flavor of oregano, it wakes up the marinated skirt steak. Magnificent desserts deserve special mention. The dolce de leche crème brule, with its caramelized sugar crust and shaved chocolate, is particularly popular.
2036 Madison Rd., O’Bryonville, (513) 321-0863, pampascincinnati.com. Brunch Sun, dinner Tues–Sun. V, DS, MC, AMEX. $$
Dan Wright’s BBQ dream gets reincarnated as a wing joint and tiki drink emporium. The brisket still shows up on the brisket nachos, and the fried pickles and the cheesy grits didn’t go anywhere, but the smoked wings have taken center stage. Choose from one of three sauce options—BBQ, buffalo, or dry rub—pick your quantity, and chow down. If you’re feeling particularly spirited, you can try one of their original tiki cocktails. The cherry blossom, made with lightly aged Puerto Rican rum, whisks diners away with notes of coconut and lime.
1403 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 579-8500, pontiacbbq.com. Lunch Fri–Sun and dinner Wed–Sun, brunch Sun. MCC. $$
The Quarter Bistro has multiple personalities: one part clubby neighborhood joint, one part dinner and a movie with a dash of lusty romance. The Bistro Burger, a halfpound of black Angus beef, is seasoned but not overly so, with a sturdy-but-not-too-chewy bun. The 18-hour short ribs are the star, and reason enough to skip the movie next door. Braised into a flavor bomb of meat candy, it’s served with papardelle pasta, roasted vegetables, and onion straws. With the no-lip service, The Quarter Bistro could be well on the way to making middle age look sexy.
6904 Wooster Pke., Mariemont, (513) 271-5400, qbcincy.com. Dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $$
The spiritual successor of Mullane’s Parkside Café, Ruth’s brings back the vegetable-forward menu with a few concessions to contemporary tastes. Dinner options now include steaks and heavier entrées. But the stir-fries, beans and rice, pasta, and the traditional option to add a protein to an entrée (tofu, tempeh, chicken, or local chorizo) for an upcharge are all old standards. While dishes are generally hearty, they are rarely too rich, leaving room to freely consider dessert. There is a small selection of baked goods, including a gooey butter cake, homemade fruit pies, and Madisono’s Gelato.
1550 Blue Rock St., Northside, (513) 542-7884, ruthscafe.com. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $$
Owners Paul Weckman and Emily Wolff offer a pared down menu of five to seven rotating small plates, plus seven sandwiches. It’s simple but satisfying, with a small-town diner vibe. After a complete menu overhaul that shifted the restaurant away from its Pan-Asian street food concept, The Standard focuses on Americana classics, like smoked brisket chopped cheese, smash burgers, smoked wings, and chili.
434 Main St., Covington, (859) 360-0731, facebook. com/thestandardcov. Dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $
This restaurant mixes Mediterranean influences with homespun choices, and he comes up with some marvelous food. Lamb meatballs with melted onions and romesco sauce are sweet and peppery, and their simplicity partners well with a lush Zinfandel. The excellent wine list, arranged by flavor profiles within the varietals, features dozens of varieties by the glass in five-ounce or two-ounce pours, which makes it easy to try several.
101 Main St., Milford, (513) 831-2749, 20brix.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MCC, DS, DC. $$
West African cuisine consists of mostly simple, home-style dishes of stews and grilled lamb with just enough of the exotic to offer a glimpse of another culture. Be prepared for a few stimulating sights and flavors that warm from within. An entire grilled tilapia—head and all—in a peppery citrus marinade and served on plantains with a side of Dijon-coated cooked onions is interesting enough to pique foodie interest without overwhelming the moderate eater.
Stews of lamb or chicken with vegetables and rice are a milder bet, and Morrocan-style couscous with vegetables and mustard sauce accompanies most items. The dining room atmosphere is extremely modest with most of the action coming from the constant stream of carryout orders.
8438 Vine St., Hartwell, (513) 821-1300, terangacinci. com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $
The name of this restaurant demands that one question be answered first: So, how’s that view? Well, it’s impressive. Especially if the weather cooperates and you can get a seat outside. Most dishes are rotated out every six months, but a few remain staples from season to season. Try the panroasted chicken, featuring a Freebird Farms skin-on breast. Or go for the Chef’s Feast for Two, a shareable steak with an Argentine shrimp salad and two sides. The cocktail list offers high, low, and zero proof options alongside a wellrounded beer and wine selection.
309 Vine St., 10th Floor, downtown, (513) 407-7501, theviewatshiresgarden.com. Dinner Tues–Sat, brunch Sat & Sun. MCC. $$$
YUCA
Yuca is in The Fairfield’s former space, retaining much of the same modern, airy, and inviting café vibes with a neighborhood feel, but boasting a menu certainly worth a commute. In the mood for a hearty breakfast? Indulge in the Fat Zach, a heaping corn gordita packed to the brim with chicken, chorizo, and scrambled egg, served with avocado, pineapple pico, and sweet and spicy potatoes. There’s a full drink menu ranging from coffee to Bloody Marys—or a selection of margaritas and palomas if you’re looking to stick around.
700 Fairfield Ave., Bellevue, (859) 360-0110, yucabycedar.com. Breakfast and lunch Tues–Sun. MCC. $
Based on American stereotypes of French food—that it’s elaborate, elitist, and expensive—one might expect Chez Renée to fall on the chichi side. Instead, it’s elegant in an everyday way, operating on the principle that it is better to excel at simplicity than to badly execute something complicated. The formula is not complex: Simple ingredients, generally fresh and from nearby, prepared without much fuss. Warmed brie is served with thyme, almonds, fruit, and bread, and the chicken risotto is served with creamy mushrooms. This is solid, tasty food, both approachable and well executed. It’s well on its way to becoming, as a good bistrot should be, a neighborhood institution.
233 Main St., Milford, (513) 428-0454, chezreneefrenchbistrot.com. Friday–Sat and dinner Wed–Sat. MCC. $$
FRENCH CRUST
Located in the old Globe Furniture building at the corner of Elm and Elder Streets, this Jean-Robert de Cavel creation offers French fare in the heart of Over-the-Rhine. Swing by for lunch and have a quiche Lorraine (French Crust’s quiches are unrivaled in our humble opinion) and an avocado and shrimp salad, or opt for a more hearty entree—like bouillabaisse or cassoulet—for dinner. If you’re an early bird, a Croque Monsieur (sunny side up egg) is a great way to start the day.
1801 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 455-3720, frenchcrustcafe.com. Breakfast and lunch Wed–Sun, dinner Thurs–Sun. MCC. $$
Top 10 LE BAR A BOEUF
If it’s been a couple of years since you’ve been to Le Bar a Boeuf—Jean-Robert de Cavel’s funyet-refined French bistro located on the first floor of the Edgecliff Private Residences in East Walnut Hills—it may be time for a revisit. The formerly burger-centric menu now approaches the full repertoire of bistro classics. The menu reads like a greatest hits list of bistro fare, with escargot, beef tartare, duck leg confit, steak frites, and French onion soup all making appearances. As France’s influence
on American fine dining has waned, it’s refreshing to see a restaurant committed to not only preserving the French classics but reinvigorating them.
2200 Victory Pkwy., East Walnut Hills, (513) 751-2333, barboeuf.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC. $$
Muthu “Kumar” Muthiah serves traditional southern Indian and Indo-Chinese vegetarian cuisine, but with a sizable Orthodox Jewish community nearby, Muthia saw an opportunity: If he was going to cook vegetarian, why not also make it kosher? Muthiah prepares every item— from the addictively crunchy gobhi Manchurian, a spicy Chinese cauliflower dish, to the lemon pickle, tamarind, and mint sauces—entirely from scratch under the careful eye of Rabbi Michoel Stern. Always 80 percent vegan, the daily lunch buffet is 100 percent animal-product-free on Wednesdays. Tuck into a warm and savory channa masala (spiced chickpeas) or malai kofta (vegetable dumplings in tomato sauce) from the curry menu. Or tear into a crispy, two-foot diameter dosa (chickpea flour crepe) stuffed with spiced onions and potatoes.
7633 Reading Rd., Roselawn, (513) 821-2021, ammaskitchen.com. Lunch buffet seven days (all-vegan on Wed), dinner seven days. MC, V, DS. $
BRIJ MOHAN
Order at the counter the way you might at a fast food joint, except the shakes come in mango and there’s no supersizing your mint lassi. The saag, full of cream in most northern Indian restaurants, is as intensely flavored as collard greens in the Deep South—real Punjabi soul food. Tarka dal is spectacular here, the black lentils smoky from charred tomatoes and onions, and the pani puri, hollow fried shells into which you spoon a peppery cold broth, burst with tart cool crunch. Follow the spice with soothing ras malai, freshly made cheese simmered in thick almond-flavored milk, cooled and sprinkled with crushed pistachios.
11259 Reading Rd., Sharonville, (513) 769-4549, brijmohancincinnati.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. MC, V, DC, AMEX. $
In 2011, Jared Wayne opened A Tavola Pizza with two friends just as OTR was blowing up. A Ferrara pizza oven was ordered from Italy; Wayne, a skilled woodworker, built custom tables; and the menu was fleshed in with trendy crowdpleasers like charcuterie and craft cocktails. Fast-forward a decade. The OTR outpost is closed but the second location is still going strong in the ’burbs: A Tavola Madeira capitalizes on the menu from the Vine Street location, including the fresh and zesty artichoke pizza on a Neapolitan crust; gooey mozzarella-filled arancini, or risotto fritters; and the zucchini mozzarella. Wash down your small plates with a glass of crisp and grassy Sannio falanghina or an ice-cold Peroni lager. They’re definitely going to need a bigger parking lot. 7022 Miami Ave., Madeira, (513) 272-0192, atavolapizza.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. V, DC, MS, AMEX. $
Everything about this place says it’s about the pizza: the herbed sauce, the assault of the cheese, the toppings. It’s all evenly distributed, so you get a taste in every bite. Adriatico’s still delivers the tastiest pizza in Clifton. On any given night the aroma wafts through every dorm on campus. It’s that popular because it’s that good. Being inexpensive doesn’t hurt either.
113 W. McMillan St., Clifton Heights, (513) 281-4344, adriaticosuc.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC. $
This Italian place hits the spot on all levels. It’s casual—we felt at home in jeans and a T-shirt—but not so casual to rule it out as a date-night spot. It’s friendly, with a staff that
pudding with caramel sauce, marsala soaked raisins, and cream.
810 Matson Pl., Price Hill, (513) 251-6467, pvista.com. Dinner Wed–Sun. MCC, DC, DS. $$
stays on top of refilling that Morretti La Rossa beer. And best of all, the food is amazing (especially for the price). We ranked their pizza the best in the city. Dubious? Their pizza Margherita will make a believer out of you. Their lasagna, spaghetti, and eggplant Parmesan will have you crying Mama Mia and other Italian-sounding phrases. Their dessert options (Cannoli! Tiramisu! Amaretto cream cake!) are all homemade, and delicious to the very last bite.
3764 Montgomery Rd., Norwood, (513) 631-6836. Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat. MC, V. $$
Cristian Pietoso’s second restaurant has all the bones of an upscale eatery, but the menu is infused with enough Italian soul to make nonna proud. In most instances, raving about a side of creamed corn wouldn’t bode well for the rest of the menu. Here, that side dish—kernels swimming in a pool of truffle-laced heavy cream that demands sopping up—is evidence that each component is purpose-driven. The red wine–braised honeycomb tripe, which carries a warning label (“Don’t be scared!”), and the pappardelle with spiced cinghiale (wild boar) ragu are examples of the elevated, adventurous comfort food that Pietoso strives for.
3514 Erie Ave., East Hyde Park, (513) 818-8720, fornoosteriabar.com. Dinner Tues–Sun, brunch Sun. MCC. $$
Chef/Restaurateur Cristian Pietoso carries on the legacy of his father, Nicola, as the elder Pietoso’s Over-the-Rhine eatery celebrates 25 years in business.
Top 10
Nicola’s has entered a new era of exuberant creativity under the leadership of chef Jack Hemmer. You can still get the old Italian classics, and they’ll be as good as ever, but the rest of the menu has blossomed into a freewheeling tour of modern American cuisine. Any establishment paying this level of attention to detail—from the candied slice of blood orange on the mascarpone cheesecake to the staff’s wine knowledge—is going to put out special meals. Rarely have humble insalate been so intricately delicious, between the perfectly nested ribbons of beets in the pickled beet salad or the balance of bitterness, funkiness, and creaminess in the endive and Gorgonzola salad. Order an old favorite, by all means, but make sure you try something new, too.
1420 Sycamore St., Pendleton, (513) 721-6200, nicolasotr.com. Dinner Mon–Sat. MCC, DC, DS. $$$
PADRINO
Billed as “Italian comfort food,” this sister restaurant to 20 Brix offers the classics (like lasagna and chicken carbonara) plus hoagies and meatball sliders, an impressive wine list, seasonal martinis, and a decadent signature appetizer— garlic rolls, doughy buns smothered in olive oil and garlic. Best of all, Barraco’s pizza sauce, which is comprised of roasted tomatoes and basil, is so garden-fresh that one can’t help but wonder: If this is real pizza, what have we been eating all these years?
111 Main St., Milford, (513) 965-0100, padrinoitalian. com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$
Besides offering the old world flavors of Italy, Primavista also serves up a specialty no other restaurant can match: a bird’s eye view of Cincinnati from the west side. The kitchen is equally comfortable with northern and southern regional specialties: a Venetian carpaccio of paper thin raw beef sparked by fruity olive oil; house-made fresh mozzarella stuffed with pesto and mushrooms; or artichoke hearts with snails and mushrooms in a creamy Gorgonzola sauce from Lombardy. Among the classics, nothing is more restorative than the pasta e fagioli, a hearty soup of cannellini, ditali pasta, and bacon. Most of the pastas are cooked just a degree more mellow than al dente so that they soak up the fragrant tomato basil or satiny cream sauces. The fork-tender osso buco Milanese, with its marrow-filled center bone and salty-sweet brown sauce (marinara and lemon juice), is simply superb. Desserts present further problems; you’ll be hard-pressed to decide between the house-made tiramisu or bread
Top 10
There are certain books and movies that you can read or watch over and over. Eating at Sotto is a similar experience: familiar, but so profound and satisfying that there is no reason to ever stop. Unlike other restaurants, where the techniques are often elaborate and unfamiliar, the magic at Sotto happens right in front of you, using ordinary elements and methods. When you taste the results, though, you realize that some mysterious transmutation has taken place. Penne with rapini and sausage comes in a buttery, lightly starchy broth with a kick of spice that you could go on eating forever. From the texture of the chicken liver mousse to the tart cherry sauce on the panna cotta, most of the food has some added element of soulfulness.
118 E. Sixth St., downtown, (513) 977-6886, sottocincinnati.com. Dinner seven days. V, MC, DS, AMEX. $$
Focusing on Northern Italian cuisine, Subito carves out its own worthwhile place in the landscape. Most of the items on the menu—from pizza to various pastas—will be familiar, but there are delightful surprises, like the vegan torta di ceci. At the base of the dish is a light, flaky farinata—a griddled pancake made out of chickpea flour. Topped with pickled red onion, and covered with nectarine and toasted almonds, the whole dish is rounded out with a touch of tangy sweetness from a blackberry balsamic vinaigrette. Everything at Subito is done with intelligence and a light touch.
311 Pike St., downtown, (513) 621-4500, thelytleparkhotel.com/dining/subito. Breakfast and lunch Mon–Fri, dinner Mon–Sat, brunch Sat & Sun. MCC.
$$
You don’t go just anywhere to dine on uni sashimi (sea urchin) or tanshio (thinly sliced charcoal-grilled beef tongue). Don’t miss the rich and meaty chyu toro (fatty big-eye tuna), or the pucker-inducing umeshiso maki (pickled plum paste and shiso leaf roll). Noodles are also well represented, with udon, soba, or ramen options available. And don’t forget to ask about the specials; owners Ken and Keiko Ando always have something new, be it grilled koji or marinated amberjack smoked salmon crudo, delicacies that you’ll be hard-pressed to find in any of those Hyde Park pan-Asian wannabes. The only thing you won’t find here is sake, or any other alcohol. Bring your own, or stick to the nutty and outright addicting barley tea.
5889 Pfeiffer Rd., Blue Ash, (513) 791-8687, andojapaneserestaurant.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC.
$$$
Top 10 KIKI
Kiki started as a pop-up at Northside Yacht Club, then leapt into brick-and-mortar life in College Hill. Your best bet here is to share plates, or simply order too much, starting with the shishito buono, a piled-high plate of roasted shishito peppers tossed in shaved parmesan and bagna cauda, a warm, rich blend of garlic and anchovies. Add the karaage fried chicken, with the Jordy mayo and the pepe meshi, confit chicken on spaghetti and rice that somehow works. And, yes, the ramen, too. The shio features pork belly and tea-marinated soft-boiled egg, but the kimchi subs in tofu and its namesake cabbage for the meat.
5932 Hamilton Ave., College Hill, (513) 541-0381, kikicincinnati.com. Lunch Sun and dinner Wed–Sat. MCC. $
Owner Jason Shi seems to know everybody’s name as he chats up diners, guiding them through the extensive sushi and sashimi menu. Five young sushi chefs, all part of Shi’s
family, work at light speed behind the bar, a choreography backlit by rows of gleaming liquor bottles. Dinner proceeds with glorious chaos as a feisty Carla Tortelli–like server delivers one dish after another—slivers of giant clam on ice in a super-sized martini glass, a volcanic tower of chopped fatty tuna hidden inside overlapping layers of thin avocado slices, smoky grilled New Zealand mussels drizzled with spicy mayo, and delicate slices of a samurai roll—all between shots of chilled sake.
12082 Montgomery Rd., Symmes Twp., (513) 583-8897, kyotosushibar.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC.
$$
Mei’s menu is meant to represent traditional Japanese cuisine, appealing to the novice as well as the sushi maven. It is divided into sections that encourage a progressive meal of small dishes: One each for hot and cold appetizers, noodles, sushi and sashimi, special rolls, soups and salads, sushi dinners (with miso soup), and combinations (such as tempura paired with sashimi). Deep-fried soft shell crab comes with ponzu sauce—a dipping sauce made of rice vinegar, soy sauce, mirin, and citrus juice—and the kind of yakitori that you can find on the streets of New York. Bento boxes—lacquered wooden boxes divided into compartments—offer the neophyte a sampling of several small dishes. Mei’s are lovely: deep red and stocked with tempura, cooked salmon, sashimi, stewed vegetables, and a fabulous egg custard with shrimp and gingko nut. Mei’s sushi—nigiri, maki, and handrolls—is exceptionally good with quality cuts of fresh seafood. The staff is knowledgeable, extremely efficient, respectful, and attentive, even when it’s at peak capacity.
8608 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, (513) 891-6880, meijapaneserestaurant.com. Lunch Sat & Sun, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $$
A stark contrast to Styrofoam cup soup, chef Han Lin’s ramens are a deep and exciting branch of cuisine, capable of subtlety, variation, and depth. The simplicity of the dish’s name hides a world of complexity. Zundo uses the traditional Japanese building blocks of flavor—soy sauce, miso, sake, mirin—to create something freewheeling and timetested. Bowls of ramen come with a marinated soft-boiled egg half, roast pork, green onion, and a healthy serving of noodles. Each has a distinct identity, like the milky richness of the tonkotsu, the rich and buttery miso, or the light and faintly sweet shoyu ramen. A transformative add-in is the mayu, or black garlic oil. Dripped on top of one of the subtler broths, it adds a deep, mushroom-y richness, with the hint of burned flavor that makes barbecue so good. 220 W. 12th St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 975-0706, zundootr.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $$
After the closing of Sung Korean Bistro, Haru is a welcome addition to the downtown scene. Dishes are served along with the usual Korean accompaniment of pickles, kimchi, fish cakes, and other mysteriously delicious dainties. A favorite is the japchae, a traditional dish sporting silky sweet potato noodles with sesame-and-garlic sauce, matchsticks of assorted crisp vegetables, and behind it all a wonderful smokiness that pervades the whole meal. The accompanying pot of gochujang, a fermented Korean chili paste, adds its own sweet and spicy note. The result is a homey, soulful, and satisfying taste that appeals even to those who’ve never eaten a bite of Korean food before. 628 Vine St., downtown, (513) 381-0947, harucincy. com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $$
Come for the jo gi mae un tang—a bowl of sizzling, happy hellbroth pungent with red pepper, garlic, and ginger, crowded with nuggets of fish, tofu, and vegetables. Come for the restorative power of sam gae tang, a chicken soup for the Seoul—a whole Cornish hen submerged in its own juices and plumped with sticky rice and ginseng, dried red dates, and pine nuts. Revered for their medicinal properties, both dinner-sized soups will leave your eyes glistening
and your brow beaded with sweat. They’re a detox for your overindulgence, rejuvenation for when you’re feeling under the weather. Expect crowds on weekends. Expect too, that dozens of them have come for dolsot bibimbap, the hot stone pots filled with layers of rice, vegetables, meat or tofu, egg, and chili paste. Characterized by its electric color and addictive flavors, Riverside Korean’s version is a captivating bowl of heaven.
512 Madison Ave., Covington, (859) 291-1484, riversidekoreanrestaurant.com. Lunch Tues–Fri, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC, DS. $$
In this lively joint with a burnished summer lodge interior of wood and stone, even the food is unrestrained: rough-cut chunks of charbroiled beef tenderloin, big slices of onion and green pepper turned sweet and wet in the heat, skewers of marinated and charbroiled chicken perched on rice too generous for its plate. Co-owner Andy Hajjar mans his station at the end of the bar, smoking a hookah pipe that fills the air with the sweet smell of flavored tobacco, while the friendly but hurried staff hustles through.
906 Nassau St., Walnut Hills, (513) 281-9791, andyskabob.com. Lunch Mon–Sat, dinner seven days. MCC. $$
Chef-driven Middle Eastern cuisine leans heavily on Turkish tradition here. The baba ghanoush uses seared eggplant, which adds a pleasant smokiness to the final product. Börek is described as a “Turkish Egg Roll,” wrapping feta and fresh and dried herbs into phyllo dough, and frying it lightly to brittle flakiness. The pastry arrives atop a vivid cherry tomato marmalade, which adds a welcome dimension of barely sweet fruitiness. While there is a smooth, simple hummus on the menu, you should go for the classic sucuklu hummus, which is spiked with sujuk, a common beef sausage popular all over the Middle East.
3520 Erie Ave., East Hyde Park, (513) 871-8714, mediterranean-cafe.com. Lunch Mon–Sat, dinner seven days. MCC. $$
Top 10
No matter how much restraint you go in with, meals at Phoenician Taverna quickly become feasts. There is just too much that’s good, and everything is meant to be shared. With fresh pita bread continuously arriving from the ovens, and a table of quickly multiplying meze (hummus, falafel, muhammara), there is a warmth and depth to the cooking that envelops you. With such traditional cuisine, you may think there isn’t much left to discover beyond simply executed classics prepared according to time-tested methods. But there are always new discoveries as the flavors mingle from plate to plate: the tabbouleh with the hummus, mixed with a touch of harissa, or the smoky baba ghanoush spooned onto falafel. Phoenician Taverna keeps taking these classics a little further.
7944 Mason Montgomery Rd., Mason, (513) 770-0027, phoeniciantaverna.com. Lunch Tues–Fri, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $$
SANTORINI
Steak, eggs, and home fries. Jumbo haddock sandwich with Greek fries. Chocolate chip hot cakes with bacon. Notice something wrong with this menu? Chicken Philly cheese steak sandwich with Olympic onion rings. Yep, it’s obvious: What’s wrong with this menu is that there’s nothing wrong with this menu. Greek feta cheese omelette with a side of ham. It’s been owned by the same family for more than 30 years. Santorini has diner standards, like cheeseburgers, chili five ways, and breakfast anytime,
but they also make some Greek pastries in house, like spanakopita and baklava.
3414 Harrison Ave., Cheviot, (513) 662-8080. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner Mon–Sat, breakfast and lunch Sun. Cash. $
When the wind is just right, you can smell the meat roasting from a mile away. Watch owner Alex Vassiliou tend to the rotating wheels of beef and lamb, and you understand how Greek food has escaped the American tendency to appropriate foreign cuisines. Sebastian’s specializes in gyros, shaved off the stick, wrapped in thick griddle pita with onions and tomatoes, and served with cool tzatziki sauce. Alex’s wife and daughter run the counter with efficient speed, and whether you’re having a crisp Greek salad with house-made dressing, triangles of spanikopita, or simply the best walnut and honey baklava this side of the Atlantic (often made by the Mrs.), they never miss a beat, turning more covers in their tiny restaurant on one Saturday afternoon than some restaurants do in an entire weekend.
5209 Glenway Ave., Price Hill, (513) 471-2100, sebastiansgyros.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat. Cash. $
The meze, a parade of small plates and appetizers—the refreshing yogurt dish with cucumber, mint, and garlic known as cacik, and its thicker cousin haydari, with chopped walnuts, dill, and garlic—is rounded out with flaky cheese or spinach boureks, falafels, soups, salads, and more, while baked casseroles or stuffed cabbage and eggplant dishes (dubbed “Ottoman specials”) augment the heavy focus on kebabs: chunks of lamb and beef on a vertical spit for the popular Doner kebab (a.k.a. Turkish gyro), peppery ground lamb for the Adana kebab, or cubed and marinated for the Shish kebab.
7305 Tyler’s Corner Dr., West Chester, (513) 847-1535, sultanscincinnati.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$
It’s easy to find a cheap burrito place around a college campus, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one as consistently good as Habañero, with its flavors of Latin America and the Caribbean wrapped up in enormous packages. Fried tilapia, apricot-glazed chicken breast, hand-rubbed spiced flank steak, shredded pork tenderloin, or cinnamon-roasted squash are just some of the ingredients for Habañero’s signature burritos. All salsas are house-made, from the smoky tomato chipotle to the sweet-sounding mango jalapeño, which is hot enough to spark spontaneous combustion.
358 Ludlow Ave., Clifton, (513) 961-6800, habanerolatin. com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DC, DS. $
Mazunte runs a culinary full court press, switching up specials to keep both regulars and staff engaged. Pork tamales arrive swaddled in a banana leaf, the shredded pork filling steeped in a sauce fiery with guajillo and ancho chilies yet foiled by the calming sweetness of raisins. The fried fish tacos are finished with a citrusy red and white cabbage slaw that complements the accompanying mangohabañero salsa. With this level of authentic yet fast-paced execution, a slightly greasy pozole can be easily forgiven. Don’t miss the Mexican Coke, the margaritas, or the nonalcoholic horchata.
5207 Madison Rd., Madisonville, (513) 785-0000, mazuntetacos.com. Lunch and dinner Mon–Sat, brunch Sun. MCC. $
Mexican places seem to change hands in this town so often that you can’t get the same meal twice. Montoya’s is the exception. They’ve been hidden in a tiny strip mall off the main drag in Ft. Mitchell for years. It’s unpretentious and seemingly not interested in success, which means success has never gone to their head here. At a place where you
can get Huracan Fajitas with steak, chicken, and chorizo or Tilapia Asada, the tacos are still a big item.
2507 Chelsea Dr., Ft. Mitchell, (859) 341-0707. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sat. MC, V, DS. $
The menu at this four-table mom-and-pop welcomes you to “a little piece of Mexico.” The huaraches (spelled guarachis here), are flat troughs of thick, handmade fried masa dough the approximate shape and size of a shoeprint, mounded with beans and slivers of grilled beef or chili-red nubs of sausage, shredded lettuce, a crumble of queso fresco, and drizzle of cultured cream. Should you have an adventurous side, you can have your huarache topped with slippery tongue, goat meat, shredded chicken, or pork. There are stews, carne asada plates, and sopes—saucers of fried masa much like huaraches, only smaller.
518 Pike St., Covington, (859) 431-3859. Lunch and dinner seven days. Cash. $
On a Saturday night, Taqueria Mercado is a lively fiesta, with seemingly half of the local Hispanic community guzzling margaritas and cervezas, or carrying out sacks of burritos and carnitas tacos—pork tenderized by a long simmer, its edges frizzled and crispy. The Mercado’s strip mall interior, splashed with a large, colorful mural, is equally energetic: the bustling semi-open kitchen; a busy counter that handles a constant stream of take-out orders; a clamorous, convivial chatter in Spanish and English. Try camarones a la plancha, 12 chubby grilled shrimp tangled with grilled onions (be sure to specify if you like your onions well done). The starchiness of the rice absorbs the caramelized onion juice, offset by the crunch of lettuce, buttery slices of avocado, and the cool-hot pico de gallo. A shrimp quesadilla paired with one of their cheap and potent margaritas is worth the drive alone.
6507 Dixie Hwy., Fairfield, (513) 942-4943; 100 E. Eighth St., downtown, (513) 381-0678, tmercadocincy. com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $
The daily rotation here reads like a fisherman’s wish list: fresh lobsters from the coast of Maine, ahi tuna from Hawaii, clams from New England. But high-quality ingredients are only half the equation; preparation is the other. Herbbroth sea bass, served with roasted fingerling potatoes, makes the taste buds dance. The spacious digs and attentive waitstaff bring a touch of class to Fountain Square, and make it a sophisticated destination. It’s likely to remain a favorite. After all, it’s right in the middle of things.
21 E. Fifth St., downtown, (513) 721-9339, mccormickandschmicks.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DC, DS. $$
When Mapi De Veyra and Kam Siu, the duo behind DOPE! and Decibel Korean Fried Chicken, took over Pelican’s Reef in late 2021, they weren’t looking to make too many changes. Varieties of fresh fish still rotate daily across the 10-by-2-foot chalkboard: mahi-mahi from the Gulf, Lake Erie walleye, wild Alaskan salmon, wreckfish from South Carolina, rainbow trout, and wild striped bass make up the majority of the featured dishes. The regular offerings are no slouch either: a Cajun grouper sandwich with chipotle tartar sauce, chubby fish tacos, perfectly fried piping hot oysters tucked into a buttered and toasted po’ boy bun with housemade slaw, and tartsweet key lime pie. And of course, the damn good New England style chowder.
7261 Beechmont Ave., Anderson Twp., (513) 232-2526, the pelicansreef.com. Lunch Tues-Sat, dinner Mon–Sat. MCC, DS. $$
Chanaka De Lanerolle sold Mt. Adams Fish House back in 2011, and Rosewood Sushi, Thai & Seafood is its reincarnation—and reinvention. Most of the menu tends toward fairly conservative takes on classics, like well-
seasoned crab cakes and thick, creamy chowder full of seafood. The handful of ethnic experiments on the menu are among its most vibrant offerings, including a Mediterranean fish stew that takes inspiration from the North African coast. Tender, fluffy couscous soaks up a fiery but sweet tomato sauce that showcases chiles and peppercorns, golden raisins, and lovely firm cashews, and the stew itself is packed with mussels, shrimp, and chunks of fish.
3036 Madison Rd., Oakley, (513) 631-3474, oakleyfishhouse.com. Lunch Fri–Sun, dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $$$
CARLO & JOHNNY
The stars of the menu are 12 delectable steaks that could sway the vegi-curious to recommit. Not sure which to choose? If you prefer brawny flavor over buttery texture, go for one of the three bone-in rib cuts. Or if it’s that meltin-your-mouth experience that raises your serotonin levels, C&J features several tenderloin cuts, including the premium six-ounce Wagyu filet. There are the usual suspects of raw bar, seafood, pork chops, et al, if you’re interested in nonbeef alternatives.
9769 Montgomery Rd., Montgomery, (513) 936-8600, jeffruby.com/carlo-johnny. Dinner seven days. MCC. $$$$
Top 10 LOSANTI
A bit more upscale than its sister restaurant, Crown Republic Gastropub, Losanti is also more
conservative in its offerings. Service is friendly and informal, and though the meal feels like a special occasion, prices and atmosphere are right for, say, a date, rather than a wedding anniversary. The filet mignon, rib eye, and New York strip are cut to order for each table (there are a few available weights for each). The steaks themselves are totally irreproachable, perfectly seasoned, cooked to precisely the right point. Losanti even makes the steakhouse sides a little special. Sweet and smoky caramelized onions are folded into the mashed potatoes, a nice dusting of truffles wakes up the mac and cheese, and the sweet corn—yes, totally out of season, but still good—is at least freshly cut off the cob and recalls elote with lime and chile.
1401 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 246-4213, losantiotr.com. Dinner Mon–Sat. MCC. $$$
JAG’S STEAK AND SEAFOOD
Chef Michelle Brown’s food is deeply flavored, if occasionally a bit busy, her steaks of the buttery-mild variety, with not too much salty char crust. All five cuts are served with veal demi-glace and fried onion straws. According to my steak-centric dining partner, his cowboy ribeye is “too tender and uniform” (as if that’s a crime). “I like to wrestle with the bone,” he adds, though that’s a scenario that, thankfully, doesn’t get played out in this subdued dining room.
5980 West Chester Rd., West Chester, (513) 860-5353, jags.com. Dinner Tues–Sat. MCC, DC. $$$
JEFF RUBY’S
Filled most nights with local scenesters and power brokers (and those who think they are), everything in this urban steakhouse is generous—from the portions to the expert service. White-jacketed waiters with floor-length aprons deliver two-fisted martinis and mounds of greens dressed in thin vinaigrettes or thick, creamy emulsions. An occasional salmon or sea bass appears, and there’s a small but decent assortment of land fare. But most customers, even
the willowy model types, inhale slabs of beef (dry aged USDA prime) like they’re dining in a crack house for carnivores. The best of these is Jeff Ruby’s Cowboy, 22 ounces of 70-day dry-aged bone-in rib eye. This is steak tailor-made for movers and shakers.
505 Vine St., downtown, (513) 784-1200, jeffruby.com. Dinner Mon–Sat. MCC, DC. $$$$
Top 10 THE
Part of the appeal of the Ruby restaurants is their ability to deliver deep, comfort-food satisfaction. And the steaks. The meat is tender with a rich mineral flavor, and the signature seasoning provided a nice crunch, not to mention blazing heat. The supporting cast is strong—the basket of warm Tribeca Oven bread with a mushroom truffle butter, the addictive baked macaroni and cheese, the creamy garlic mashed potatoes, the crisp-tender asparagus with roasted garlic and lemon vinaigrette—and dinner ends on a sweet note with a piece of Ruby family recipe cheesecake. Neither cloyingly sweet nor overwhelmingly creamy, it’s a lovely slice of restraint.
311 Delta Ave., Columbia-Tusculum, (513) 321-5454, jeffruby.com/precinct. Dinner seven days. MCC. $$$$
TONY’S
He is a captivating presence, Tony Ricci. Best known for his 30 years in fine dining—including the Jeff Ruby empire while managing the venerable Precinct—Ricci has built a life in the hospitality industry. Much of Tony’s menu is right out of a steakhouse playbook: jumbo shrimp and king crab legs from the raw bar; Caprese, Greek, and Caesar salads; sides of creamed spinach, mac-and-cheese, asparagus, and sautéed mushrooms; toppings of roasted garlic or Gorgonzola butters to accompany your center cut of filet mignon. There are boutique touches, though, that make it stand out—a garlic herb aioli with the calamari, steak tartare torch-kissed and topped with a poached egg, a superb rack of lamb
rubbed with aromatic sumac and served with mint pesto.
12110 Montgomery Rd., Symmes Township, (513) 677-8669, tonysofcincinnati.com. Dinner seven days. MCC, DS. $$$$
Nestled in the nearly hidden Market Place Lane, this tiny restaurant isn’t exactly slick. A chalkboard lists the day’s specials, usually spicy dishes worthy of an adventurous diner. But if it’s noodle dishes and curries you’re after, Sukhothai’s pad kee mao—wide rice noodles stir-fried with basil—is the best around. Served slightly charred, the fresh and dried chilies provide enough heat to momentarily suspend your breath. Pad Thai has the right amount of crunch from peanuts, slivers of green onion, and mung sprouts to contrast with the slippery glass noodles, and a few squeezes of fresh lime juice give it a splendid tartness. The crispy tamarind duck is one of the best house specials, the meat almost spreadably soft under the papery skin and perfectly complemented by the sweet-tart bite of tamarind.
8102 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, (513) 794-0057, sukhothaicincin.com. Lunch Tues–Fri, dinner Tues–Sat. DS, MC, V. $
Owner Chanaka De Lanerolle has said that he decided to bring back Teak’s take on Thai food because of the renewed vibrancy in Over-the-
Rhine, which he compared to the energy he felt in Mt. Adams during his time there. But for all of the hype around the restaurant’s reemergence on the scene, it’s probably best to consider it a reimagining rather than a reopening. While long-time favorites show up on the menu, prepared by many of the same kitchen staff members from Mt. Adams, some adaptations have been made to better meet expectations of modern diners. Letting go of preconceived notions about Teak will serve you well. With a two-sided, standalone sushi menu and a wide variety of main plates ranging from small bites to signature dishes, you have plenty of room to craft your own dining experience.
1200 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 421-8325, teakotr.com. Lunch and dinner Tues–Sun. MCC. $$
Classic Thai comfort food on the west side from chef/owner Tussanee Leach, who grew up with galangal on her tongue and sriracha sauce in her veins. Her curries reign: pale yellow sweetened with coconut milk and poured over tender chicken breast and chunks of boiled pineapple; red curry the color of new brick, tasting of earth at first bite, then the sharply verdant Thai basil leaves, followed by a distant heat. Tom Kha Gai soup defines the complex interplay of flavors in Thai food: astringent lemongrass gives way to pepper, then Makrut lime, shot through with the gingery, herbaceous galangal, all yielding to the taunting sweetness of coconut. Even the simple skewers of chicken satay with Thai peanut sauce are rough and honest, dulcified by honey and dirtied up by a smoky grill.
5461 North Bend Rd., Monfort Heights, (513) 481-3360, thainamtip.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MC, V. $
Owners Duy and Bao Nguyen and David Le have created a greatest hits playlist of Vietnamese cuisine: elegant, brothy pho made from poultry, beef, or vegan stocks poured over rice noodles and adrift with slices of onions, meats, or vegetables (the vegan pho chay is by far the most flavorful); fresh julienned vegetables, crunchy sprouts, and herbs served over vermicelli rice noodles (again, the vegan version, bun chay, is the standout); and bánh mì. Be sure to end with a cup of Vietnamese coffee, a devilish jolt of dark roast and sweetened condensed milk that should make canned energy drinks obsolete.
1828 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, (513) 376-9177, pholangthang.com. Lunch and dinner seven days. MCC, DS, DC. $
CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, (ISSN 0746-8 210), May 2023, Volume 56, Number 8. Published monthly ($19.95 for 12 issues annually) at 1818 Race St., Ste. 301, Cincinnati, OH 45202. (513) 421-4300. Copyright © 2022 by Cincinnati Magazine LLC, a subsidiary of Hour Media Group, 5750 New King Dr., Ste. 100, Troy, MI 48098. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or reprinted without permission. Unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, and artwork should be accompanied by SASE for return. The magazine cannot be held responsible for loss. For subscription orders, address changes or renewals, write to CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, 1965 E. Avis Dr., Madison Heights, MI 48071, or call 1-866-660-6247. Periodicals postage paid at Cincinnati, Ohio, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Please send forms 3579 to CINCINNATI MAGAZINE, 1965 E. Avis Dr., Madison Heights, MI 48071. If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year.
Northside fave Tickle Pickle recently opened its third location in Ft. Thomas. The restaurant, known for burgers and shakes named after musical acts and songs (like the Meatallica burger and the Flan Halen milkshake), took over the 915 Pub and Grill space when it closed its doors in mid-March after a 17-year run. ordertickle.com
BEFORE THERE WAS CINCINNATI—A MONTH BEFORE THERE WAS EVEN LOSANTIVILLE there was Columbia. You know it as Columbia-Tusculum, home of Painted Ladies and the Precinct. But long before either of those staples were a glimmer in the city’s mind’s eye, way back in 1788, 27 men and women from New Jersey landed on the banks of the Little Miami River. Their leader, Revolutionary War veteran Captain Benjamin Stites, had purchased 20,000 acres of land from John Symmes with the humble goal of establishing “a great city,” starting from scratch with a smattering of log cabins, a church, a school, and a cemeter y. That graveyard, known today as the Pioneer Memorial Cemetery, still exists, atop a hill near the Lunken Airfield, making it both the only restored remnant of the Columbia settlement and the oldest cemetery in Hamilton County. Cincinnati Parks, which maintains the area, estimates that settlers began burying their families there as early as 1790. Many of the original headstones remain, and the restored park features a towering Corinthian pillar, taken from a mid-1800s post office building, that commemorates the location of the original Columbia Baptist Church.
—LAUREN FISHER
