FOOD & DRINK
A spread of food available from vendors at Oakley Kitchen Food Hall P H OTO : H A I L E Y B O L L I N G E R
Affordable Variety Is the Main Course in Oakley CityBeat dining critic Pama Mitchell explores another Cincinnati neighborhood’s culinary delights BY PA M A M IT C H E L L
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f there’s a faster-growing city neighborhood over the past decade than Oakley, I haven’t heard about it. As of this spring, the 74-acre Oakley Station development south of I-71 includes almost 500,000 square feet of retail and office space along with 462 residential units. Restaurants aren’t a major part of the development, but you can find quite a few eateries in the surrounding neighborhood, where relatively affordable rental units have
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attracted younger people with sufficient disposable income — enough to keep a lot of the restaurants hopping, especially on weekends. Oakley isn’t a restaurant mecca like downtown or Over-the-Rhine, and you won’t find a lot of what I would call “fine dining.” But Red Feather Kitchen (3200 Madison Road, redfeatherkitchen.com) certainly has the best claim on that designation. The food is high-end, both in terms
MARCH 23, 2022 - APRIL 5, 2022
of price and quality, especially the meat. It will set you back over $50 for either a double-cut pork chop or a portion of melt-in-your-mouth beef short rib, so it’s the kind of place where people spend an evening — which is appropriate, since there’s a short supply of performing arts here to rush off to, unlike downtown. Red Feather’s bar puts out some of the best cocktails in town — the Penicillin ($14) is first-rate — and the wine list won’t disappoint even genuine connoisseurs. It’s a spacious restaurant with several dining rooms and a separate room for the bar, along with valet parking. On a recent visit with friends, we definitely enjoyed the drinks. Foodwise, our favorites were roasted beet salad with hazelnuts and arugula ($9), a special entrée of mussels and frites ($18), and the aforementioned short rib ($51). At the opposite end of the fancy scale, you’ll find Oakley Kitchen Food Hall (3715 Madison Road, oakley-kitchen. com), a warehouse-style assortment
of casual food and drink stands with enough space and variety to accommodate the hungry masses. The first floor of what had been an antique mall houses more than a half-dozen separate eateries and an excellent bar, while the second floor is reserved for seating. In the evenings, enough people come to fill up two or three nearby parking lots, looking for everything from a Hawaiian stand called Onolicious (which offers grilled Spam, an island favorite) to the meat specialists Parts & Labor and Khana, an Indian grill, among several others. It’s a good destination for couples or groups that can’t agree on what kind of cuisine they want for dinner. The upstairs area is spacious enough to accommodate more tables than are there now, which would come in handy on busy Saturdays. I can recommend smoked brisket with a choice of two sides from Parts & Labor ($16), enhanced by a tangy housemade barbecue sauce. The Mediterranean stand, Olive Tree, dished out a nice lamb kebab with spiced rice
