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FOODIE FADS We ate well this year. These

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FROM THE EDITOR

FROM THE EDITOR

TRENDS

How We're Eating

These food trends defined dining in 2022.

It’s been a big year for food here in Cleveland. Ambitious restaurants have popped up in every corner of the city, with new flavors and tastes emerging on inventive menus. It’s safe to say a lot has changed in Northeast Ohio’s dining scene in the past 12 months — and Cleveland Magazine was here to capture those changes real-time. Looking back, we’re taking note of the big shifts and trends in Cleveland’s restaurant industry. Here are a few things we noticed.

BUILT TO SHARE

When something is good, you want to share it. Whether it’s Zhug, The Last Page or Jaja, some of our most exciting new restaurants offer ambitious sharables. Restaurateurs say the tide is turning in this classically bigger-the-better town, as diners want to try a bit of everything. zhugcle.com, thelastpagerestaurant.com, cordeliacle.com - DS

GHOST KITCHENS’ NEXT LIVES

Diners are craving in-person restaurant experiences again, meaning some of the pandemic-popular ghost kitchens have found new life as brick-and-mortars. Two of the year’s most-hyped eateries — the classy Indian-fusion restaurant Amba and popular sushi spot Sora — trace their roots back to ghost kitchen beginnings. eatatsora.com, ambacle.com -AN

IT’S CORN!

Thanks to TikTok's “corn kid” or maybe Ohio’s position as a major corn producer, corn can be found all over the place. Our favorite sweet corn concoctions: Salt's cocktail; Cilantro Taqueria's elote; and Mitchell's seasonal ice creams. “I can’t imagine a more beautiful thing.” saltcleveland.com, cilantrotaqueria.com, mitchellshomemade.com - AN

MOCKTAILS

Maybe I noticed it more because my wife was pregnant, but mocktails were on nearly every menu. While some lack body due to the absence of alcohol, Cordelia uses alcohol-free spirits to keep the integrity of your favorite cocktails. cordeliacle.com - DS

RISING COSTS

From burgers to crab legs, local operators have been feeling the effects of rising food costs — and so, in turn, have diners. Menu prices have noticeably increased this year. But customers have still come out in droves since the pandemic shutdowns. - DS

RESTAURANT REVAMPS

We’re often distracted by shiny, new objects, but brand refreshes have come to old haunts. Karen Small’s Flying Fig relaunched as Pearl Street Wine Market, and Sam McNulty’s Bier Markt/Bar Cento turned into Bright Side. pearlstreet cle.com, brightsidecle.com - DS

THE DISH

Orlando's Secret

The family behind the 150-year-old bread business lets us in on how it has achieved longevity.

The secret recipe to Orlando Baking Co.'s longevity, as it celebrates its 150th year anniversary, isn’t much of a secret at all — it’s in the name.

A career in the family business tends to start early. For John Anthony Orlando, his first paycheck was earned at age 11, for delivering bread with his father. Today, John Anthony may still be found honing this craft on the bakery floor, even as he carries the torch as the president and CEO of this local legacy brand.

“You always had a passion about it,” John Anthony says. “It was a pride. We had our name on the bag, and we were going out there to sell the bread and take care of the customers.”

Serving the company’s current customers is far less arduous a task than for generations past. Cooperation among family members has remained a constant, but in the early days, it was a necessity — for stacking and hauling crops in the mountains that overlooked the Italian village of Castel di Sangro, where Giustino Orlando founded the company in 1872, or to man the “Orlando Bros.

The family business, now located on the east side of Cleveland, started in Italy in 1872 and is still run by descendants.

Baking” horse and wagon that delivered hearth-baked bread and pasta in Cleveland around the first American location on Central Avenue in 1904.

Before settling at its current location at 7777 Grand Ave., company headquarters moved around Cleveland’s east side. Nick Orlando, vice president of sales and marketing and cousin to John Anthony, recalls early memories of growing up just next to the bakery when it was located on Woodland Ave.

“The family was all centered around the bakery there,” Nick says. “There were so many people, everybody working allhand work.”

The business’s operation has outgrown its humble beginnings by leaps and bounds — in the past 20 years, Nick estimates the company has at least doubled in size to employing around 300 people, with an eye toward further growth. Utilizing nine production lines, the bakery produces thousands of loaves of hearthbaked bread per hour, in more than 250 varieties.

The symphony of Italian voices that once guided production has been replaced by the whirring of spinning metallic racks, stories-high, cooling cooked bread, or by the warning beeps and flashing lights of heavy machinery. Though today’s production methods have taken some of the soul out of the baking process, the company has looked for ways to maintain a familial atmosphere.

According to human resource manager Kathy Perry, as many as seven languages can be heard spoken by employees of the diversifying staff. Since assuming her role last December, Perry has taken initiatives to improve accessibility in employee documentation and advocate for the use of tools such as Google Translate. Such a commitment to the workforce has resulted in some employees carrying out careers with the Orlando Baking Co. for upward of three to four decades.

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