Note: If you’re planning on coming to town next month for our Chair Show and Open Day, here are some restaurants to try. There’s a reason Cincinnati is one of the fattest cities in the USA.
Megan and I often joke that next year we’re going to flip the script on our classes at the storefront. We’ll hold a week of great restaurant meals, and we’ll also build a little stool (just to say we did some woodworking).
We are obsessed with good food – if you’ve taken a class here you probably already know this. So *if* we ever did a food tour, here is what the itinerary might look like.
Monday
Breakfast: Sugar ‘n’ Spice in Over the Rhine. This is an old-school diner. Stick to the basics, and you’ll be thrilled: pancakes, biscuits, French toast, home fries and bacon.
Lunch: City Bird (any location). A local chicken chain, and the best. Get the chicken however you like it (ask for it spicy if you like spicy). Be sure to get fries. And the salad is outstanding.
Dinner: St. Francis Apizza in Hyde Park. On Mondays, St. Francis does Chicago tavern-style pizza. It’s a six-day process to make the thin and flavorful dough. Standouts: pepperoni and sausage, and the bacon pizza (with whole slices of bacon). Pick up your pizza and eat it at a table in the parking lot. Get some drinks at Dutch’s a few doors down.
Tuesday
Breakfast: Maplewood downtown. Everything here is tasty and fresh. I love the chilaquiles and the lemon ricotta pancakes. The juice is worth it. Hang out by the restaurant’s front windows and watch the world go to work.
Lunch: Eli’s Barbecue, Findlay Market. The pulled pork sandwich and the smoked turkey sandwich are mainstays. Get the jalapeno cheddar grits on the side, or the mashed potatoes (which get seared on the griddle). After lunch, tour the market and get a waffle at the Taste of Belgium stand. You can spend the whole day at the market and its surroundings.
Lunch (per Fitz): Eckerlin’s Meats, Findlay Market. The hot pastrami sandwich is the best I’ve had in Cincinnati in years.
Dinner: Northside Yacht Club. This is in Megan’s neighborhood, and damn is it good. Great burgers, wings, fries. And always check out the monthly special. It’s a dive bar with A+ food and drinks. It’s not fancy. The “yacht club” is a joke – the building is on an industrial creek. For dessert, go to Shake It records (also in Northside). One of the two best record stores in the city.
Wednesday
Breakfast: Brown Bear Bakery. Cincinnati is awash in amazing bakeries. Brown Bear is a family favorite. Everything I’ve ever had there (except one thing) was mind-blowing good. Great coffee. Great place to sit and watch the city.
Lunch: Olla. Just a couple blocks from our office, Olla is serious Mexican food. The birria (in all its forms) is mouthwatering. The best guacamole in the city. Fantastic tacos. And a great place to hang out with a margarita.
Dinner: Colette. A small French restaurant that continuously blows my mind. I have had everything on the menu. And I will have everything again. If I had to pick a few favorites… the brioche, the cod, the ravioli and the cote de boeuf. My favorite cup of coffee in the city, too.
Thursday
Breakfast: Young Buck Deli. Only two things on the menu. Both are great.
Lunch: Heyday. We talk about this place a lot. On any given day, I will say that Heyday has the best burger and the best fries. Friendly staff. Everything is fresh and perfect.
Dinner: Cafe Mochiko. My favorite Japanese place in town. Fantastic ramen, karaage and katsu sandwiches on milk bread (it’s a Japanese bakery by day). Even the damn burger will blow you away. And if you like Japanese pastries, this is the place.
Friday
Breakfast: Coppins. The restaurant in the Hotel Covington. This is where we take guests when they visit. Lots of good stuff to please everyone in the family. And a beautiful place to eat, too. If the weather is nice, sit outside in the courtyard.
Lunch: Sotto. Usually I recommend Sotto for dinner, but it’s difficult to get a reservation for dinner. So go for lunch. Everything – and I mean everything – on the menu is fantastic. Sotto is where we go to celebrate our victories or lick our wounds. The short rib cappellacci can change your life.
Dinner: Purple Poulet. A family-run restaurant with the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Shrimp and grits. All the Southern specialties. And if you don’t get the bread pudding at the end, then you will have committed a crime against puddings.
The above itinerary wasn’t easy to put together. On any given day I’d instead insist that you go to the Eagle, Allez, Otto’s, the Baker’s Table, Nada, Boca, Taft Brewhouse, Decibel, Libby’s, Mita’s, Losanti, Senate, Nine Giant, Crown Republic or Taglio’s.
And Fitz would add El Camino, Teak, Kiki, the Pony, Gulow Street and Sacred Beast.
Maybe save those for next year.
— Christopher Schwarz
It all sounds wonderful. Sometimes I wish I were the person that went to all the places, but I’m really not. I’m the one who finds a couple of restaurants I like, and orders the same two things at those same two places, forever.
You can be. Just get in the car and come visit. We’ll take care of the rest.
You are my kind of people! Wish I could make it to your shop–maybe one of these days.
Approved.
If you can picture Homer drooling and saying, “mmmm, pizza”. That’s me right now.
Saturday: 24 hour food coma.
Wow. That would be a multi-week itinerary for me, since I rarely eat more than one meal a day (sad, but necessary). As a former Cincinnati boy, I gotta ask: no chili at all? Even as a cultural experience?
I love the chili. And I’m not from around here. But the chili is the chili. You don’t need us to tell you about it. And I haven’t found one place that rises above the rest. They’re all pretty good.
Kung Food no longer makes the list? Great list otherwise. I’d have added Allyn’s, btw.
We love Kung Food. The restaurant scene here is official crazy.
Allyn’s is under new management, so we want to check it out.
Dont the afternoon nap at the purrfect day cat cafe
I need to get out more. I live in Milford and haven’t heard of half of these places.
Any food highlights/favourite dishes from your travels abroad that you would care to mention? How does it compare?
Good lord, that would be a book. We travel on our stomachs. And mealtime is the most important time. You can find great food almost anywhere if you look hard enough.
I love the food scenes in Chicago and Portland, Ore. But I’m always happy to return home and continue to whittle down my list of place in this city I want to try. Right now, I have 15 places on that list. I hope to scratch one off on Friday.
What, no love for Montgomery Inn? My favorite when I had meetings in Cincinnati!!
This year just really spun away from me. But this coming year, for sure.
Seems like you’d be building more than a little stool after a restaurant tour like that…
I see what you did there. 🤣
I’m just curious as to how many of these eateries were open in 2016, when I was there for Woodworking in America.
I will be taking the Shaker Tray class in December. I was so charmed with Covington during my last visit that I decided to bring Mrs. Piper with me this time. I gotta print this page as a starting place from which to create a dining agenda for our sojourn in a couple of months. We’re going to hang around for couple more days to do some “big city” Christmas shopping, as long as we’re out of the Oklahoma boondocks.
Do you guys have a side job with the Chamber of Commerce? Great article!