This story is featured in CityBeat's Dec. 27 print edition.
Not to get all Dickensian on you, but “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times” could apply to this year’s Cincinnati restaurant community.
Still emerging from the pandemic and dealing with inflation and ongoing supply issues, the industry endured an array of closures this year, going back to February with the sudden demise of Royce and PearlStar. Higher prices at the wholesale level meant that restaurants either had to raise prices for diners or cut into already slim profits. And while, by most accounts, the labor crisis for restaurant workers continued to ease in 2023, owners still engage in the age-old struggle to recruit and retain kitchen and service teams.
But on a decidedly brighter note, our city’s restaurant community was buoyed by the announcement in January that five local establishments had received preliminary James Beard Award nominations, an unprecedented bounty of recognition. Three of those nominees later were named finalists in the categories of Outstanding Restaurant (Mita’s), Best New Restaurant (Nolia Kitchen) and Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker (Elaine Uykimpang Bentz, Café Mochiko). Each was up against nominees from the entire United States, and although none won their category, they scaled unprecedented heights in what’s been called the Oscars of the dining world. It was a great showing for our mid-sized, Midwestern city.
The additional preliminary nominees were in the category of Best Chef, Great Lakes region for both Mid-City Kitchen chef de cuisine Francisco Alfaro and Hideki and Yuko Harada, chef/owners of Kiki.
An optimist by nature, I can’t help but focus on this good news. The accomplishments of the nominated chefs, baker and restaurant owners made 2023 a notable year for Cincinnati dining. If not exactly the best of times, then, on balance, pretty darn good.
Jeffrey Harris, chef/owner at Nolia Kitchen, said the Beard nomination took him by surprise when a friend called to ask if he’d seen the announcement, which he hadn’t. When that call ended, he said his phone just kept ringing with well-wishers and media folk seeking his reaction.
“It was surprising and humbling,” he told me recently. “And it gave me hope, letting me know how far the Cincinnati dining scene has come.” The nomination made an “extremely big impact” on demand for seats at his restaurant. “It was like Friday night every day, but I’m happy it’s subsided some.”
Oops. Soon after we spoke, Nolia Kitchen received another accolade when it made Esquire Magazine’s list of 50 “Best New Restaurants in America 2023.” A week or so later, OpenTable put Nolia on a list of “most beloved” restaurants in the state. Looks like Harris will once again fill his small, OTR restaurant as if every day was a Friday.
Most of the Beard-nominated Cincinnati establishments have in common a stripped-down, casual vibe housed within relatively small physical footprints. The outlier is Mita’s, which another restaurateur admiringly referred to as “a big-city restaurant.” But Mita’s does share these other restaurants’ ability to surprise us, to invite patrons to be open to cooking styles and ingredients we may find unfamiliar. Their menus aren’t necessarily organized in courses, and at least some seats are left open for walk-ins — or the place might not take reservations at all.
They’re likely to be tucked away on smaller streets (Nolia), off-the-grid neighborhoods (Kiki in College Hill; Cafe Mochiko in East Walnut Hills) or pioneering a newly redeveloped downtown ‘hood (Mid-City Kitchen on Court Street).
Again, Mita’s doesn’t exactly fit that description. Located in the heart of the city’s business district, Jose Salazar’s Latin-inspired restaurant opened in 2015 and “already had a following,” Salazar said when it was nominated as one of the best restaurants in the U.S. “We did see a sizable boost in sales,” he added, “but just a temporary boost.”
A more consistent factor this year probably was the effect of economic headwinds. “I think we’re in a bit of a recession,” Salazar said. “People are spending less, going out less, are more cautious about spending money.” Even so, he expressed confidence about the overall vitality of downtown, noting that the parking garages are busier at night now than they were before COVID. He stressed the “at night” part since the recent transition to more people working remotely caused a significant drop in lunch traffic downtown.
Hideki Harada, co-owner of Kiki College Hill with his wife, Yuko, summed up 2023 as “a somber, bittersweet year for all of us in the restaurant community.” Although he called the year “decent” for Kiki, he noted that “accolades don’t put money in the bank. It’s a tough business that takes a lot of hard work.”
And yet he is on the verge of opening Daruma, a grab-and-go bodega on Court Street that will offer lunch options to nearby workers in a neighborhood where there still are a fair number of office workers. Harada also oversees Sen, a popular fresh fish and oyster stall at Findlay Market run by his partner, Ben Long.
Both Salazar and Mid-City owner Mike Stankovich said they looked forward to the opening of Daruma, which Stankovich welcomes as an enhancement of the developing Court Street mini-neighborhood.
Cafe Mochiko and Kiki also thrive on serving its neighbors in East Walnut Hills and College Hill, respectively. “We love the neighborhood,” Mochiko co-owner Elaine Uykimpang Bentz said. “There’s a lot of foot traffic [and] a tight-knit community. People like what we do, and our prices are fair.” She and her husband, co-owner Eric Bentz, spent a couple of years putting together a “stronger-than-ever team,” Elaine Bentz said. “People can see that everybody working here is happy where they are.”
As the New Year dawns, several noteworthy restaurants are expanding the city’s culinary offerings. In the heart of OTR, you’ll find the “mostly French” bistro, Colette, near Washington Park, and over on Vine Street, the oyster bar Atwood is up and running in PearlStar’s former space. For outside-the-box pasta creations, look for Wildweed to move into its digs on Walnut Street as soon as the space is ready. Chef Jordan Anthony Brown will be at the helm of Aperture in Walnut Hills early in 2024, and Derek Brazile will move Pata Roja Taqueria from its food truck and nearby-bar operation to its own Court Street storefront.
Keeping a restaurant going has never been an easy task, at least not as long as I’ve been patronizing them. But we can look back on ’23 with satisfaction and be assured that many delicious meals lie ahead.
Some of my favorite restaurant dishes this year:
- Callaloo at Nolia Kitchen (Over-the-Rhine)
- Chickpea and Cucumber Salad at Al-Posto (Hyde Park)
- Pozole Verde Con Mariscos at Mita’s (Downtown)
- Fattoush at Abigail Street (Over-the-Rhine)
- Valrhona Dark Chocolate Crème Brûlée at Via Vite (Downtown)
- Profiteroles at Colette (Over-the-Rhine)
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