Lost & Found is Over-the-Rhine’s newest bar, complete with an adventurous cocktail menu, farm-fresh light bites and local artwork that makes for a funky, psychedelic atmosphere.
Helmed by Steven Clement and Camilo Otalora, Lost & Found first opened its doors for a “family day” Aug. 17. Since then, it’s already become a favorite neighborhood hangout. For opening day, Otalora’s family flew in from Los Angeles and Clement’s family came to visit from his hometown of LaGrange, Ohio which, as he describes, is a small village that has no traffic lights and three sports bars.
“When I was first opening Lost & Found, I was trying to conceptualize this idea to my family at home,” Clement says. “They were like, is it a sports bar? Are you going have TVs and have the games on?”
Not quite.
The space was formerly a four-to-five car garage, which was attached to a three-bedroom home purchased by Otalora in 2013. And the transformation is astounding.
Walk into the bar and you’re transported to what seems like a magical underground hideaway. The artwork above the bar is reminiscent of the album cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a soulful collage of pop culture icons and gigantic flowers — engrossing to observe and almost as stimulating as your cocktail.
Nearly everything you see throughout the bar was made by local artists. The murals are by Cody Gunningham, there are ceramics by Taylor Carter of CKTC and the upholstery is by Helen Smith of Helltown Workshop.
Clement moved out of LaGrange in 2005 to head to Columbus, then to Greater Cincinnati in 2007. He’s lived in Over-the-Rhine since 2013. He says that when he was younger, he had aspirations of retiring young, maybe by creating a money-making machine of a business that didn’t require his direct involvement after opening. That changed when he started working in the hospitality industry, specifically at Salazar as the bar manager shortly after it opened in 2014, where the care for ingredients, their origins and their farmers was a top priority. He credits Salazar’s owner/chef Jose Salazar for encouraging him in his pursuit to open his own bar.
“It wasn’t until then that I became super passionate about the food and drink industry. In 2014 I started thinking that maybe I can do this,” Clement says.
During this time, Clement was working on organic produce farms in and around Cincinnati. He worked in exchange for produce, happy to learn the skill and get his hands dirty. Much of the produce now served at Lost & Found is sourced from the same farmers with whom he’d acquainted himself during this time.
“I didn’t realize until I started getting outside the city itself how many people actually make this city run. The produce, the people that care for it, it’s really amazing. I was part of a co-op for a little farm. I did that for three years until I started focusing more on this project,” he says. “If you’re just willing to learn, there are people out there willing to teach you.”
On the food menu, try the crudités ($7), comprised of roasted, pickled and blanched seasonal vegetables like cauliflower, carrots, green beans, radishes and cucumbers paired with romesco and bagna cauda sauces.
A popular choice is “Chips & Dips” ($5) — the russet potato chips are fried at the Findlay Kitchen, as there’s no fryer in Lost & Found’s efficient and compact kitchen behind the bar. The kitchen is impressive to those who care for the art of ergonomics, seeing how they’ve built it up instead of out; a ladder system will soon be installed to aid in accessing the items.
The dips served with your spuds are a Basque tomato sauce in one dish and minted yogurt in the other, making for a nice variety of tangy and acidic in the tomato sauce and creamy and herbaceous in the yogurt.
There is also crostini ($7) made with an Allez baguette and served with Leonora cheese and pickled Michigan blueberries (Clement originally served this with mulberries that he harvested in OTR, but they shortly ran out), savory oat crumbles and micro greens. The menu will change based on seasonal availability, so the bar is going to focus on pickling lots of vegetables for the winter months.
Melissa Mileto, former owner of Take the Cake, was consulted on the menu. Niall Wright, former sous chef at Nada, heads the kitchen as chef at Lost & Found. Every employee is cross-trained on kitchen and bar items, which rings true with Lost & Found’s communal environment: several employees and Clement live together.
The drink menu spans wine, cocktails and draft beer. Aiming to be an easy choice for locals to enjoy any given evening, the price points are accessible, with a $3 pint of Short’s Local’s Light, a Michigan-made lager that’s crisp and flavorful and tastes way above the price tag.
The Jazz Buddy cocktail ($10) is a great last taste of summer: tequila poured over a large frozen watermelon juice ice cube with Cocchi Americano, lime and cinnamon. It gets sweeter the more the watermelon melts into your drink, so give it a few swirls after your first sips to get things moving. The Betelgeuse ($9) is also a favorite, made with gin, beets, dill, lemon and Dijon — likely not something you’d see at any sports bar in LaGrange.
Lost & Found, 22 E. 14th St., Over-the-Rhine, lostandfoundotr.com.
This article appears in Sep 11-18, 2019.