23 Village Square, Glendale, 513-771-6612, piazzadiscepoli.com/piccolo
Manager Julia Piazza Porter welcomed and seated us at Piccolo Wine Room in Glendale, and we spent the next couple of hours sampling wine and chef Aimee Saling’s six-item food menu. Both the setting and the bonhomie made for a splendid experience — and we enjoyed the food and drink, too.
Conceived as a wine bar, Piccolo offers wines by the six-ounce glass ($7-$9) or two-ounce taste ($3-$4), or you can select a bottle from the shop next door and pay $10 corkage. If you bring non-wine drinkers with you, they can choose from a list of mostly local bottled beers.
Although the wine room operates Tuesday through Saturday, hot food is available only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with a simple cheese plate and maybe a couple of other snacks earlier in the week. The menu rarely repeats from one week to the next but usually will include a soup and a salad, a hearty burger or meat dish and perhaps another sandwich and two or three entrées for a total of six choices.
My husband started with roasted garlic and corn bisque ($6), thickened with not too much cream and garnished with bacon — a delicious soup. I asked for a half-order of the salad, which was crunchy cashew and kale ($10 whole; $5 half). It was pretty much a perfect salad. For our mains, he got the very good mushroom and asparagus crepes ($12) and I went for beef Bolognese ($13).
The overwhelming majority of Piccolo patrons drop in from surrounding neighborhoods, but the concept and execution make it worth a visit even from city folks. (Pama Mitchell)
1527 Madison Road, East Walnut Hills, 513-274-3238, opieo.com
While Findlay-Market-famous for their sweet pies, O Pie O’s restaurant also does savory — pot pies, quiche, empanadas, etc. And they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner with a selection of both types. For dinner, my friend ordered a slice of chicken pot pie ($11), while I opted for two of the smaller options: the corn and cheese empanada ($7) and the savory pocket pie ($9), filled with ham, cheddar and red pepper.
Chef Ian Sobeck’s pie crust anchors the menu with a flakiness that truly melts in your mouth and tastes just as lovely and buttery whether filled with sweet or savory ingredients, both of which he tries to source as locally as possible. My empanada was fantastic. The savory pocket pie and chicken pot pie were hearty, comforting and delicious.
My friend and I split a slice of the rosemary caramel apple pie ($5) with vanilla ice cream ($2 extra for à la mode; they serve both Graeter’s ice cream and Madisono’s Gelato). The crust is, again, the star, but the way Sobeck manages to coax an herbal rosemary flavor out of his caramel apple mixture is also a standout — it’s subtle and earthy and perfectly balances the sweetness of the rest of the pie.
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Colleen McCroskey)
3514 Erie Ave., Hyde Park, 513-818-8720, fornoosteriabar.com
Via Vite chef/owner Cristian Pietoso and his wife Amanda leased the space in East Hyde Park that formerly housed M Wood Fired Oven, gave the place a minimal facelift and opened as Forno Osteria + Bar in the early fall, serving what they describe as “Italian comfort food.” The chef is Stefano Carne, who spent four years working his way up to sous chef at Via Vite before collaborating with Cristian to develop the new Forno menu. Their intention was to offer “the most authentic dishes possible,” Cristian says.
We tried as many items as possible, beginning with salads and appetizers, and traded tastes of everything. My choice was Cristian’s Gazpacho ($12), a chilled vegetable purée — orange in color, reminding me of the gazpacho you get in Spain — with a large serving of crabmeat in the middle of the bowl. It was the consensus favorite of the first courses among my dining companions. I preferred a companion’s heirloom tomato salad ($12), an unconventional preparation with avocado on toast, topped with sliced tomatoes.
In addition to a selection of red- and white-sauced pizzas ($11-$18), the menu lists six pasta plates and five meat- and fish-based entrées. After hearing our waiter’s suggestions, we ended up with two pizzas and two entrées, plus one of the “sides for the table.”
After all that, you’d think I would skip dessert. But we took one for the team and split two of the five dessert offerings. The lemon tart ($8) came topped with meringue, not whipped cream, a detail that always scores points with me. The basil pannacotta ($7) may have been my favorite dish of the night — not too sweet and flavored subtly with the fragrant herb, like one last whiff of summer. (PM)
602 Main St., Covington, Ky., 859-815-8736, facebook.com/frida602
Owners Paul Weckman and his wife Emily Wolff, who also run Otto’s down the street, wanted their MainStrasse taqueria Frida 602 — named after the legendary painter Frida Kahlo — to be a hub for the growing village. So far they’ve succeeded; the locals have been coming out in droves.
Their cocktail list is divided into margaritas and house cocktails made with either tequila or mezcal, and they offer a long list of both spirits ranging from $3.50-$11.25 per “shot,” or you can get a flight, both served in copitas (small clay cups).
Frida is a bar first, but food comes in at a close second. The menu is categorized into antojitos of chips and salsas, chips and queso dip, salads, nachos and several kinds of tacos. You can order either two or three of each taco ($8-$14). The fish tacos came with thick slices of mild mahi mahi rubbed with spices and served with slaw, pineapple chunks and aioli. The goat in the goat tacos was roasted a long time to eliminate some of the gamey flavor. Of the tacos we tried, the vegetarian chickpea and Brussels sprout was the best. Usually I don’t like sprouts, but these were slightly caramelized, and the chickpeas and peanut salsa sealed the deal.
Also a must: the queso dip. It’s a blend of melted pepper jack and Parmesan cheeses, corn and hot peppers served in a round iron skillet and accompanied by a metal bucket of crispy tortillas to scoop up the gooiness. (Garin Pirnia)
4231 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, 513-541-0528, northsideyachtclub.com
The best thing about the new Northside Yacht Club has to be the quality of the drinks. The section called “Kill Devil” lists seven house concoctions ($8-$9) ranging from a couple of high-octane drinks (“Boat with caution” on these, the menu advises) called Suffering Bastard and Painkiller to the more tropical-themed Singapore Sling and Banana Daiquiri. After much discussion with the bartender, I asked him to make me the daiquiri, and it was not only beautiful in a Tiki cup with paper-umbrella garnish, but also quite delicious and sneakily strong with white rum.
The fare might be described as typical bar food with a few creative twists. Most bar food leans toward meat, cheese and fries — your basic high-fat, low-cost, satisfying stuff. The Yacht Club has three sandwiches: short rib grilled cheese, smoked portabello ($8 each) and smoked pulled pork ($9). All meats are smoked and braised in-house, including smoked chicken wings (6 for $6; 12 for $12), which come with a choice of butter, Parmesan garlic or cilantro honey-lime sauces and blue cheese. For vegetarians, there’s the portabello sandwich and a large salad with corn, avocado, black beans and pickled onions ($9), or vegan lentil Cincinnati chili over fries ($8), to which you can add vegan or dairy cheese.
My husband and I split a few dishes: the pulled pork sandwich — very tasty with a fried egg on top of the open-faced bun; the salad; vegan chili and mac and cheese. My favorite bite overall was the mac and cheese made with cheddar mornay sauce. I liked that while it was as rich and creamy as such a dish should be, the portion was small enough that I could (and did) eat the whole thing without feeling like I’d gone overboard (nautical pun intended). (PM)
501 Race St., Downtown, 513-421-6482, mitas.co
Chef Jose Salazar is a continent away from his mamita (grandmother) and the hand-cranked mill she still uses to grind corn for arepas and empanadas, but his new restaurant, Mita’s, is a tribute to her spirit and to Spanish and Latin American food.
Salazar mentions plantains as an ingredient that many North American diners don’t know, but some of the more intriguing dishes at Mita’s use familiar ingredients in new ways. One of the tapas dishes, for example, melds together simple roasted cauliflower and mission figs ($7). The figs give the savory dish a fruity earthiness and grace, accented by soft pine nuts and herbs.
The fresh emerald-green sauce for the short-rib empanadas ($11) is unexpectedly minty, and the beef is tucked into cornmeal crusts so light and crisp that it lifts the dish to the sublime. Empanadas can be doughy and heavy, but here, they’re perfect.
Pastry chef Brian Neumann has earned his chops at Salazar, Salazar’s first and eponymous eatery, and is now making things sweet at both of the Salazar spots. His peach Melocotón ($9) is amazing. The bar at Mita’s is a great place to get familiar with mezcal, the underexplored spirit-of-the-moment, and the Mezcal Manhattan ($12) is getting lots of buzz.
Compared to Salazar, Mita’s is vast, and the huge windows give diners a good view of pedestrians passing by. During daylight hours, they’re fairly opaque from the outside, but after dark, the restaurant glows. (Anne Mitchell)
15 N. Fort Thomas Ave., Fort Thomas, Ky., 859-441-0967, 15northpizza.com
15 North Owners Lori and Ed Gossman left their Italian restaurant in Washington D.C., Roscoe’s Pizzeria, in exchange for a quieter life in Northern Kentucky, opening their new restaurant at 15 N. Fort Thomas Ave. (hence the name) in a former Mio’s.
Since opening, the Gossmans have been slowly rolling things out. Their wood-fired pizzas are the centerpiece of their “limited” menu; they plan on expanding the current salad, pizza and sandwich selection in the future.
The Neapolitan-style wood-fired pizzas are smallish — about six slices per pizza — so it’s best to order one per person. Surprisingly, most of the pizzas are veggie-friendly; 15 North currently offers about 11 pizzas. Supposedly it only takes them 75 seconds to cook a pizza in the restaurant’s wood-fired oven, and the pizzas ($9-$14) come out charred at the edges. We tried the Wild Mushroom, with big and tiny exotic ’shrooms, double-bock mushroom cream, smoked mozzarella, thyme and lemon zest. The contrast of the different-sized mushrooms elevated the pizza beyond a pedestrian mushroom pie.
Our second pizza, the Prosciutto Arugula, came with olive oil, roasted garlic, mozzarella, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto and raw arugula layered on top after the pizza was taken out of the oven, adding a nice freshness.
Fort Thomas isn’t the most likely place for pizza, but I will drive anywhere for a good pie that’s made with interesting ingredients, which is why 15 North’s worth the trip to the ’burbs. (GP)
2200 Victory Parkway, East Walnut Hills, 513-751-2333, jrcincy.com
Jean-Robert de Cavel’s Le Bar a Boeuf — French slang for “beef bar” — has a lot going for it: a beautiful dining room, a spacious lounge and spectacular panoramic views of the Ohio River.
The raison d’etre of the place is, of course, the “boeuf” — ground meat (beef, bison, lamb, fish or wagyu) served without a bun but with potatoes and veggies, along with a selection of sauces, cheese and garnishes. Two of our party selected from the boeuf menu section and went with the server’s suggestions about how to dress their meat. My husband selected bison, topped with goat cheese and a delicious “forestiere” mushroom-based sauce ($22). It was perfect in every way.
I wanted to sample something from the short list of “main course” options — classic French dishes such as calves’ liver with onions and duck leg confit, each accompanied by potatoes and veggies. My entrée was an excellent trout amandine ($21), perhaps the best plate of the night. The sliced, toasted almonds atop the delicate, lemon-scented fish lit up my taste buds.
We managed to try one of the desserts, recommended by our server: a duo of chocolate mousse with crepe ($8). But, truthfully, we were too stuffed to appreciate it. We couldn’t get to other intriguing menu items, either, including beef barley and fish velouté soups, and an array of creative side dishes and appetizers such as “shrimp Maisonette style” ($11), crab cake ($14), snail en papillote ($12) and beef tongue French dip ($16). More reasons to return! (PM)
1403 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-579-8500, pontiacbbq.com
Pontiac, named for a Chicago café where owner Daniel Wright and his wife shared their first date, features a quirky coupling of barbecue and Tiki-style cocktails along with more than 100 bourbon varieties, 10 draft beers and an assortment of popular bottles and cans. Signature Southern sodas like Ale-8, Squirt and Cheerwine round out the beverage menu.
We started off with the requisite Pulled Pork Nacho Cheese Poutine ($9). Wright’s braised short rib version at Senate may be legendary, but Pontiac’s take on the Canadian drunk-food classic is no slouch. Perfect for two, the poutine was a well-balanced ratio of crinkle-cut fries smothered in a creamy, Velveeta-inspired cheese and pulled pork saturated in sweet barbecue sauce and jalapeno slices.
We were next presented with two meaty entrées served on sheets of butcher paper: a Texas-style beef brisket sandwich ($9) with a side of bacon-fat grits ($3) and a smoked turkey sandwich ($9).
My brisket sandwich sported a soft, diminutive bun dwarfed by three heaping slices of meat topped with a peppery barbecue sauce and creamy coleslaw. Holding it inches from my mouth, I could easily smell the rich history of this slow-cooked beef’s birthplace: a white-oak fueled, carefully cured smoker. I’m usually reluctant to order brisket — it’s often served tough, dry and leathery — but Pontiac’s is easily among my favorites: It is tender and juicy, with a vibrant pink smoke ring and a pleasantly caramelized outer crust.
Wright could easily have transformed barbecue, an inherently unpretentious preparation, into something unapproachably highbrow. Instead, he’s created a restaurant for the masses, an urban dive where hipsters, dweebs, geeks, West Siders and average Joes can rub elbows with one another in a harmonious, righteous fog of evaporating meat sweat. (Michael Taylor)
1524 Madison Road, East Walnut Hills, 513-873-9041, facebook.com/mardigrasmad
Latoya Foster doesn’t like the word “restaurant” and wants her customers to think of Mardi Gras on Madison as a home. The homespun food and Foster’s down-home demeanor is what separates Mardi Gras on Madison from not only other Cajun-themed restaurants in the city, but also the way so many restaurants are traditionally run. First, there is no set menu. Foster decides on at least five different dishes to serve when she wakes up and then posts them on social media. (A menu from last week featured barbecue chicken tacos, catfish tacos, black beans and rice, fried okra and shrimp po’ boys.) Inside the storefront, the menu is posted on a chalkboard, and when something sells out (this happens a lot), it’s marked off. Food is served until closing time or until it’s gone, whichever happens first.
Mardi Gras on Madison seats about 70 people at round tables designated for larger parties or at the bar, which shakes up specialty cocktails such as a Jazzerac, their take on a Sazerac, which is the official cocktail of NOLA. They also have various Abita craft beers, another Louisiana staple, and a Katrina hurricane (orange juice, rum and pineapple juice). They call it a hurricane for a reason, and if you’re looking to get pickled, drinking more than one of these will knock you on your ass.
Étouffée wasn’t on the menu the day I dined there, but Foster cooked me a special étouffée dish made with spinach, mushrooms, cayenne pepper, a roux (a thickening sauce made with flour and butter or oil) and crawfish, and it was delicious. She likes to mix up the po’ boy sandwiches and one day will offer a stick-to-your-bones cochon made with pulled pork, but another day it’ll be chicken or shrimp or catfish. (GP)
1211 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-834-8670, kruegerstavern.com
Krueger’s Tavern serves some German food, but I would not call it a German restaurant. While flavorful housemade sausages are on the menu, they are not necessarily the star. And while they do serve beer — and lots of it — they also go a step beyond. They offer buckets of assorted (mostly local) craft brews, make their own bathtub gin and have cornered the market of indecisive drinkers with the beer cocktail.
For a starter, we opted for the Tomato Pesto Jar ($5) from the “snacks” section of the menu when told that the tomato jam inside was made in-house. In barely an instant, it was on our table: the cutest little glass pot of goodness. Bright red tomato jam is layered atop chunky pesto and whipped ricotta.
The rest of the menu is broken up into sandwiches, sausages, “greens” and sides. We sampled from each. From the housemade sausage side we chose the Lincolnshire ($8), an herbed British banger served over colcannon, a yummy play on mashed potatoes with wilted kale and Guinness-braised onions. The Lincolnshire was bursting with herby flavor and the kitchen took care not to overcook it.
Their sandwich section is equally appealing. It features a Cuban, Krueger’s take on the sloppy Joe, a roasted chicken club, a burger, and, our choice of the evening, the eggplant parm sandwich ($8). The housemade San Marzano tomato sauce caught my eye — that and the fact that “eggplant” was modified by “crispy.” As a big fan of the traditional Italian dish, I was extremely pleased (and extremely full) after finishing it.
The restaurateurs behind Krueger’s have proven they understand atmosphere and crowd-pleasing dishes with their other ventures (the Eagle OTR and Bakersfield), and their newest addition to Vine Street is no exception. (Kristen Franke)
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