Scene Flavor 2018

CROP BISTRO Mediterranean Octopus: (Citrus Marinated Octopus dressed with olives and a limoncello marjoram vinaigrette)

Tito’s Apple Cider Mule 1½ oz Tito’s Handmade Vodka 2 oz ginger beer 1 oz apple cider squeeze of fresh lemon juice Fill a chilled copper mug with ice.

Add Tito’s Handmade Vodka, ginger beer, apple cider, and lemon juice and stir to combine.

Garnish with lemon wedge and apple slice.

AMERICA’S ORIGINAL CRAFT VODKA® 2 Flavor 2018

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Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Group Publisher Chris Keating Publisher Andrew Zelman Associate Publisher Angela Nagal Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Web Editor Laura Morrison Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Writer Dott von Schneider Copy Editor Elaine Cicora Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Davis Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace Business Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Controller Kristy Dotson Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP Digital Services Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising Voice Media Group 1-800-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com Cleveland Scene 737 Bolivar Rd., #4100 Cleveland, OH 44115 www.clevescene.com Phone 216-241-7550 Retail & Classified Fax 216-241-6275 Editorial Fax 216-802-7212 E-mail scene@clevescene.com Cleveland Scene Magazine is published every week by Euclid Media Group.

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The best things we ate in 2018

29

A celebration of fast, good, cheap food

A year of comings and goings, and what’s next

33

A guide to Cleveland cooking classes and schools

15

The Cleveland food trends we love, and hate

36

17

The natural wine trend lands in Cleveland

Delivery services are killing your favorite restaurant

39

20

The fried chicken sandwich is having itself a moment

Digging into food costs and profit margins

43

23

The tantalizing desserts you should be saving room for

What’s behind a cursed address?

46

Advertiser index

26

Meet the influencers on the Cleveland food scene

All editorial photography for this issue was done by Karin McKenna on location or at her space at Lake Affect Studios. “From restaurant kitchens to dairy farms to Great Lakes freighters, Northeast Ohio has an endless supply of interesting stories about passionate, brave people doing

good things that benefit us all, and I could not be happier about being a part of telling those stories,” she says. In addition to editorial and commercial photography, she’s also volunteered at Ginn Academy for 10 years. For more of her work or to reach out for a project, visit karinmckenna.com.

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6 Flavor 2018

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The soup dumplings at LJ Shanghai.

Photo by Karin McKenna

The Best Things We Ate in Cleveland in 2018 A year-end accounting of a critic’s notebook

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

L

ike most years, 2018 was filled with highs, lows and what-the-hecks?! But we managed to sidestep most duds to land upon some truly epic eats. After flipping through our Instagram feed, digesting a full calendar year of dining reviews, and searching our memories for tasty morsels, these are the dishes that we most fondly recall.

Soup Dumplings (xiao long bao) at LJ Shanghai Diners just about lost their marbles over the soup dumplings (xiao long bao) at LJ Shanghai in Cleveland’s Asiatown neighborhood — and I was one of those people. Filled with ground meat and intensely flavored broth, these delicate little packages arrive by the half dozen in a bamboo steamer bas-

ket. Once safely on the spoon, the dumplings are nibbled or poked to release the hot soup.

Ginger-infused black vinegar is on hand to cut the richness of the filling.

Clam Pie at Il Rione Since opening its doors a year ago, Il Rione has been drawing robust crowds thanks to its chill vibe and fly pies. Owners Brian Moss and Brian Holleran have a deft hand when it comes to New York-style pizza, but it’s the clam pie that keeps me crawling back. The wide-brimmed, red sauce-free platter is dotted with sweet chopped clams, salty pecorino cheese, heaps of garlic and enough parsley to make it all sing.

Veal Crepe at Balaton When I’m not on the clock, I often revert to familiar favorites, which is why my meals at Balaton almost always begin

with potato pancakes. A recent detour rewarded me with the veal crepe, an appetizer that will likely knock the potato pancakes out of the rotation.

An eggy crepe is folded around a delicate mixture of ground veal and mushrooms and bathed in a rich paprikash-like gravy. It’s decorated, like most dishes, with a tiny Hungarian flag on a toothpick.

Kaiseki at Ushabu Most of us are familiar with Ushabu’s pitch-perfect shabushabu experience, but did you know that this tiny Tremont izakaya also offers a Michelin star-worthy tasting menu? Chef Matthew Spinner’s seven- and 13-course rides are hyper-seasonal expressions of culinary craft and ingenuity borne of Japanese techniques and tradition. Past bites included panko-fried Japanese wagyu finger sandwiches, grilled walleye

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with uni and fresh truffle, and a yakitori-style turkey skewer.

Montreal Smoked Meat at Landmark Cleveland has no shortage of corned beef, pastrami and brisket floating around, but Landmark has imported a delectable new-to-us food that combines aspects of all three.

Montreal-style smoked meat is made by curing and then smoking brisket, which produces a lush sliced-meat product with spice, wood smoke and fat.

Landmark piles it onto soft rye with mustard or pairs it with sauerkraut, Swiss and Russian dressing and griddles it until hot, toasty and melty.

Korean BBQ at Rising Grill We’ve always been fans of Korean barbecue, a communal indoor grill session complete with cold beer. But Rising Grill has upped the ante thanks to spiffy new gas grill-equipped tables and exhaust vents. The hot and responsive cookers make quick work of boneless beef short rib, ribeye and chicken, much of it marinated

in a sweetened soy-based sauce with garlic and sesame oil. The hot, charred meat is bundled up in cool lettuce leaves with sauce and garnishes and popped into appreciative mouths.

Grandma Bos at Polpetta Polpetta does for meatballs what other build-your-own places have done for hot dogs, tacos and burritos. But unlike what happens at those places, the resulting dishes here are genuinely unique from one another. While I adored the classic beef ball with spaghetti pomodoro, that pairing gets edged out by the chicken meatballs with paprikash gravy and spaetzle, a genre-busting delight that arrives from Hungary via Italy.

Goat Biryani at Taste of Kerala When Taste of Kerala opened a full-service restaurant in Woodmere, I wondered if the food would be as exciting and flavorful as what I’ve enjoyed for years at the original carryout shop on Mayfield Road.

Silly me, the food is as elec-

tric with spice, heat and flavor as ever. The goat biryani is exotic, aromatic and studded with tender bone-in goat meat. It’s also hot as Hades, but those flames are moderated by dollops of cool, calming yogurt-based raita.

Lincoln Park at Lox, Stock and Brisket After nearly 20 years away from Cleveland, Anthony Zappola returned home to open Lox, Stock and Brisket, a stripped-down version of a Jewish deli. It’s there, in University Heights, that you’ll find the city’s best fried chicken sandwich, which goes by the name Lincoln Park. Twin crispy-fried chicken schnitzels are tucked into a butter-soft egg roll with sweet pickles and a slather of mildly spiced aioli. The ubercrunchy breading gives way to a hot, juicy interior followed by the cool creaminess of the mayo.

Pastrami Sandwich at Larder The traditional method of making pastrami takes seven to

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10 days, but by employing koji (a Japanese mold) to cure and tenderize the meat, chef Jeremy Umansky whittles that time down to mere hours. At Ohio City’s Larder, that thick-sliced, butter-soft tender pastrami is layered into soft house-baked rye with red cabbage sauerkraut (also made right here) and grainy mustard. It’s an umami-bomb set to detonate on first bite.

St. Paul Sandwich from Sesame and Soy It’s not every day that a new sandwich rolls into town. But thanks to Sesame and Soy, a quick-serve Chinese restaurant in Tremont, Clevelanders can take a big fat bite of the St. Paul. By most accounts, the sandwich was invented by a Chinese-American restaurant owner in St. Louis (not St. Paul) in the early 20th century.

Folks in that town grew up loving this oddball sandwich consisting of a fried egg foo young patty tucked inside white bread with lettuce, pickles and mayo.

Now diners in Cleveland can get in on the action as well.

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Good Company comes to Battery Park. Photo by Karin McKenna

To the Cleveland Dining Scene, Turn, Turn, Turn A year of comings, goings, and what waits around the corner

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

T

his past year, more than any other in very recent history, has been one of dizzying highs and lows. For every thrilling new restaurant opening, it seemed, we were dealt a sad blow by the loss of an icon or two. While it’s always painful to say goodbye to an old friend, we can find solace in both the slate of ex-

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citing new options as well as the looming culinary projects that are just around the bend.

In terms of losses, it’s hard to think of a more devastating 1-2-3 punch than the departure of Coquette Patisserie, La Cave du Vin and Bistro 185.

Whereas Coquette was a supernova whose existence was hot but brief, La Cave was a part of our lives for more than

20 years. In between was Bistro 185, an anchor of the Collinwood neighborhood for almost 15 years.

When the Sausage Shoppe closed its doors this past spring, Old Brooklyn lost a neighbor that had been in its midst for 80 years.

Other high-profile losses include Hot Sauce Williams, which sold its last Polish Boy on Carnegie Avenue this past spring, Brasa Grill, whose 15-year run as downtown’s only Brazilian steakhouse just ended, and Grove Hill, an overlooked star in the Chagrin Falls dining scene.

Also in the loss column go Cork and Cleaver, Bac Asian Bistro, Latitude 41n, Cleveland Pickle, Poison Berry Bakery, Tremont General, and Ivory Keys, which both came and went. (Ciao Bistro currently is on deathwatch.)

The good news is that 2018

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also welcomed a large class of notable newcomers that should serve us well for years to come. Ohio City Galley brought fresh energy to the old Massimo Da Milano space on the corner of Detroit and West 25th, thanks to a handful of unique eateries (Sauce the City, Rice Shop, Tinman, and Poca) tied together by a lively barroom.

Ohio’s first Shake Shack brought the expected level of buzz when it opened at Pinecrest, in Orange Village, matched almost pound for pound by the christening of La Plaza Taqueria at the beloved west-side Mexican foods store.

And when it comes to sheer size, no opening was bigger than that of Fat Head’s, which opened its ginormous new brewery, restaurant and beer hall in Middleburg Heights.

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Diner on Clifton space, the owners of that building opened Landmark, a sharp fine-casual eatery. Meanwhile, the owner of the old diner made waves of his own by unveiling the on-trend Dinerbar on Clifton a few hundred feet away.

Trio took over the old Bac space in Tremont, Bull and Bird said yes to the venerable Gamekeeper’s property in Chagrin Falls, and Blue Habanero turned the lights back on at the shimmering Arcadian location in Gordon Square.

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“At the top of our must-visit list is Distill Table and Rood Food in Lakewood, Mitchell’s Ice Cream at Van Aken, and Polpetta in Rocky River.” ration is universal. At the top of our must-visit list is Distill Table and Rood Food in Lakewood, Mitchell’s Ice Cream at Van Aken, and Polpetta in Rocky River.

So what’s next, you ask?

Very shortly, the Van Aken District will unveil its Market Hall, a 20,000-squarefoot food hub filled with familiar names like Banter, On the Rise and Bottlehouse.

Down the road, Michael’s Genuine and a new Jonathon Sawyer restaurant will join them. By the time you read this, Edwins Butcher Shop likely will be open in the

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Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood. In addition to serving the community, the fresh-food market offers another level of culinary training for ex-cons.

As soon as the Cleveland Bagel boys acquire new passports, they will cross the river and open a new storefront and production kitchen on Carnegie Avenue, adjacent to Souper Market. And speaking of the Souper Market, that hot-soup concept will open a new ladle lounge in the former home of Tea House Noodles on East Sixth Street.

Very soon, the owners of the Plum will open the more casual Good Company restaurant in the former Vita Urbana space in Battery Park, hoping that they’ll have the right touch when it comes to a challenging address. Meanwhile, the former Flip Side spot in the Flats is being reworked into Good Night John Boy, a faux dive bar dripping with nostalgia.

The owners of Kensington Pub had a goal of opening

by Thanksgiving. Last year.

However, the wait appears to be worth it as the tacky exterior paneling comes down and dazzling new panes of glass go up at the original Tavern Company space in Cleveland Heights.

Another long-simmering project, transforming the old Literary Cafe in Tremont into the Literary Tavern, is still progressing, albeit at a glacial pace. Also good news: The smoldering Birdtown Brewery is finally coming together in the old St. Gregory Catholic Church in Lakewood’s Birdtown neighborhood.

All systems are go for the Austin-inpired Lakewood Truck Park to open next summer on the corner of Detroit and Edwards avenues, and when it does, visitors can expect a bar, indoor and outdoor seating, and plenty of rotating food trucks. Progress appears to have slowed (if it ever really began) at Hot Sauce Williams on Carnegie, which will be reopened as a flagship Angie’s Soul Cafe location.

As for that iconic Tremont property that long housed Lola and Lolita restaurants?

We’ll keep you posted.

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Felt letter-board signage: it’s a Hold. Photo by Karin McKenna

Buy, Sell, Hold

The Cleveland dining trends we love, hate, and wish would finally arrive already

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

R

emember, like, way back in 2016 when every single restaurant gave diners the option to “put an egg on it”? Well, you can thank this very column for slamming the brakes on that crazy train before things really went off the rails.

As 2018 grinds to a halt, we take a few minutes out of our regularly scheduled griping to consider the trends — good, bad and questionable — that have caught our attention and debate

what the heck to do about them.

Sell: Misogynistic Facebook Comments We shouldn’t even have to mention this here, but if you think it’s a smart play to insult a majority of the people in your neighborhood before you even open the doors to your new restaurant, maybe pick a different profession, like politics. Social media can be a powerful tool to get your brand, product and message out to the community at

large. But if your message is one of hate, hostility and division, delete your accounts like yesterday.

Buy: Italian Beef Sandwiches We were promised Italian beef sandwiches. Save for a few passable versions scattered about town, it’s nearly impossible to track down authentic versions of this gloriously untidy Chicago classic. Truly a meal for the ages, these drippy, two-fisted flavor bombs consist of tender, thinsliced beef piled into a sub bun that is dipped into salty cooking broth. Cap it off with hot, crunchy, pickled giardiniera peppers and you have yourselves one of the best sandwiches in the country.

Hold: Gas-Station Hummus We get it, a few plucky gas

station owners are very good at making hummus. If we happened to live around the corner from said gas stations and fancied ourselves a taste, we might even pop in for a tub or three. But the way some folks are talking about the stuff you might overlook the fact that hummus is ground-up chickpeas. Seriously, do we not have any more pressing matters than to drive clear across town for a small plastic container of GAS-STATION HUMMUS? Sell: Plastic Straws Congratulations. If you can read this, you’re likely an adult who’s old enough to not require binkies, bibs, bottles, sippy cups and straws. Save for poorly hospital patients and legitimately disabled diners, what grownup person requires a straw to consume beverages? Restaurants, please stop planting plastic

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straws in every glass, and diners, please remind your server that you’re a very big boy. And while we’re at it, for the love of gobstoppers stop using Solo cups in restaurants.

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Hold: Felt Letter-Board Signs Look how adorbs you are with your Wes Andersonlike quirkiness. Chalkboards are so 2016. The real hipster action these days is the felt letter-board sign, those delightfully anachronistic and uber-analog announcement doodads. Why drag sticks of calcium sulfate across smooth slabs of slate when you can sink plastic capital letters deep into felty grooves? Long associated with police station mugshots and middle-school cafeterias, these fanciful placards now announce the soup of the day, the draft beer selection, and the happy hour deals.

Sell: Third-Party Delivery Services The appeal of being able to summon any dish from any restaurant to be delivered to your door while you play Fortnite in your jammies is undeniable, we get it. But know going in that the restaurant is lucky to break even on the transaction thanks to hefty cuts demanded by third-party services like Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash. What’s more, the servers and bartenders who rely on tips to pay their rent or mortgage lose out entirely. So maybe next time take a seat in the dining room, order a drink and spend some dough before your favorite Thai place goes the way of the dodo.

Hold: Instagram Walls Oh, you magnificent angel wings! Who knew a simple coat of paint could prove to be so life-affirming, especially when employed as the backdrop to an infinite stream of selfies.

We’re not sure when designers started painting walls — interior and exterior — specifically for #influencers, but there are just about enough of them. If public art truly is a reflection of who we are as a community, should the message be one of love or self-love?

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Buy: Filipino Food In cities like Seattle, Chicago, New York, Manila … restaurants that serve Filipino cuisine are enjoying brisk business.

That’s because the food is as exciting as it is delicious. Crispy filled lumpia, electric adobos, sour sinigang soup, sizzling skillets of sisig, savory suckling pig and the ubiquitous noodle dishes called pancit are just a few of the unbridled delights that Clevelanders are missing out on because of our unjust lack of Filipino purveyors. Build it and we will come.

Hold: Fried Chicken and Waffles We are living in the golden-brown age of fried chicken and waffles. Can I get a hallelujah? What once was a curious but delicious oddity with Harlem roots has so penetrated the mainstream that the dish now resides on the menu of KFC (Dickie Wells is doubtless spinning in his grave). While we adore the crunchy-sweet-pillowy-savory riot of contrasts, the dish begins to lose some of its appeal when it’s as common as a taco.

Buy: Natural Wines If you’re a wine lover who pays attention to trends, then you’ve noticed natural wines continue to make inroads on store shelves and restaurant wine lists. This movement arose as a response to heavily manipulated wines in the era of Robert Parker. In contrast, grapes are grown sustainably, fermented spontaneously, aged in neutral vessels like stainless or concrete, and bottled unfiltered with no or little sulfites, all of which leads to exciting, highly drinkable wines with effusive range and personality.

Hold: Guardians of Traffic Logomarks Those ruggedly handsome pylons that welcome commuters on the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge are so identifiable and adored that they have been used to sell beer, coffee, T-shirts, glassware, underwear and dozens of other grassroots products. You don’t need us to remind you that a symbol loses its identifiable uniqueness the more it appears.

For something truly distinctive, might we suggest the Rock Hall?

Dinner’s ready. Photo by Karin McKenna

Food Delivery Services Are Killing Your Favorite Restaurant Uber Eats and its ilk might be a convenience for you, but they’re squeezing restaurants’ already slim profit margins

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

E

lie Chamoun does not mince words. “The food delivery services are absolutely killing us,” he

says.

As the owner of the 10-yearold Burgers 2 Beer in Highland Heights, as well as newer outposts in Solon, Concord and downtown Cleveland, Chamoun has watched as companies like GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats and, to a lesser extent, Deliver Me Food have moved in and completely revolutionized the restaurant business, and not for the better, according to him and others we spoke to.

Until recently, unless you lived in New York or San Francisco, your food delivery options were largely limited to pizza and Chinese. These days, however, thanks to third-party apps like DoorDash and others, diners can order any dish from almost any restaurant menu from the comfort of their own sofa.

The arguments in favor of restaurants offering delivery through any or all of these services is an increase in revenue, the ability to attract new dinein customers, and appealing to tech-savvy consumers who prefer to stay home. In the real world,

however, many restaurant owners are less cheerful about the situation, calling the services a necessary evil at best and a restaurant killer at worst.

“Delivery services are a killer to local business because you’re basically working your ass off, paying for labor and expenses, and they’re taking 30 percent from you, which is your profit,” says Chamoun, succinctly encapsulating the dilemma. “They are making money for themselves, but the customer is paying more and the restaurants are making less.”

The notion that delivery busi-

ness is supplemental to dine-in revenue no longer holds water as more and more consumers are electing to stay home. When customers take a seat in the dining room, they buy alcohol, they tip their server, food errors can be addressed on the spot, and the restaurant keeps all of the take.

During his two years in Lakewood, before electing to close the doors, Chamoun saw delivery revenue increase by $5,000 to $6,000 per week, a direct correlation to a drop in on-site sales.

“There’s a smaller percentage of people who eat out now,” Chamoun reports. “Even when a

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customer orders food to go, they often sit at the bar and order a beer. It generates income.”

Less obvious but no less vexing issues for owners revolve around driver and/or delivery errors that result in comps, re-makes and negative Yelp reviews, which have the opposite effect on attracting new dine-in customers.

Since 1956, Corky and Lenny’s has been providing a unique and authentic Jewish deli experience to a very devoted following.

But that following is not getting any younger, if you know what we mean, so the restaurant is willing to do whatever it takes to attract new customers, even if it’s a break-even proposition.

“We obviously love [our older clientele’s] business, but we’d like to cater to a younger crowd too,” explains Adam Siegel, who has managed the iconic shop for more than 20 years. “We’re willing to take a hit just to get people in and say, hey, this is what we have to offer, we’d love your business and we’d love your company.”

Of course, any discussion of industry challenges is set against a backdrop of a dining landscape

“Delivery services are a killer to local business because you’re basically working your ass off, paying for labor and expenses, and they’re taking 30 percent from you, which is your profit” – Elie Chamoun

brimming with an excess of inventory.

“There are so many choices out there,” Siegel laments. “Even though we are a unique New York-style deli, there are only so many mouths you can feed, but there are hundreds and hundreds of restaurants out there all trying to grab a piece of the pie.”

Since opening his first restaurant at the age of 23, Andy Himmel has been a keen observer of evolving industry fads, trends and tech. Now, nearly 14 years later, Himmel’s restaurant port-

folio includes four Paladar Latin Kitchens in three states and three Bomba Tacos in Ohio. Like every other operator we spoke to, this one has observed an unmistakable decline in on-premises sales at the hand of delivery services.

“I guarantee that every restaurant is seeing a drop in dining room sales and an increase in their delivery and carryout sales,” Himmel reports. “That’s what we are seeing across the board. It’s not a good long-term feeling because at the end of the

day you still have a brick-andmortar that you spent money to build.”

Rather than bitch, moan and complain, Himmel will do what he always has done when confronted with a challenge: accept, adapt and survive.

“I look at delivery like I looked at Yelp in the beginning, which is, okay, it’s here, it’s not going anywhere, how do we make the best of it?”

Himmel and his team are going so far as to modify the physical layout of their properties to accommodate the rise of delivery traffic. Going forward, new Bomba locations will have significantly smaller dining rooms, larger bars and a redesigned host stand that doubles as a carryout zone to deal with the flurry of delivery drivers.

“It’s not something entirely good for the industry,” Himmel admits. “So we’re trying to put as much energy, money and time into really driving the dining experience and try to give people a reason to come in. Just the food alone is not enough to do that.

That’s the big challenge for the industry.”

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Spaghetti and meatballs at Polpetta. Photos by Karin McKenna

On the Margins How much do local restaurants really make on a dish?

There’s a lot more than food costs in the equation

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

H

unter Toth is excited.

“I’ve got to tell you, I’m so happy you’re writing this story because it’s a struggle to get these points across to people who don’t understand what goes into the cost of a menu item,” says the chef and owner of Hook and Hoof restaurant in Willoughby.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize that they’re paying for so much more than just the food.”

It’s easy to stare a meatball in the eye and decry its cost. After all, what is a meatball other than a handful of ground beef, and we all know what ground beef goes for down at the Piggly Wiggly.

What should be (but oddly is not) obvious is that the cost of ingredients is only a fraction of where the money collected for

20 Flavor 2018

a dish ends up. There’s labor, rent, build-out, property taxes, insurance, utilities, linen service, glassware, cleaning supplies, payroll taxes, credit card fees … you get the idea.

“When we wrote our business plan, we knew that we’d be servicing Willoughby in a finerdining setting with good wine service, good cocktails and all the things that come with it,” Toth explains. “That means you have to buy good glassware, certain ice cubes, nicer uniforms for the staff to wear. You pay for all these things to create a comfortable, more high-end experience for your guests.”

One of the most popular starters at Hook and Hoof is the braised beef-cheek toasts, a delightful dish consisting of

toasted baguettes capped with supple shredded beef set atop a thin schmear of tangy goat cheese and gilded with poblano and cranberry compote. At first blush, $15 might sound like a lot of dough for beef cheeks, a socalled “off cut.”

“Most people know that filet, caviar and truffles are expensive, but people look at beef cheeks as cheap peasant food,” the chef explains. “What they don’t understand is that to make that meat tender and delicious requires a six- to eight-hour braise and results in 25-percent loss in fat, sinew and other trimmings.”

Chef Brian Okin fields similar lamentations about the price of food over at his Rocky River meatball emporium Polpetta. A popular gripe on Yelp goes some-

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thing like, “$14 for three little meatballs?!”

“I think it’s a perception issue,” he says. “Because the Sunday Supper is something they can make at home, people assume that it should be less expensive.

What they don’t realize is that we’re buying quality meats from independent local farmers. This is not boxed meat coming off the back of a Sysco truck.”

Those “three little meatballs” add up to more than a half pound of fresh, local beef. They also come atop a bed of spaghetti topped with pomodoro sauce.

By way of comparison, a similarly sized hamburger and fries at Cheesecake Factory costs $13.

In addition to the cost of ingredients, that $14 gets spread across all of the aforementioned

El Carnicero Goat Cheese Guacamole ($9) Avocado (current price): ................................................ $2.62 Chopped Garlic: ............................................................ $0.01 Spanish Onion: .............................................................. $0.09 Jalapeno: ....................................................................... $0.03 Cilantro:........................................................................ $0.09 Kosher Salt, Black Pepper: ............................................. $0.01 Lime juice: ..................................................................... $0.05 Roasted Roma Tomato: ................................................. $0.03 Roasted Poblano Chile:.................................................. $0.06 Lake Erie Creamery Goat Cheese: .................................. $0.21 Lime wedge: .................................................................. $0.03 Corn tortilla chips:......................................................... $0.27 Total food cost: ..................................$3.49 (38.78% of price)

the entire dynamic of the restaurant around our atmosphere, craft margaritas and gourmet, unique guacamoles.”

Depending on the price of avocados, the popularity of guacamole can be very good news to Williams’ bottom line or not so good news. That dish’s food cost percentage (cost of ingredients divided by the menu price) generally fluctuates between 40 percent, when perfect-but-pricey avocados from Northern California are in season, down to 29 percent in peak Mexican Hass season.

But external factors can send that percentage soaring to as high as 50 percent, reports the chef.

“As a matter of fact, I just received notice today that avocado prices will rise and possibly become out-of-stock as a result of a labor strike and cartels in Mexico causing big problems,” he says.

Ninja City in Gordon Square is Bac Nguyen’s third bite at the restaurant apple, so he fully grasps the importance of scrutinizing every penny that goes to food costs, labor costs and every other expenditure. Given that

The best-selling guacamole at El Carnicero.

costs of doing business, as well as to cover losses from waste, comps, mistakes, theft, broken glassware, inefficient labor and spoilage.

“This is a very unpredictable business,” Okin notes. “If we have big dips in business, we could lose product to spoilage.”

Combined, the restaurants of Momocho and El Carnicero fly

through approximately 2,500 avocados per week, which is not at all surprising if you’ve ever dined at either restaurant. Even the casual observer can see that nearly every diner begins his or her meal with one or more of the guacamole dishes.

“By far our guacamoles are the best sellers on the menu,” says owner Eric Williams. “We built

Hook and Hoof Beef Cheek Toast ($15) Braised beef cheek mixture (cheek, stock, tomato paste, wine, herbs and spices, onion): ................................................ $2.12 Local goat cheese: .......................................................... $0.65 Local honey: .................................................................. $0.08 Wild mushrooms: .......................................................... $0.21 Cranberry compote (dried cranberries, red onions, poblanos, EVOO, water, white wine vinegar, brown sugar, salt, pepper, orange zest ):................ $0.69 Baguette: ....................................................................... $0.48 Total food cost: ............................................................. $4.23

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Flavor 2018 21

GREAT FOOD, GREAT FOLKS, & GOOD TIMES! LARGEST BEER & BOURBON SELECTION IN THE AREA KARAOKE NIGHT! EVERY THURSDAY!

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the most popular item on the appetizer section is the gyoza, one would expect him to try and boost his profit margins by trimming his labor costs. One of the simplest ways to accomplish that is by utilizing a pre-made product.

“Labor is the bigger cost,” he says. “Plenty of restaurants sell

bites’ at Ninja City,” Nguyen reports. “They recently surpassed the spring rolls as the most popular.”

Most diners know that the easiest way for a restaurant to boost razor-thin profit margins is by selling booze. Every beer, wine and cocktail that is ordered goes a long way

Polpetta Sunday Supper ($14) Meatballs (3 each, 9 ounces) .............................................. $2.68 Labor ($0.15 x 3)............................................................... $0.45 Pasta (4 ounce portion) ...................................................... $0.50 Sauce ................................................................................. $0.44 Labor ................................................................................ $1.87 Line production (15 minutes/order) ................................... $3.75 Total cost per serving: ........................................................ $9.69 Menu Price: ..................................................................... $14.00 *** Does not include overhead (i.e., rent, utilities, insurance, etc.)

pre-made dumplings, which cost a little more but will save you money on labor. There’s a fine line between efficiency and taking shortcuts. You try to do things as efficiently as you can, but I think people can taste the difference. I have not found a pre-made product out there that tastes the way I want it to.”

Instead, Nguyen’s prep cooks fill hundreds of wrappers by hand with ground pork, minced vegetables and aromatics before steaming and searing them.

“The gyoza dumplings are now our top sellers among the ‘little

Dine Drink Enjoy...

REPEAT!

toward making a restaurant successful. But even those places that seem, by all outward appearances, to be thriving financially are very likely simply affording a modest living for the principals.

“I think that when we’re busy, people assume we’re killing it,” says Toth. “We’re probably driving Mercedes and have huge homes in high-class areas, when it’s literally the opposite. We’re not a sinking ship by any means, but there is such a perpetual loss of money that you have to keep guests coming in, know the costs of goods, and charge people properly.”

Ninja City Gyoza Dumplings INGREDIENTS PER BATCH (TOTAL YIELD: 468 Dumplings, 156 Orders) 1.) 10 LB 80/20 Ground Pork ................... $20.10 (48.43% of batch cost) 2.) 468 EA Gyoza Skins............................ $14.07 (33.90% of batch cost) 3.) 1 EA Cabbage ......................................... $4.13 (9.95% of batch cost) 4.) 2 CUP Green Onion, Chopped ................ $1.22 (2.93% of batch cost) 5.) 2 CUP Cilantro, Chopped ....................... $0.48 (1.15% of batch cost) 6.) MISC Aromatics & Seasonings ...............$1.50 (3.64 % of batch cost)

FOOD COST PER BATCH: ............................................$41.50 LABOR COST PER BATCH (13 MAN HOURS AT $11.00/HR): ..... $143.00 (does not include additional payroll taxes)

TOTAL COST PER BATCH (FOOD + LABOR): ...................... $184.50

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FOOD COST PER ORDER: .......................................................... $0.29 (includes additional $0.02 per Order for 2 OZ House-Made GINGER SOY SAUCE) LABOR COST PER ORDER: $0.92 (does not include additional payroll taxes)

TOTAL COST PER ORDER (FOOD + LABOR) ........................... $1.21 AVERAGE REVENUE PER ORDER: ............................................ $3.50 AVERAGE PROFIT PER ORDER: ................................................ $2.29

cedarlee.org 22 Flavor 2018

(65% Profit Margin after Food & Labor Cost, not including additional payroll taxes)

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The Tremont home to one of Cleveland’s unluckiest locations. Photo by Karin McKenna

Location, Location, Vexation When it comes to ‘cursed’ addresses in Cleveland’s restaurant scene, the street number is rarely at fault for the failure

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

I

t’s easy to look at an address like 2391 West 11th St. and designate the location as “cursed.” After all, for the past 20 years the building has been a revolving door for restaurants.

Since Miracles closed for good, for the second time, in the late1990s, this iconic Tremont property has hosted Oz Bar & Bistro,

Sage Bistro, Bistro on Lincoln Park, Porcelli’s Bistro, Ligali’s Bistro and, most recently, Merchant Street.

Judging by all outward appearances, the prime piece of real estate has everything going for it: located on picturesque Lincoln Park, the attractive building resides on a well-trafficked street in

a desirable urban neighborhood with easy highway access. Those attributes likely are the reasons that optimistic new operators continue to sign on the dotted line despite the lengthy trail of tears that preceded them.

Across town in Lakewood sits a pair of buildings that seems to attract more than its fair share of failure. In the past few years, the side-by-side INA and Bailey Buildings on the 14700 block of Detroit Avenue have been home to World of Beer, the Detroiter, Ivory Keys, Sauced Taproom, Somethin’s Smokin Cafe, Eddie ‘N Eddie Burgers, Eddie Cerino’s Casual Italian and Burgers 2 Beer.

Conventional wisdom states that a good location is one that is highly visible with plenty of foot and auto traffic, qualities that the busy intersection of Detroit and Warren has in spades. Those are the reasons that Burgers 2 Beer owner Elie Chamoun took a

chance on the spot, despite that corner’s reputation as a restaurant killer. The concept was hardly untested: The original location in Highland Heights has been going strong for a decade.

In Lakewood, it lasted two years.

Chamoun pins the blame on a toxic combination of hidden parking, vexing traffic patterns, intense competition, the rise of delivery services, and a fickle dining community. But more than anything, the owner asserts, it was the stratospheric rent that proved insurmountable. Regardless how solid the food, service and setting might be, he argues, excessive rent will signal doom for any future concept.

“The rent is very high there because the landlord thinks that this is the best location in Lakewood,” he explains. “I was paying four to five thousand dollars more per month there than at my other places.”

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Practice Group of the Cleveland office of CBRE, the global commercial real estate firm, VP Stephen Taylor finds homes for large national chains, smaller regional operators and one-off independent chefs. While he agrees that rent is a key element to consider when shopping for a location, failure often can be assigned to other issues.

“Rent is obviously a very important factor,” he says. “If you’re at 10-percent occupancy cost, there’s probably a good chance you won’t be around for too many years. But I think a lot of these locations that have a lot of turnover comes down to the operator.”

Taylor rattles off undercapitalization, faulty or nonexistent market research, labor issues, and delivering inconsistent results in terms of food, service and setting as the more likely causes of restaurant failure.

“The first question I ask an operator is ‘Who is your customer?’” Taylor says. “I think a lot of operators don’t figure that out before working out the location and then they can’t get that customer to the location because of wrong demographics, psychographics or traffic patterns.”

A proper demographic analysis, for example, might steer the owner of a vegan eatery away from an aging suburban strip mall better suited for a kidfriendly American tavern and toward a hot urban neighborhood where a pricey chophouse concept might bomb.

For every supposed “cursed” location — such as Battery Park, home to the ghosts of Battery Park Wine Bar, CHA Spirits and Pizza, Snicker’s, Reddstone , Graffiti and Vita Urbana — there are success stories that run counter to established wisdom.

Despite undeniably isolated and challenging addresses, brands like Johnny’s on Fulton, Porco Lounge, Tremont Taphouse, Parkview Nite Club and the former Grovewood Tavern all managed to survive and thrive.

“Take a look at L’Albatros,” Taylor points out. “On paper it’s not a prime location: it’s hidden, you have no real visibility, there’s no real foot traffic, there’s no car traffic, there’s no real signage, but for the past 10 years it has consistently produced a great product.”

Jonah Oryszak doesn’t buy

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“... A lot of these locations that have a lot of turnover comes down to the operator.”

– Stephen Taylor into the whole cursed location nonsense. When he and a partner purchased a falling-down building a dozen blocks off the main drag in Ohio City five years ago, “SoLo” was not exactly trending.

But the pair saw potential in the property, especially considering that it was being offered for next to nothing and family would be doing most of the construction work. In the three years it took the Plum to open, the concept evolved from a simple coffee and sandwich shop to an ambitious farm-to-table bistro, an approach that better suited the rapidly changing neighborhood’s demographics.

“You have to know who your audience is,” Oryszak says. “In a city like Cleveland, where people are so opinionated about restaurants, you can’t just shoehorn your restaurant into any place.”

Next up for the Plum crew is the takeover of a cursed location within a cursed quarter. When it opens this month in the former Vita Urbana space in Battery Park, Good Company will attempt to flourish where many others have failed. To do so, Oryszak will not be relying on a secret spell, but rather a prudent plan that synchs the concept with the needs and desires of the neighborhood at hand.

“I think people in Cleveland like to toss around stories like ‘Battery Park is cursed,’” he says.

“Terrestrial is doing great because they really tapped into the neighborhood and they also have people coming in from elsewhere because they’re cool and offer something special. That’s the goal. If we can be the restaurant for this neighborhood, then anybody we can get in here from outside the neighborhood because it’s cool is a bonus.”

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Instagram influencers Aubrey Johansen, left, and Janey Schafer at LJ Shanghai. Photo by Karin McKenna

Double Tap for Deliciousness The Instagram influencers have arrived on Cleveland’s food scene

BY WALKER MACMURDO

J

aney Schafer and Aubrey Johansen are in the back of Asiatown’s LJ Shanghai, hovering over baskets of wobbly soup dumplings fresh from the kitchen. But it isn’t time for lunch quite yet.

Schafer, better known as @foodsofjane to the more than 58,000 people who follow her on Instagram, and Johansen, who 130,000 people may recog-

26 Flavor 2018

nize as @thatswhatsheeats, have business to attend to. They’re photographing the dumplings on their iPhones, positioning chopsticks atop the baskets ever so tastefully, shifting the baskets into sunlight streaming in from a nearby window. In the realm of social media and food, they’re two of Cleveland’s most prominent Instagram influencers.

“I never started the page with the intention of it growing to

that size or for it to be my job today,” says Johansen, who became a full-time influencer in 2017, after starting her healthy living-focused account in 2013 following gastric bypass surgery. “I thought life would be a lot different. You would wake up at 9 o’clock and have a matcha latte, take a spin class and then eat avocado toast on a patio. That’s not at all what it is.”

The quotidian glamor of the influencer lifestyle belies long days of production labor. “You’re rushing around to the grocery store, and if you forget something, you have to race back and get it before the sun goes down,” says Schafer, whose Instagram page showcases artfully composed plates of homemade pasta dishes and whose day gig is social media specialist for Destination Cleveland. “Especially with balanc-

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ing it with a full-time job it has been super hard for me. When the sun is up, I’m always using my kitchen.”

Johansen and Schafer have parleyed their followings into full-time and semi full-time careers, partnering with — the industry term for “getting free stuff from or paid by”— brands that think their partners’ followers are in the market for their products.

But it is a long climb to the point where an influencer can make money.

“Most of my content is organic,” says Claire Xu, a premed student at Case Western whose Instagram page @eatswithclaire has 6,500 followers. Claire began consistently posting her travels across Northeast Ohio’s restaurant scene in 2016, and saw a 4,000-follower burst this summer. Xu has become part of a

community of food bloggers who get invited to dine, on the house, at many of Cleveland’s newest and sometimes finest restaurants.

“Sometimes it is planned ahead of time, and those are the restaurants I will post about multiple times over a couple of months,” Xu says. “For me, my Instagram is more toward a hobby, but it is more than just that to me. It’s slowly becoming more of a career.”

In the restaurant world, savvy restaurateurs recognize influencers as a new means to market their businesses on a platform that saw 200 million new users from 2016 to 2017.

“When I started growing as an influencer I started reaching out to restaurants to see if they’d be interested in having me in,” explains Xu. “Some view it solely as a marketing tactic and they will only talk to really big names. When I reach out to restaurants, I only expect half to respond.”

Natasha Pogrebinsky, head chef at Tremont’s Southside and Hi and Dry, knows the value in tapping into the influencer market. In September, she hosted about 30 people across the food, travel and art Instagram spheres for a preview dinner of her new fall menu. Thousands of people saw that meal crawl across their IG streams.

“If I have bloggers over, they’re directly connecting with the mass population,” says Pogrebinsky. Pogrebinsky began hosting blogger events in 2012 while she was co-owner of Long Island City’s celebrated pan-Eastern European restaurant Bear. “It’s almost like an instant connection to readers.

With social media, it’s a wellrounded representation of who we are: style, texture, vibe and food, all at once.”

In the restaurant world, influencer marketing goes far beyond rudimentary meal-forpost exchanges. With 30,000 followers, Tricia McCune’s @clefoodies is perhaps the most prominent restaurant-focused Instagram account in Cleveland.

I accompanied McCune and her producer, who introduced himself as Stir Fry, to Hingetown’s Saucy Brew Works for a product shoot, part of their yearlong contract with McCune’s

media company, Mouthwater Media, that entails one post to @clefoodies per month.

“We keep these places top of mind,” explains McCune.

“Social media is the easiest way to do that. We’re showcasing places like Saucy because what they’re doing is amazing. But when the next place opens, people gravitate there, and they tend to forget.”

“Partnering with the food bloggers in the area shows that we care about their opinion, we want to help them, we want to help their following grow and give them something to talk about,” says Saucy Brew Works manager Tom Bogomolny. “We’ve had an uptick in traffic here since we started.”

Not only are restaurants getting exposure for openings, new menus or just generally existing, working with influencers can nab them photos ranging from professional to well-done amateur shots that can be repurposed across all their platforms.

Which makes sense for those going by the old chef adage that you eat with your eyes first.

“People are looking at Instagram all the time,” says Pogrebinsky. “Now they’re seeing 20 people taking professional photos and putting our food out there. It had a huge impact on our business.”

How many or how few of those posts you see, of course, is entirely up to you and to how many of the ever-flowering number of accounts you follow. And it goes without saying that much of what you’re seeing isn’t organic praise — and, if the poster is going by the book, it will be transparently labeled as such. Which doesn’t mean the dish or joint in focus isn’t actually worthy of celebration. But if the blossoming symbiotic relationship gets the word out and puts butts in seats while padding the bellies and pocketbooks of some folks around town, it’s hard to argue too vigorously against the trend.

“You have to have your social media on point,” says Pogrebinsky. “It’s extremely important now. When we did it for my restaurants in New York, we brought in customers from around the world. If you want to reach a wider audience, you need professionals.”

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Zaytoon Lebanese Kitchen: fast, good, and cheap. Photos by Karin McKenna

Fast, Good, Cheap Cleveland’s best fast-casual eateries on the recipe for success

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

T

here’s a popular saying that goes something like, when it comes to “fast,” “good” and “cheap,” you only get to pick two. While that certainly holds true with respect to fine carpentry and web design, it is no longer the case when it comes to dinner. Over the past few years we’ve seen the emergence of a new breed of restaurant that blurs the line between conventional fast-casual

and full service. These spots satisfy our desire for quick, informal and affordable dining while still delivering on the high-quality food front. Whether you call this genre of eatery fast-casual, fast-fine, or fine-casual, it appears to be an unstoppable trend.

While the menu, decor and seating options vary by concept, these restaurants are united by process. Instead of being shown

to one’s table by a host, provided with menus, and attended to by a service staff, regulars know to order and pay at the counter before grabbing a seat and waiting for their name or number to be called. And when that number does come up, it’s usually a sign of good things to come.

Quality Counts One of the most illustrative of this new breed is Landmark, which opened last spring in the former Diner on Clifton space following significant physical improvements. As is customary at fast-casual spots, diners walk up to a counter, place their order, pay, and seat themselves in the dining room. But that’s where the similarities end. Instead of

summoning guests to collect their food from a pickup window, staffers deliver it to one’s table.

At the other end of the meal, those same employees clean up after us, obviating the need to tip plastic trays into grease-covered receptacles.

Of course, it’s what happens in between that counts the most.

Landmark might satisfy our desire for uncomplicated efficiency, but it does so without serving a single portion of steam-table goo. Items like the Montrealstyle smoked meat and brisket take days to prepare, the Club sandwich stars house-smoked turkey and bacon, and the fried chicken is cooked to order and exceptional. Also included in the deal are alcoholic beverages, real

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Flavor 2018 29

Zaytoon Lebanese Kitchen

exceptional. Also included in the deal are alcoholic beverages, real tableware and utensils, and an attractive dining room in which to enjoy them.

“There does seem to be a need for another category,” owner Constantine Katsaros argues, “because there is no way when someone comes down here and experiences what we’re putting out that they’ll think, ‘This was a fast-casual experience.’”

Fast, but not Fast Food I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time I stepped into Choolaah Indian BBQ on Chagrin Boulevard. It wasn’t so much the impeccably stylish interior that impressed, but rather the four barrel-shaped tandoor ovens prominently displayed in the glass-fronted kitchen.

While unimaginative or uninformed scribes often characterize this homegrown concept as the “Chipotle version of Indian food,” that description minimizes what’s truly going on here.

“There are lots of Indian restaurants out there that copy the Chipotle method,” explains chief creative officer James Nesbitt. “But to have fresh food cooked in real tandoor ovens is

30 Flavor 2018

an audacious goal — and that’s what we’re taking on.”

At Choolaah, long metal skewers are threaded with spicedusted halal lamb, Bell and Evans chicken, and Ohio Amishmilk paneer and plunged deep into 600-degree tandoor ovens.

Those crisp-edged proteins are served on a bed of fragrant basmati, doused with deeply flavorful sauces, paired with puffy, fresh-baked naan, and washed down with a tropical mango lassi. Fast? Yes. Fast food? Not by a long shot.

The owners of this Cleveland-born concept had the audacious goal of transforming the Indian food experience by offering upscale Indian food at fastcasual pacing and prices. Since launching here at the tail end of 2014, the fast-moving company has added four out-of-state locations.

Price Matters We are lucky in Cleveland to have a wealth of quality Middle Eastern food options, including a large regional chain of popular full-service cafes. We’re lucky because the food — savory lentil soup, citrusy fattoush salads, chickpea and parsleystuffed grape leaves, spit-roasted

chicken shawarma with creamy hummus — is as delicious as it is healthy. As much as we’d like to hit these spots on the regular, dining out adds up, even at so-called “modest” prices.

Enter Zaytoon Lebanese Kitchen, a fast-casual version of our favorite Middle Eastern restaurants. A smaller footprint proffering a tighter menu translates to across-the-board savings in buildout, rent, utilities, food costs and labor. Those savings are passed along to the consumer by way of prices that are often 10- to 20-percent lower than those at full-service spots. Add to that the absence of a service staff reliant on tips, and it’s easy to see why cost-conscious consumers adore fast-casual.

Guests might be forfeiting waiters, busboys, tablecloths and wine lists, but they don’t have to resign themselves to substandard fare.

“Everything that we are doing here is made from scratch,” explains owner David Ina, “the pita bread, pickled turnips, labneh (Lebanese yogurt), hummus and desserts.”

Tailor Made Burger King has long promised its customers that they can

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“Have It Your Way.” But requesting that a person “hold the pickle, hold the lettuce” is a far cry from true customization. Ever since Chipotle introduced us to the build-yourown burrito concept, the act of letting customers pick and choose their toppings has been the driving force behind the fast-casual movement.

Corner 11 Bowl & Wrap does for poke what Chipotle did for the burrito. Since opening last winter, the cute Tremont spot has been winning over fans with its fresh, healthy and exceptionally customizable poke bowls, which are built around sushi-grade tuna or salmon. Everything from the base (greens or rice) to the unlimited toppings (20 different options!) to the sauces (Thai spicy, green curry, yum-yum, others too) are selected by the diner as they move down the line. The sheer number of possible combinations means that fickle customers never have to eat the same meal twice.

Other unique independent fast- and fine-casual spots that locals can’t stop talking about include Larder, Pizza Whirl, Boaz, Ohio City BBQ and Lox, Stock and Brisket.

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The cooking class at Architectural Justice. Photos by Karin McKenna

Back to School

From Kitchen 101 and one-off meal tutorials to whole-hog butchery and 12-part courses, Cleveland’s got a cooking class for you

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

K

evin O’Neill spent three hours on his feet in a very bright, very cold room with five of his pals dismembering a large hog. Admittedly, the experience is not for everyone. But for O’Neill, a fresh-food fanatic, it was a highlight of his entire summer.

He and his mates took part in the whole-hog butchery class at Ohio City Provisions, an intimate, immersive dive into meat fabrication, a counterintuitive term that refers to breaking down livestock into consumer-friendly cuts. As a long-term subscriber to Fresh Fork Market, the buying club run by Ohio City Provisions owner Trevor Clatterbuck,

O’Neill already had a passion for local foods, farm-to-table cooking and the sense of community that comes with it. He even made a trip down to Wholesome Valley Farm in Amish Country to connect some of the dots.

“We got to meet the farmers, meet the pigs, meet the chickens and the turkeys,” he reports. “It’s really something; from birth to the table they are in complete control of how the animals are raised. The flavors are amazing and I feel better knowing that there’s no junk in our food.”

At the class, O’Neill learned about pig anatomy, the difference between primal and sub-primal cuts, and how to safely use a

bone saw, boning hook and filet knife, among other things. As peculiar and narrowly focused as the cooking class might seem, the students departed with very practical skills.

“You’re obviously not going to be butchering a 300-pound pig on your kitchen countertop, but you will walk away with an appreciation for snout-to-tail cooking and the ability to trim up your own meats and roasts,” he explains. “It helps you to understand what you are doing.”

From wine-soaked “date night” cooking classes to fully accredited pro-track culinary programs, there is no shortage of options in town for people who want to dive deeper into food.

On the shallow end of the pool are one-off classes like those at Architectural Justice, a high-end home decor and furniture store in Strongsville. As regional distributors of Sub-Zero and Wolf kitchen equipment, the shop uses classes as a way to show off and demo the pricey appliances.

“It’s more of a fun night out with friends, but we always try to make sure people walk away with some real skills,” says owner James Justice, who

opened the ritzy store with his wife a year and a half ago.

At the classes, people split into groups of four to prepare the individual dishes of a five-course meal. The food always changes, but formula stays the same. Popular titles include Taste of Italy, Homemade Pasta, and Holiday Classics. The events are capped off by a celebratory meal with wine and followed up with recipes and photos.

Lakewood resident and Tremont Scoops owner Nikki Schiro dipped her toes into the cooking-school pool when she attended a Supper Club class at Gatherings Kitchen in Lakewood, but she soon discovered that she wanted to go deeper.

“I was invited to one of their Sunday Suppers as just a fun thing to do on a Friday night,” she says. “I enjoyed the experience so much that I signed up two more times over two years.

But I wanted to learn more about cooking so I took the four-week prep course.”

Prep School is composed of four, four-hour classes that equip home cooks with the skills they need to tackle any recipe with confidence, from learning how

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to chop, mince and dice veggies to braising, grilling, sauteing and poaching proteins. Those procedures are augmented with bread baking, pasta making and dessert building.

“We made beef stroganoff, fish in parchment paper, coq au vin,” says Schiro. “It’s fun to learn about different cultures and different foods and get to try new things.”

At the end of each class, students retire to the dining room “where you can step away from it

Along with Tri-C’s Hospitality Management Program, the International Culinary Arts and Sciences Institute in Chesterland is one of the few local resources designed specifically to prepare people for a career in the wonderful world of food. The school offers a six-month certificate program in either culinary or pastry arts and a two-year diploma track in those same fields. Those courses join a nonstop calendar of recreational cooking classes geared to the general public at sister organi-

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all to relax and enjoy the meal.”

And at the end of the program, students graduate with the ability to filet a fish, break down a whole chicken, and keep their knives in good nick.

“Once you learn how to use a chef’s knife, you have more confidence in the kitchen,” Schiro says.

Catherine St. John has been teaching at Western Reserve School of Cooking in Hudson for almost 30 years. As a culinary school graduate, herself, she understands the value in the fundamentals, but she’s also cognizant that one size of education does not fit all.

“We offer one-offs on up to a 12-part French cooking basics series that will appeal to somebody who hasn’t spent a lot of time in the kitchen but wants to get some basics under their belt,” St. John explains.

While less demanding and comprehensive than a fully accredited program, the series equips home cooks with the sort of timeless culinary skills and techniques that will serve them well for years to come.

The class is also a worthwhile first step for those who might be considering a professional career in food service.

“You have to learn how to walk before you can run,” she says.

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zation Loretta Paganini School of Cooking.

Like many of her colleagues in the profession, Stephanie Paganini has heard the argument that prospective cooks needn’t squander their time and money on a pricey culinary education when the school of hard knocks is free for the taking. Six months in a restaurant kitchen will bring you up to speed quicker than two years of classwork, goes the claim.

In theory, Paganini agrees. In practice, however, she sees a flaw in the formula.

“There are a lot of chefs who say you don’t need to pay money for school because I’ll teach you, but that only happens when they are around, when there’s a full staff, and when you’re not busy peeling 100 potatoes,” she argues. “At culinary school, you are paying the chef to give you their undivided attention to teach you all those techniques and skills.

“We also believe very much that you need to take those techniques and skills that you learned in the classroom and apply them in a real world scenario,” she adds.

“We think that’s the magic sauce on how you get into the industry and move faster up the ranks.”

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The Natural Wine Trend Lands in Cleveland From funky to fruity, what you need to know about natural wines and an old art form enjoying a rebirth

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

Julian Bruell, of Zack Bruell Restaurants. Photo by Karin McKenna

I

’m no sommelier, but I know enough about wine to not ruin a meal. But when I picked up the list at a trendy French bistro in New York City recently, I felt like an uncouth rube on his first day out in the Big City.

Filled with obscure all-natural bottles, the roster might as well have been penned in Greek. So I did what I always do in those situations: texted the list to a friend who is a sommelier. Before long my wife and I were giddily devouring a funky, fruity and slightly effervescent wine with electric acidity. Oh, and it was the color of a sweet potato.

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Welcome to the wild world of natural wines, a broad category of options that often (but not always) translates into exciting, highly drinkable wines with effusive personality. If you are a wine lover who pays attention to trends, then you doubtless have been following along as this anti-establishment movement continues to attract devotees. Even if you’ve never heard about these so-called “real” wines, you likely already have enjoyed one or two without even realizing it.

So, what do we mean when we say “natural wine”?

“There’s is no clear defini-

tion, so there’s not a lot of clarity around it,” says Maggie Harrison, a veteran sales rep for Vintage Wine Distributor. “But generally speaking, it means that nothing is added and nothing is taken away.”

The current interest in and demand for natural and minimal-intervention wines has been building for years as rebellious young vintners in the Old World and New have been taking a more hands-off approach to winemaking that favors tradition over manipulation. From the vineyard to the winery, every effort is made to let nature take

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its course, resulting in wines that best express the fruit and terroir, or sense of place.

“In the ’90s, you could tell that wines were changing and it was getting harder to differentiate a cabernet-based wine from France versus one from Napa Valley and other places,” explains Adam Fleischer, owner of the Wine Spot in Cleveland Heights. “People like to talk about the Robert Parker Effect on wine. If wineries around the world wanted a good rating from Robert Parker, they needed to start doing things to their wine to match his preferred style.”

Far from the old-fashioned way of doing things, winemakers would irrigate vineyards and apply chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The manipulation continued in the winery where sugar was added to the juice prior to fermentation to boost alcohol, grape concentrate was used to adulterate color, powdered tannin and tartaric acid were employed to tweak those levels, and the resulting product was buried beneath a somber cloak of new oak. Before it’s bottled, the wine gets fined, filtered and preserved with a lethal dose of sulfites.

Practitioners of natural winemaking, however, take an altogether different route. It starts in the field, where hardy native vines or old varietals plucked from obscurity are grown sustainably, organically or biodynamically.

After harvest, the ripe fruit is crushed, exposing the juice to indigenous “wild” yeast on the skins and thus kick-starting spontaneous fermentation. Wines are aged in neutral vessels such as stainless steel, glass, concrete or earthenware pots; no new-oak barrels. Little to no sulfites are added and the wine is bottled unfiltered and unfined.

“Many, many wineries around the world are doing it this way,” Fleischer says. “These are really interesting wines that we enjoy. If we enjoy them and our customers keep asking for them, I would be doing a disservice by not paying attention to them.”

Given the laissez faire approach to winemaking, results are across the board when it comes to appearance, aroma and flavor.

Pop a top and you might get an orange wine politely described as untamed and funky — or impolitely compared to horse manure — or one that is smooth-drinking, pleasantly tart and delicious.

“There is a huge range of taste profiles and presentations you can get, from high to low quality and from cloudy to clear and brilliant,” adds Harrison. “The flavors can range from a cidery tartness to funky and barnyardy.

Because they tend to be lower in alcohol and higher in acidity, they are going to be more food friendly, making them well-suited to chefdriven restaurants.”

Pick up the wine list at any Zack Bruell restaurant and you’ll enjoy what is likely the largest natural wine selection in the region. Julian

“These are really interesting wines.

I would be doing a disservice to my customers by not paying attention to them. ” – Adam Fleischer

Bruell, director of service and beverage, encountered the movement while working in Brooklyn, and it was one he was eager to showcase across the board at Zack Bruell Restaurants.

“They’re great with foods,” he says. “The Alley Cat menu is real funky and wild right now, with three fourths all-natural. I just feel like that style of wine goes great with seafood.”

Bruell has experienced no shortage of pushback from conventional wine lovers who’ve heard disquieting anecdotes about off-putting aromas and flavors, but he’s more than happy to help clear up misconceptions.

“A lot of people associate natural wines with cloudy, unfiltered, kind of dirty, funky-smelling, cidery … but most of them are clean, fruit-driven and fresh,” explains Bruell. “My father calls it hipster, but to me, it’s just an old style of winemaking that goes back to before there was modern technology.

It’s a total hand-sell, but I love them.”

As with most trends, Cleveland has been slow on the jump when it comes to natural wine. Selections are sparse at retail shops and on restaurant wine lists. We can blame Robert Parker and his 100-point scale for getting us here, but his influence on modern winemakers has been waning for years.

“In cities like Chicago and San Francisco and New York, there are bars and restaurants that are entirely natural wines,” reports Harrison. “Cleveland is always a little behind the times. The pendulum is swinging back to 50 years ago. It’s not for everybody. If you like something, go for it. At the end of the day, it’s just another option.”

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One of the best: The Lincoln Park at Lox, Stock and Brisket.

Photo by Karin McKenna

The Bird is the Word The fried chicken sandwich has had a big year. Here are the six you shouldn’t miss

BY WALKER MACMURDO

Y

ou can’t beat perfect.

But you can pound it flat and fry it and put it in a bun.

Steaming hot, armored in seasoned batter, fried chicken is elementally delicious — a boulder of fat and crunch that speaks to the heart as much as it does the belly. It’s a perfect American dish.

The fried chicken sandwich has been having a big year, popping up in many of Cleveland’s most exciting modern restaurants and neighborhood taverns, topping some of our favorite happy hour menus and holding down the fort as the main attraction at some Cleveland staples new and old. Plain-jane, draped in crisp slaws, served with fancy pickles, slathered in tangy sauces, we’ll take each and every variation. But there are some that stand out and above the crowded field, of course. We traveled across the city to find the best.

Lox, Stock and Brisket

13892 Cedar Rd., University Heights You’ll find the best chicken sandwich on the east side at Anthony Zappola’s new-school Jewish deli. Lox’s Lincoln Park ($10) sandwich, served on an egg roll from Unger’s Kosher Bakery in Cleveland Heights, comes with an enormous triangle of buttermilk battered schnitzel set off with fluorescent pickles, slaw and a touch of spicy mayo. Lox’s sandwich is a masterclass in balance: buttery, sweet and crispy with just a hint of spice.

Larder Delicatessen and Bakery

1455 West 29th St. Another new Jewish deli that marries modern preparation and local ingredients to classic deli offerings, Hingetown’s Larder offers the best fried chicken sandwich ($9, or $5 on Tuesdays from 4 to 6:30 p.m.) on the west side, and perhaps, in town. It’s

all thanks to an exceptionally pillowy house bun made with spent grain, buttermilk and Amazake, a Japanese fermented rice drink. In that bun you’ll find pieces of fried chicken thigh accompanied by lettuce, a sauce made from mustard, mayo and toasted yeast, fresh herbs and both kosher dill zucchini pickles and Kool Aid-pickled onions.

The Plum

4133 Lorain Ave. The Plum’s crispy chicken biscuit sandwich ($13) is a glorious mess. The Ohio City eatery fries their buttermilk-brined chicken thigh in an oregano-seasoned batter and tops it with American cheese, thick sliced pickles, shredded lettuce, a tangy sauce and, if you like, a fried egg (you like). It is best eaten with a knife and fork, especially after you dump the sides of hot sauce and honey all over it, transforming your sandwich into a delightful landslide of fat and acid.

Herb N’ Twine

4309 Lorain Ave. Herb n’ Twine’s foray into the fried chicken sandwich ($10) game stands out as the only one in the city that doesn’t make you feel like you have been battered and deep fried yourself. Herb n’ Twine glazes strips of fried chicken breast in a sweet honey

garlic sauce and wedges them between their house made french bread, making for a subtle interplay of crisp and crunch set off by a punchy slaw.

ParkView Nite Club

1261 West 58th St. The fire-breathing chicken that serves as this beloved Gordon Square bar’s mascot will prepare you for their sandwich ($8.50).

A slab of crackling fried chicken breast arrives Tang-orange thanks to a coating of fryer oil mixed with cayenne pepper and brown sugar.

It’s served on a kaiser bun with a cabbage slaw seasoned with apple cider vinegar. You’ll be warned by your server that the sandwich is seriously hot. It is, but not too hot to overwhelm the juicy crunch of the chicken and a gentle sweetness from the sugar.

V’s Gourmet Chicken

15418 Lakeshore Blvd.

The home of some of our favorite fried chicken in Cleveland unsurprisingly offers the best classic, soul food-style fried chicken sandwich ($7.50) in town. Served with the traditional accoutremonts of red onion, mayo, provolone and shredded lettuce, V’s sandwich towers with chunks of immaculately crispy chicken breast and comes nestled in a pillowy kaiser roll from Orlando Bakery.

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The Sweet Stuff The tantalizing desserts Clevelanders should be saving room for this year

BY DOUGLAS TRATTNER

W

hen the beloved Diner on Clifton was reborn as Dinerbar on Clifton a few hundred feet down the road, the owner set aside some prime interior real estate for sweets.

Located by the register, sunk into the horseshoe bar, is an illuminated display case that shines a light on some of Cleveland’s most delectable desserts.

Inside are the tantalizing treats of pastry chef Annabella Andricks, who has a knack for twisting every day into a cheat day.

The glass-fronted display case taunts guests with giant swirled Ho-Hos, rainbow-colored “funfetti” cakes, and caramel cookie crunch cakes, but it’s the mile-high salted caramel cheesecakes that make mincemeat of good intentions. As if a fat slice of creamy cheesecake wasn’t enough to send one running for the stretchy pants, these wedges come topped with cheesecake snowballs.

“It starts off with making a crust out of vanilla cookies instead of your typical graham crackers,” Andricks says of the confection. “It adds a bit more sweetness to the dessert, which is needed because the cheesecake itself is a combination of mascarpone and cream cheese only slightly sweetened. It’s finished off with a heavy pour of salted caramel.”

But what about those BIG BALLS OF CHEESECAKE?!

“Because, well, why not?” of course.

Diet buster: Annabella Andricks and her salted-caramel cheesecake .

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“Because, well, why not?” of course.

Pie fans have a new best friend thanks to Rood Food and Pie, which finally opened its doors in the West Madison district of Lakewood. In addition to sitting down to enjoy a slice of sagescented pumpkin pie with a hot cup of coffee, dessert lovers can take home the whole damn pie as long as you call 48 hours ahead of time. And when you do, consider ditching the pumpkin pie in favor of the Salt and Honey.

“We start with an all-butter crust that gets filled with a wildflower custard made with brown butter,” says pastry chef Katie Ruthsatz, with little regard for the appetite on the other end of the line. “After it’s baked, we top it with large crystals of Maldon sea salt, which adds a slight textural crunch, but also a nice fresh, salty finish.”

At the table, guests are presented with a small vial of bee pollen to sprinkle on top of the pie before eating.

“It adds a nice earthy, nutty flavor that helps cut some of the sweetness,” she notes.

Folks who manage to not eat everything on chef Jill Vedaa’s small-plate menu at Salt in Lakewood are in luck because Ange Lupica has been waiting for them. Her thoughtful, seasonal, highly composed creations are the flawless finial to a magical meal. For bitter-sweet chocolate fans, there’s only one way to go: Chocolate Crush.

“I wanted to make something that was decadent, dark and rich,” Lupica says of the artfully arranged plate. “I like the idea of a tea party: petite fours that are basically little bites of cake and truffle. You’ll get a nice sweet, salty and nutty flavor from the hazelnut brittle that cuts through the bitter chocolate. The cocoa toile is a crispy shard people have said reminds them of the dark baked edges of a brownie.”

The dark and delicate squares are set against a cocoa and olive oil emulsion that is fruity, punchy and bright, and a Vietnamese chicory coffee-flavored custard.

“You can’t beat the classic of chocolate and coffee,” she says.

“Mine is just a few twists and a slightly darker side of chocolate.”

As nostalgically delicious as apple pie might be, the homespun words don’t exactly jump off

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the page. On a menu, the classic American meal-capper is often sidestepped in favor of chocolate anything. But the way pastry chef Abby Stout describes the version served at Flour Italian Restaurant, you’d likely push your granny out of the way to grab a slice.

“The crust is a classic flaky, home-style crust,” says Stout, easing a diner into it. “The crust is built around chopped Granny Smith and Honey Crisp apples that are dry-rubbed in a combination of fall spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

The entire pie is then coated in a slightly salted orange-caramel sauce that essentially candies the flaky crust in the baking process.”

Sorry, we stopped listening after “candy crust.”

The candy-crusted (!) pie is served warm in a cast iron skillet, topped with miso-caramel ice cream, and garnished with chopped candied pecans.

“The salty yet sweet balance of the miso-honey caramel ice cream both accents and complements the natural sweetness of the apples and orange caramel,” adds Stout. “The candied pecan acts as a nice conclusion to the salty-meets-sweet theme of this dessert.”

Andrew Hoch was going for a “true taste of fall” when he devised his pear and fig frangipane tart for this season’s menu at Spice Kitchen and Bar. The inspiration, says the pastry chef, was a bumper crop of delicious Ohio pears, an underrated fruit if ever there was one.

“The tart shell is basically a sable cookie, a rich vanilla, crumbly cookie crust,” he explains.

“The filling is an almond frangipane, a slightly dense almond cake, and there’s a bottom layer of black mission figs pureed with red wine and orange juice.”

But the highlight, he says, are the pears.

“Typically the move would be to poach them in wine or honey or something like that, but I just wanted it to taste like a really good pear, so I vacuum seal them in pear juice and sous vide them. We send it out with some honey goat-creme fraiche for a bright and creamy tang, a dusting of powdered sugar, and some toasted slivered almonds along the outer edge.”

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ADVERTISER INDEX 49th Street Tavern 4129 E 49th St. Cuyahoga Heights OH 44105 216-417-3102 49streettavern.com Anatolia Café 2270 Lee Rd. Cleveland Heights OH 44118 216-321-4400 anatoliacafe.com Astoria Café & Market 5417 Detroit Ave. Cleveland, OH 44102 216-266-0834 astoriacafemarket.com Aurelia Honest Food & Drink 16 N Main St. Chagrin Falls, OH 44022 440-600-7770 aureliabistro.com

Bubba’s-Q 820 Center Rd Avon, OH 44011 440-937-7859 bubbasqdining.com

Distill Table 14221 Madison Ave. Lakewood, OH 44107 216-505-5188 distilltable.com

The Burnham 100 Lakeside Ave E Cleveland, OH 44114 216-413-5120 theburnhamrestaurant.com

Executive Caterers 440-449-0700 executivecaterers.com

Cantine 1100 W Royalton Rd. Broadview Heights, OH 44147 440-877-9399 cantinebottleshop.com CLE Urban Winery 2180B Lee Rd. Cleveland Heights, OH 44118 216-417-8313 cleurbanwinery.com

Fairmount Martini & Wine Bar 2448 Fairmount Blvd Cleveland Heights, OH 44106 216-229-9463 thefairmount.net Fat Heads Cleveland 24581 Lorain Rd. North Olmsted, OH 44070 440-801-1001 fatheads.com

Barrio Tacos Multiple Locations barrio-tacos.com

Coastal Taco 1146 Old River Rd. Cleveland, OH 44113 216-727-0158 coastaltacobar.com

Fat Heads Brewery & Beer Hall 17450 Engle Lake Dr. Middleburg Hts, OH 44130 216-898-0242 fatheads.com

Battery Park Pub 1261 W 76th Street Cleveland, OH 44102 216-999-7074 batteryparkpub.com

Condado Tacos 10 Park Ave., Suite 112 Beachwood, OH 44122 216-230-2722 condadotacos.com

Fat Heads Canton 3885 Everhard Rd. NW Canton, OH 44709 330-244-8601 fatheads.com

Batuqui The Flavor of Brasil 12706 Larchmere Blvd.

Cleveland, OH 44120 216-801-0227 batuquicleveland.com

Crop Bistro & Bar 2537 Lorain Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113 216-696-2767 cropbistro.com

Graeter’s Ice Cream Multiple Locations, graeters.com

Billy’s–A Cappelli Martini Bar 7338 Industrial Park Blvd Mentor, OH 44060 440-585-8815 billysacappellimartinibar.com

D’Agnese’s Italian Restaurant 1100 W Royalton Rd. Broadview Heights, OH 44147 440-237-7378 dagneses.com

The Black Pig 2801 Bridge Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113 216-862-7551 blackpigcle.com

Dave’s Cosmic Subs Multiple Locations davescosmicsubs.com

Bloom Bakery Multiple Locations bloombakery.com

Dave’s Markets Multiple Locations davesmarkets.com

Blue Habanero 6416 Detroit Ave. Cleveland, OH 44102 216-465-1818

Dinerbar on Clifton 11801 Clifton Blvd.

Lakewood, OH 44107 216-521-5003

Grumpy’s Cafe 2621 W 14th Street Cleveland, OH 44113 216-241-5025 grumpys-cafe.com Harry’s Steakhouse 5664 Brecksville Rd Independence, OH 44131 216-524-5300 harryssteakhousecleveland.com Hatfield’s Goode Grub 16700 Lorain Ave. Cleveland, OH 44111 216-417-1056 hatfieldsgoodegrub.com Hatfield’s Goode Grub Express 850 Euclid Ave. Cleveland, OH 44114 216-713-0788 hatfieldsgoodegrub.com

You can be healthy and eat out.

GREAT TASTE. STYLE. GOOD TIMES. Ohio City BBQ 3829 Lorain Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113 216-417-5987 ohiocitybbq.com

Le Petit Triangle Cafe 1881 Fulton Rd Cleveland, OH 44113 216-281-1881 lepetittriangle.com

Ohio City Galley 1400 W 25th St. Cleveland, OH 44113 216-525-9933 ohiocitygalley.org

Lobster & Pho 6901 Rockside Road Independence, OH 44131 216-525-0028 lobsternpho.com

Old Angle Tavern 1848 W 25th St Cleveland, OH 44113 216-861-5643 oldangle.com

Lock 15 Brewing Co. 21 W North St. Akron, OH 44304 234-900-8277 lock15brewing.com

Pierre’s Ice Cream Co. 6200 Euclid Ave Cleveland, OH 44103 216-432-1144 pierres.com

India Garden 18405 Detroit Ave Lakewood, OH 44107 216-221-0676 indiagardencleveland.com

Poca Casual Mexican 1400 W 25th St. Cleveland, OH 44113 Located in the Ohio City Galley

Mallorca 1390 W 9th St, Cleveland, OH 44113 216-687-9494 clevelandmallorca.com Nauti Mermaid 1378 W. 6th St. Cleveland, OH 44113 216-771-6175 thenautimermaid.com Nick’s Diner 4116 Lorain Ave, Cleveland, OH 44113 216-631-7757 nicksdiner.yolasite.com Nuevo Modern Mexican & Tequila Bar 1000 E 9th St. Cleveland, OH 44114 216-737-1000 nuevomodmex.com

Discover the sensational flavors of a seasonally-inspired menu and an international wine list in a casually-sophisticated atmosphere.

Our dining choices are expertly designed to excite and surprise the palate, featuring wine selections that personalize the dining experience.

WE OFFER VEGETARIAN, GLUTEN FREE AND VEGAN OPTIONS.

Healthy & Delicious

DRINKING WINE LOWERS THE RISK OF HEART DISEASE. Red-wine tannins contain procyanidins, which protect against heart disease.

Tuesdays @ 3:00 PM Half Off Wine!

FACTS

Landmark 11637 Clifton Blvd Cleveland, OH 44102 216-230-4040 landmarkcleveland.com

HAPPY HOUR OFFERS PREMIUM CRAFT & BOTTLE BEER 3:00 - 6:00 PM

Beer to lower your bad cholesterol. The fibre in beer can also help reduce your levels of LDL (Bad) cholesterol.

Lunch & Dinner

Catering

Beer for stronger bones!

The elevated levels of silicon in beer can contribute to higher bone density.

Private Parties

Wine Tasting

Si Senor Tacos & Tequila Bar 25048 Sperry Rd. Westlake, OH 44145 440-250-0882 sisenormexicangrill.com Skye LaRae’s Culinary Services 216-254-2808 skyelaraes.com

THE PREMIER BISTRO & WINE BAR

Warren’s Spirited Kitchen 14614 E Park St. Burton, OH 44021 440-273-8100 warrensspiritedkitchen.com Yard House 160 Union S Westlake, OH 44145 440-808-8403 yardhouse.com

$5.00OFF PURCHASE OF $30 OR MORE

Be healthy and eat out with us.

LOCATED AT THE CORNER OF STATE RT 83 AND MILLS RD

NOT VALID WITH ANY OTHER OFFERS/COUPONS/PROMOTIONS, HOLIDAYS FRIDAY OR SATURDAY.1 COUPON PER TABLE PER VISIT. VALID THRU 2017

www.clevescene.com A Special Presentation of Cleveland Scene

Flavor 2018 47

award-winning

BEER food handcrafted

! g in r u o P d an n e p O Now

new brewery & beer hall Middleburg Heights, Ohio

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17450 Engle Lake Drive Middleburg Hts, OH 44130 216-898-0242

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24581 Lorain Road N. Olmsted, OH 44070 440-801-1001

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3885 Everhard Road NW Canton, OH 44709 330-244-8601

GREAT BEER, CRAZY GOOD PUB GRUB!