As a Cincinnati native, I tend to get one of two reactions when I mention my origins: a dig about the Queen City’s luckless sports teams, or a confused question, perhaps tinged with disgust, about “that weird chili you put on spaghetti.” I’ll generally agree with the first point. But a jab at Cincinnati chili flares up red-blooded hometown pride. To me, this misunderstood meat sauce is a cultural cornerstone, a testament to immigrant ingenuity, and the crowning jewel of Midwest cuisine.
It all started with Tom and John Kiradjieff, two arrivals from what is now northern Greece, who founded Empress Chili Parlor in downtown Cincinnati in 1922. Cincinnati chili shouldn’t be considered a corruption of Texas-style chili con carne because it comes from an entirely different culinary heritage. Dann Woellert, author of The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili, believes the Kiradjieffs’ signature dish was inspired by a Macedonian lamb stew and took the name “chili” in an appeal to American tastes. The brothers boiled fresh ground beef with a bit of tomato paste and spices from their homeland, then served it with spaghetti or over hot dogs (more on that later) to provide filling, affordable meals for showgoers at the Empress Burlesque theater next door.
Customers loved it, and a century later, over 250 chili parlors operate across the Cincinnati metro region. Two local chains, Skyline and Gold Star, dominate the scene, but many independent restaurants retain devoted followings. Empress Chili, now located in Alexandria, Kentucky, still serves the same recipe the Kiradjieffs crafted; other chefs have pushed the boundaries by using different proteins or incorporating Southern, Mexican, and Japanese influences. You can now find Cincinnati chili lasagna, chili pizza, and even chili doughnuts.
Cincinnati chili’s Mediterranean roots give it a unique profile: warming, subtly spicy rather than aggressively hot, with a touch of sweetness from sherry or apple cider vinegar (never chocolate, as popular myth would have it). Each chili parlor boasts its own secret recipe; cinnamon is common to them all, and most claim about 16–18 different herbs and spices, from savory additions like paprika and cumin to sweeter components like nutmeg and cloves.
While the complex melange of flavors in a great Cincinnati chili can be enjoyed alone, it’s most often served in one of two ensembles. Plate chili atop spaghetti in a shallow football-shaped dish with a heaping mound of shredded cheddar, and you’ve got a “three-way.” The noodles should be cut, rather than twirled Italian-style, so each distinct layer can shine. Tucking chopped raw onions or pinto beans under the cheese creates a “four-way,” while a “five-way” features both additions. Put chili on a hot dog with mustard and onions, again crowned with cheese, and you’ve got a “coney.” Both coneys and ways usually come with palate-cleansing oyster crackers on the side and a thin hot sauce for those looking to turn up the capsaicin.
Chili isn’t something Cincinnatians trot out to baffle tourists—it’s a consolation after the Reds lose yet another baseball game, a celebration for earning good grades, a cause for reuniting with old high school chums. No party is complete without an oven-baked dip of chili and cheddar over cream cheese.
Whenever I get wistful, home is as close as the stash of canned chili in my cupboard. But the very best way to have chili is sitting in a Cincinnati parlor. These are my picks for the eight Cincinnati-area restaurants that best show the breadth of what chili means to the region.
Dixie Chili & Deli
733 Monmouth St., Newport, KY 41071
The oldest continually operating Cincinnati chili parlor isn’t actually in Cincinnati—it’s right across the Ohio River in Newport, Kentucky. Since 1929, Dixie Chili & Deli has been serving the same recipe developed by Nicholas Sarakatsannis, who learned the trade at Empress before striking off on his own.
The space, now run by Nicholas’s son, Spiros, has expanded and updated over the years. It no longer hosts the slot machines that were omnipresent during Newport’s midcentury heyday as a gambling mecca. But with its tile floors and cozy booths, it retains a vintage charm. The chili itself is just as classic, a perfectly weighted blend of sweet and savory with notes of cinnamon and cumin. Dixie’s spaghetti is cooked to a toothsome al dente that holds up beneath the chili, while its Wisconsin cheddar is thinly shredded to lend melty goodness to every bite.
Employees in neat red aprons and white visors bustle at steam tables behind a long cafeteria-style counter, and customers take their food on trays to sit beneath framed historic photos and advertisements. A jukebox filled with classic pop and country CDs lets patrons queue up the hits under an old Coca-Cola sign. My dad is notorious for selecting a 19-minute slab of themes from the Titanic soundtrack, in his words, “The most music you can get for a quarter!”
Order: Take a step beyond the usual chili limits and order a six-way, billed as a dish “for the true connoisseur.” Finely chopped raw garlic lends a lingering pungency to the textural delights of a five-way’s creamy beans and bursts of crisp onion. Tack on a chili-topped “alligator,” which adds a crunchy dill pickle spear and unctuous mayo to the usual coney combination of hot dog, bun, mustard, and cheese. If, for some reason, you’re not in a chili mood, the homemade Mediterranean vegetable soup is also excellent.
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Camp Washington Chili
Only one restaurant in Cincinnati has ever won a coveted James Beard Award. Is there any surprise that it’s a chili parlor? Camp Washington Chili earned the nod in the “America’s Classics” category in 2000, after 60 years of slinging ways and coneys a few miles north of downtown.
The place remains as popular as ever, with a lunchtime rush that brings together hungry families, workers on their break, and culinary tourists. Diner-style sandwiches and melts are on offer, but most customers choose some variety of chili. Camp Washington’s version has a coarser grind and beefier chew than most of its competitors, a robust base for flavors of cinnamon and oregano.
The same year the restaurant received its award, it was displaced from its original location by a street-widening project. Still, the restaurant’s rebuilt home is a deliberate homage to the past. Its decor wouldn’t be out of place in the 1940s: plenty of neon, burnished chrome, and a long pass-through counter between the busy kitchen and seating area.
Nearly every square inch of wall space is covered in press clippings, magazine covers (including Bon Appétit), or celebratory proclamations from city leaders. Many honor chili patriarch Johnny Johnson, who started working at the restaurant in 1951 and owned it for decades before passing the torch to his daughter, Maria Papakirk. Whether you order a way or a coney, the restaurant’s cooks are very generous when they ladle on the goodness.
Order: Surrounded by such a rich history, there’s no need to get too innovative: Get a classic three-way. Order it inverted, with chili served on top of the cheese, and the beefy juices will mingle beautifully with the rest of the ingredients. Also notable is the “513-way,” a 5-way that tacks on goetta, Cincy’s signature breakfast delicacy of ground pork, steel-cut oats, and mild spices.
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Price Hill Chili Family Restaurant
Visitors to Price Hill Chili are greeted with mementos from perhaps its most famous visitor: former Vice President Dick Cheney, who swung through on a reelection tour in 2004. (Contemporary reports say he was “too busy chatting” to eat but got chili to go for his campaign bus.) The vast majority of the time, however, this restaurant is for locals.
Most chili parlors don’t serve alcohol—a holdover from their Prohibition-era origins—but Price Hill Chili is attached to a full-service bar called the Golden Fleece Lounge. A fine selection of local beers and bourbons pairs nicely with this chili, a cinnamon-forward concoction with a surprising bit of lingering heat. Here, in particular, I appreciate the pairing of chili with crisp, neutral oyster crackers.
The restaurant’s sprawling complex of rooms, managed by second-generation owner Steve Beltsos, is a de facto community center for the tight-knit Price Hill neighborhood on Cincinnati’s West Side. When I ate here as a kid with my cousin Pat, a longtime resident, we couldn’t pass a table without being greeted by parishioners from her Catholic church or old students from her career as a school librarian. The walls hold lots of sports memorabilia from nearby Elder High, and alumni regularly gather to reminisce about their glory days over lunch.
Order: I lean into the heat of Price Hill Chili and order the Hot Chili Cheese Mett. The spicy, salty German mettwurst sausage, sourced from local purveyor Queen City Sausage, works wonders as a variation on the classic coney.
Bard’s Burgers & Chili
3620 Decoursey Ave., Covington, KY 41015
It’s hard to miss Bard’s Burgers & Chili’s biggest claim to fame: the Bardzilla Challenge. A massive mural on one side of the dining room taunts diners with a tower of 11 one-third-pound patties and two pounds of fries.
But owner and chef Jordan Stephenson has put at least as much thought into his chili. When he took over the restaurant in the Latonia neighborhood of Covington, Kentucky, in 2015, it didn’t come with a chili recipe. So he developed his own from scratch, seeking opinions from a crew of taste testers who needed sustenance for the rigors of watching Cincinnati’s NFL squad.
“We kept dialing in the recipe on Sundays over some Bengals games,” Stephenson says. “I’d go to my buddy’s house, and everybody would try it and give me their feedback.” The result combines very finely minced beef and freshly ground spices, particularly suitable for going on top of hot dogs and hamburgers. Like all good Cincinnati-area chefs, Stephenson is cagey about the exact spice mix, but it’s heavy on the warm, comforting flavors, with a solid hit of clove.
Customers can still get their chili with a side of football thanks to a couple of big-screen TVs in the restaurant’s bar area. And if the Bengals disappoint, there’s always the vintage Waterworld pinball table, where players come face-to-face with the stoic visage of Kevin Costner.
Order: For the best of both worlds, get the Chili Craig cheeseburger, named after a regular customer and designer of the restaurant’s logo. The chili topping gives even more flavor to the thick, juicy patty; Stephenson recommends decking it out with mustard and onions to mirror the coney experience. Pair this with a jumbo order of thick-cut pickle chips, fried to a crisp golden brown and guaranteed to vanish before your burger hits the table.
Blue Jay Restaurant
Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood is undeniably hip, featuring a bevy of independent shops, live music venues, and a brewery that’s taken over an old Catholic church. Amid all this buzzy newness, the Blue Jay Restaurant sticks out as a stubbornly preserved fragment of a different time, with green vinyl diner booths and stools next to a long Formica countertop. Yet one bite of what’s inside helps you remember why people have such fond memories of the past.
The restaurant’s chili puts medium-ground beef in a looser-than-usual sauce with a definite brown sugar sweetness to it. Plated out, it takes on a beautiful chestnut sheen that complements the dark wood paneling on the walls and makes yellow cheddar pop that much more brightly. Prices have gone up a bit since the Blue Jay’s founding in 1967—the days of $1.15 double-deckers and 30-cent slices of pie—but owner Vasiliki Brunson has kept things affordable for a new generation of diners and old-timers alike as she continues the legacy of her father, Danny Petropoulos.
When I lived in Cincy on the princely earnings of a grad student and indie musician, my bandmates and I would often stop at the Blue Jay to fuel up before shows at Northside Tavern or The Comet. Now as then, the waitresses don’t hesitate to chat you up, and cooks work the line under a sign with the restaurant’s original menu. Some things don’t need to change.
Order: I’m automatically drawn to omelets when I step into a diner, and the Blue Jay has a uniquely Cincinnatian option in the Northsider, topped with chili and cheese. Heroic eaters can pile on additions and upgrade to a seven-way with onions, tomatoes, peppers, and beans. Pair with buttery rye toast and a packet of Smucker’s apple jelly.
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Pleasant Ridge Chili Restaurant
When you reach Pleasant Ridge Chili, an arrow of flashing lights and bold neon above the door announces you’ve come to the right place. Since 1964, the sign has been a welcome sight for denizens of this neighborhood on the northeast fringe of Cincinnati, as well as students from nearby Xavier University coming to or from a party.
Inside, the restaurant is fastidiously old-school. Danny Sideris, the son of late founder Antonios “Tony” Sideris, maintains Pleasant Ridge as a cash-only establishment. Drinks come in red tumblers with copious pellets of what customers call “the good ice.” The menu still includes cube steak with sides of cottage cheese and sliced tomatoes. And decades of experience have honed Pleasant Ridge’s chili, which regularly ranks among Cincinnati’s favorites in polls by local newspaper CityBeat.
You can sit in the booths along the walls, but on a weekend night, the action is best observed from a stool at the horseshoe-shaped counter around the drink machine. A steady stream of take-out customers make small talk with the cashier as they grab orders, leave tips in a big plastic jug, and listen to the sizzles emanating from the kitchen.
Many of those Styrofoam take-out clamshells are stuffed full of the restaurant’s legendary gravy cheese fries, while others contain ways and coneys. No one flavor pops out as dominant in Pleasant Ridge’s chili. It’s just hearty, balanced, and warming—Midwestern family restaurant hospitality at its best.
Order: The gravy cheese fries, but add chili on top. The two are a power couple: The robust crinkle-cut fries have the architectural heft to support the unctuous, peppery brown gravy mixed with spiced meat and gooey cheese. Split them with a friend and you may have room for a coney on the side.
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The Silver Ladle
If Chipotle and a chili parlor had a baby, it would look a lot like the Silver Ladle. The fast-casual joint in the heart of downtown Cincinnati was opened in 2012 by Tim Lambrinides, the great-grandson of Skyline Chili founder Nicholas Lambrinides. The Silver Ladle takes the customizable nature of chili to previously unrealized heights.
While the restaurant does offer a traditional 3-way and cheese coney, The Silver Ladle treats chili as a building block for many other food formats. You can get it spooned over mixed greens in a kind of taco salad, mixed in a rice bowl, swished atop nachos, or wrapped into a burrito for easier handling. Topping options omit the usual pintos but include diced jalapeños, a Cuban-inspired black bean sauce, and even sour cream—old hat for Texas chili, perhaps, but unheard of in Cincinnati.
Even the protein is negotiable. The restaurant is known for its Cincinnati-style chicken chili, which maintains the cinnamon warmth of the usual beef version while adding a pleasant chew from the shredded meat and savory depth from extra tomato.
Rather than regard it as heresy, Cincinnatians embraced the new spin on their chili, giving it an award at the 2013 Taste of Cincinnati food festival. Over a decade on, the Silver Ladle does a brisk trade with downtown office workers. There’s a lot of takeout, but more than a few diners take a break in the contemporary-style dining room, ties tucked away in case of an errant bite.
Order: The potential combinations at the Silver Ladle boggle the mind, but I keep it simple with a chicken chili 3-way. Be prepared for absolutely massive portions; one dish provides more than enough to split with a friend.
Cafe Mochiko
1524 Madison Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45206
A cute Asian American bakery-café full of houseplants and Japanese art may be the last place one expects to find Cincinnati chili. But Cafe Mochiko in the city’s East Walnut Hills neighborhood often serves its own version of the dish: a Cincinnati-style ramen.
Chef Erik Bentz, who co-owns the cafe with his wife, the James Beard Award–nominated pastry chef Elaine Uykimpang Bentz, says the development of their chili ramen took root during the start of the pandemic. To keep their business afloat amid restaurant closures, the two pivoted to selling meal kits, and they needed a buzzworthy recipe to drum up sales. Customers couldn’t get enough of the Cincinnati-inspired dish, and when Cafe Mochiko resumed service, the chili ramen earned a place in its permanent rotation.
The dish shares some similarities with tantanmen, a style of ramen featuring warm spices and a ground pork topping. The Cincy ramen keeps to the traditional pork, bouncy house-made noodles, and tingling heat while adapting to local tastes through the chili flavor backbones of cinnamon and cloves. Bentz completes the bowl with a jammy boiled egg and a handful of shredded cheddar.
Some social media detractors from outside the region have sniffed that the dish is an insult to ramen, chili, or both, Bentz says. “But as far as Cincinnatians go, they seem to be big fans.”
Order: The chili ramen, of course, but consider starting with the Mochi Mochi Panic appetizer, a celebration of pillowy rice flour dumplings in a balanced soy and ginger broth. My favorite drink pairing is the Maneki Wanko “Lucky Dog” sake, served in a juice box to simultaneously indulge the inner child and thirsty adult. Consider dining early to make sure some of Uykimpang Bentz’s baked goods are still available for dessert.
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Daniel Walton is a freelance journalist who grew up eating chili less than 10 minutes from the Cincinnati Reds ballpark. He now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and has written for publications including ‘The Guardian,’ ‘Sierra,’ and Civil Eats.