Within walking distance of all three, the 21c Museum Hotel (room-only doubles from £230 ) is comfortable and whimsical in equal measure, displaying its own rotating selection of cutting-edge contemporary art. There’s also the Aronoff Center for the Arts (), hosting everything from ballet to Broadway musicals. This is where the best high-end dining options are located - superlative seafood at Boca (mains from £14 ) inventive tapas at Mita’s (small plates from £6 ) and butter-soft beef cuts at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse (mains from £18 ), where the chandeliers are the size of Fiat 500s and the wagyu meatballs are as big as tennis balls.Ĭincinnati’s Central Business District is also home to its heavyweight arts scene, with must-sees including the stellar sculpture and photography collections at the Contemporary Arts Center (free ) and the left-field exhibits at the Weston Art Gallery (free ). Locals come here for everything from barbecue to parfait, but not least for goetta - a haggis-like meat and oat sausage that’s served fried in burgers and sandwiches and is second only to chilli in the hearts of true Cincinnatians.Ĭincinnati is a pleasingly walkable city, but there’s also an efficient (and free) European-style tram connecting OTR with downtown proper. The foodie focal point of OTR is Findlay Market (), the oldest continuously operating public market in Ohio and a great place to meander, letting the smells and queues point you in the right direction. Here, amid handsome Italianate buildings with their flat, decorative roofs (which often double as New York City in Hollywood movies), you’ll find a rapidly gentrifying enclave brimming with eating and drinking options, from coffee shops to fun craft breweries and taprooms such as Rhinegeist and Taft’s Ale House (Ohioans love their beer as much as Kentuckians love their bourbon). More specifically in the Over-the-Rhine (OTR) district - so called because it rose around a downtown canal that early German settlers had to cross to get downtown. Most of the serious bar and restaurant action takes place on the Ohio side of the river. Thankfully Cincinnati excels here too, from simple chilli parlours (there are more than 300 in the city) to dazzling downtown dining rooms. (Happily this involves plenty of tasting as you hone your palate).Īfter the bourbon, you’ll need to line your stomach. Here, in a delicious fusion of science lessons and happy hour, you “thieve” bourbon directly from different barrels, combining them to craft your perfect blend, before having it bottled to take home. My favourite experience was the personal bourbon blending at Wenzel Whiskey () - a bright, airy distillery in an old pickle factory near the river. Those who know their angel’s share from their devil’s cut should check out Revival (), a vintage bottle shop just two minutes’ walk from Hotel Covington, where the larger-than-life local Brad Bonds (known in the industry as “the Indiana Jones of vintage spirits”) serves shots from rare bottles up to a century old, for as little as £8. And the city’s western suburbs even stretch out to touch the fringes of Indiana. Like Kansas City it’s an interurban unicorn: a metropolitan area straddling two US states, in this case Ohio and Kentucky.

To understand Cincinnati you first need to grasp its geography. And it’s about to become a lot easier for Brits to explore the Queen City - so named because it offered an oasis of civilisation amid wild terrain - with new direct flights with British Airways from London Heathrow starting June 5. As well as a booming bar and restaurant scene, a glittering collection of art museums and galleries and an intriguing assortment of boutique hotels, there are some of the best bourbon distilleries in the world. But the trio have far less in common than their geographic and alphabetic proximity suggests.Ĭincinnati, emerging on the bloodied coat-tails of the American War of Independence to become in 1788 what many consider the first truly “American” city, has the richest history of the three.

When it comes to Ohio, most Americans lazily lump together “the three Cs”: the cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus.

Best foodie towns in ohio