The Top 100 Restaurants Near Hoste
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Rank 1. The Aperture
Live-Fire Middle Eastern
- USA Today Restaurants of the Year
- The New York Times The Restaurant List
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Jordan Anthony-Brown
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Rank 2. Wildweed
Italian
Pasta anchors the menu, but the chef insists Wildweed isn't an Italian restaurant, and a rib eye with umeboshi, seaweed jelly, and fermented crab makes a reasonable case. This Over-the-Rhine dinner spot grew out of years of pop-ups, and the bar counter lets you watch the kitchen work through every strange, precise move. Named to the New York Times Restaurant List and a James Beard nominee, it earns the attention without seeming to chase it.
- Midwest Living 2025 · Best of the Midwest
- 50 Best One To Watch Award 2026 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Best Chef: Great Lakes · David Jackman
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Rank 3. Nicola's Restaurant
Italian
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- James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best New Restaurant
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Jeffrey Harris
- Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
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Rank 5. Mita's
Spanish
Chef Jose Salazar's tapas bar runs on small plates and a staff that functions more as a personal concierge than a waitstaff, pacing courses, pairing wines, and gently talking you into things you didn't know you wanted. The Spanish and Latin American menu moves through blistered peppers and embutidos before landing on a paella that's the exception to the small-plates rule. A James Beard nominee, and the kind of room that feels like the party started without you but will absolutely let you in.
- James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurant
- USA Today Restaurants of the Year
- James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Jose Salazar
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Rank 6. Sudova
Eastern European
Stained-glass windows were the starting point for the entire bar design, which tells you something about how deliberately this Eastern European restaurant was built. The menu pulls from the chef's grandmother's recipes, pierogi and pelmeni and khachapuri landing hot, and the medovik changes flavors every few months just to keep you coming back. A James Beard nominee, and Cincinnati Magazine's number-five restaurant.
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Sarah Dworak
- Cincinnati Magazine #5 · Best Restaurants
- Cincinnati Magazine 2025 · Martini: Axe of Perun · Best of the City
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Rank 7. Boca
French-influenced New American
The famed red door on Sixth Street opens into one of Cincinnati's most serious fine dining rooms, the kind where comfort food quietly arrives in formalwear. The kitchen has been around forever, occupying the old Maisonette address, and the pommes soufflées remain a knowing nod to that lineage. The menu moves between reliable classics and sharper seasonal swings, and dessert gets the same attention as everything before it.
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Custom Rookwood pottery displayed above the open kitchen pass sets the tone at Jose Salazar's namesake restaurant, a mid-sized dining room where servers stand with hands clasped, quietly hunting for glasses to refill. The format is tapas in spirit: order everything at once, and the team paces it out. Dishes lean seasonal and arrive with an almost theatrical commitment to color, the kind of cooking that makes you notice it before you taste it.
- Cincinnati Magazine #10 · Best Restaurants
- James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Jose Salazar
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- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: Southeast · David Willocks
- Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
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Rank 11. Nolia Kitchen
Southern
The kitchen is literally front and center here, open to the room so the whole team works in full view, moving like they own the place, which they kind of do. Nolia is a casual dinner spot where servers wear branded sweatshirts and the skillet cornbread arrives with a scoop of cane-syrup butter melting dramatically on top. Southern ease, exposed brick, and a menu that quietly runs gluten-free without making a cause of it. The house hot sauces are made from scratch, and one will have you fanning yourself.
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Rank 13. Abigail Street
Mediterranean
The door on Vine Street is easy to walk past, which is a shame because the tapas inside are hard to forget. This Mediterranean small-plates spot in Over-the-Rhine keeps things playful, from wood-fired octopus to a hummus plate that changes daily and pulls regulars in on its own. The pistachio baklava arrives as a thick slab of filling with pastry almost as an afterthought, and the servers watch you react like they've seen it before and still enjoy it.
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Rank 14. Colette
French
Secondhand china covers the walls and lands on the table at this mostly French restaurant in Over-the-Rhine, which leans firmly away from the stiff Euro-bistro formula. The room is bright and a little grandmotherly, the service moves fast, and the pastry program is treated with the seriousness it deserves. Pain maison and mille-feuille are the arguments for arriving hungry and leaving slower than you planned.
- Cincinnati Magazine #8 · Best Restaurants
- Cincinnati Magazine 2024 · Ravioli Sheet · Best of the City
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Rank 15. Sotto
Italian
The entrance is easy to miss: a staircase beside Boca's red door, leading well below street level. Sotto is a pasta-forward Italian speakeasy downtown, where the team makes things by hand and pours a lot of table wine, and the antipasti menu will quietly destroy your willpower before the main event arrives. Truffle season turns the tajarin into something quietly serious. The descent sets the mood, and there are enough steps that ordering a second pasta feels almost responsible.
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- Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
- James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Great Lakes · Francisco Alfaro
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Rank 21. Cincy Café
Yemeni Middle Eastern
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A coffee shop in Over-the-Rhine that roasts its own beans on-site, sourcing from family farms across South America and Africa. The decaf goes through a water-bath process that pulls the caffeine without gutting the flavor, which is a harder trick than it sounds. Good place to sit with a book and feel quietly virtuous about your afternoon cup.
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Rank 33. Ché
Argentinian Peruvian
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Rank 34. Harmony Plant Fare
Vegetarian
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Rank 37. Lang Thang Coffee
Vietnamese
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Rank 38. Onolicious Hawaii
Hawaiian
Glazed, caramelized Spam wrapped in nori is on the menu, and at Onolicious it is a completely reasonable lunch. This casual Hawaiian spot grew from a food hall stall into its own brick-and-mortar, serving shoyu chicken and musubi to a city that has taken the whole thing rather seriously. The team brings a laid-back luau spirit to downtown Cincinnati, which is a sentence that works out better than you'd expect.
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A matcha café that sources its tea directly from a family farm in Shizuoka, which means the starting point is better than most. Little Matcha landed in Covington after starting as a pop-up, and the menu rotates every two weeks so the seasonal lattes, strawberry one week, ube the next, stay worth revisiting. Hojicha and genmaicha lattes fill out the board, but the matcha is clearly the main event here.
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Rank 48. Carmelo’s Mozzarella
Italian
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The taxidermied animals have names, and some of them are not for sale because the owners simply like them too much to let go. Hail is a record shop and curiosity store in Covington where vintage vinyl shares floor space with mounted creatures sourced from antique dealers. Berry the Bear and friends are permanent residents; the records turn over. A useful stop if your living room needs both a new album and a peacock.
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The Crystalary is a fine mineral gallery in Mt. Lookout where smoky quartz from Switzerland shares shelf space with vintage Cordey China figurines. The team behind it has spent decades sourcing high-quality crystals and minerals for serious collectors, and the curation shows. It's the kind of shop that makes you realize you've been underestimating rocks your entire life.
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Rank 62. Chili Miso Udon, Café Mochiko
Japanese Noodles
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Fabric lovers, Silk Road Textiles in College Hill is your answer to the great JoAnn's void. This independent fabric shop carries an impressive range of ethically sourced textiles from around the world, whether you're sewing a garment or reupholstering a sad armchair. The staff actually knows their stuff, and regular in-store classes cover sewing, quilting, crocheting, and more, so beginners have no excuse to stay stuck on YouTube tutorials.
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Rank 73. Alcove
American
Nearly 3,000 plants grow out of the walls at this American kitchen and bar in Over-the-Rhine, which is either the most calming dining room in Cincinnati or proof that someone really committed to a concept. The living wall runs over 300 square feet of ferns, monstera, and ficus, maintained by a local specialist. It's the kind of room that makes you feel vaguely healthy regardless of what you order.
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Rank 74. Phoenician Taverna
Lebanese
Complimentary housemade pita arrives warm at this Lebanese restaurant in Mason, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. The mezza menus run long enough that most tables over-order on appetizers before the kebabs and shawarma ever arrive, which is its own kind of problem to have. The owner has been known to stop at every table with pairing advice, then greet returning guests by name. Come without a hard stop time.
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Rank 75. Kanji OTR
Japanese
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Rank 87. Mr. Gene’s Dog House
Chicago-style American
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A vegan cheese shop born out of one founder's frustration that everything else about going plant-based was fine, but the cheese was terrible. She started making her own, and now the Madisonville shop carries nearly thirty varieties, built on cashew, almond, and pea protein bases and ranging from Gouda to ranch dressing. Products also turn up at Findlay Market and Nosh if you're not heading to Bramble Ave.
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Dorothy Lane Market is a gourmet grocery store that Dayton has kept to itself for years, and Cincinnati finally got its first location. The butcher shop has a dry-aging chamber you can actually see, the cheese selection is serious, and there's a wine bar tucked in if you need a reason to linger. Bring a tote bag and a budget, because you will not be leaving with just one thing.
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Scratch-and-sniff stickers, Oilies, washi tape, and journals fill this small Wyoming storefront that a mom opened as an antidote to screen fatigue and a reason to sit down with her kids. It's a specialty sticker and stationery shop, the kind of place that triggers an involuntary memory of your childhood sticker album within about thirty seconds of walking in.
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If your back aches after every ride, BioWheels is the kind of bike shop that actually figures out why. They use motion capture technology to analyze how you move while you're riding, then dial in your fit accordingly. It's surprisingly technical for something you supposedly already know how to do. The crowd is serious cyclists who've finally decided to stop suffering in silence and do something about it.
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