Before opening a downtown pastry window (which has since closed), pastry chef Ben Arington operated a home bakery in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, amassing a large Instagram following. Since the pandemic, Arington has leaned back into that business, using his platform as a means to show off his custom cakes, doughnuts, and themed quarantine boxes of baked goods, like a ’90s box with ”pastry pockets,” “dunk-a-boos,” cereal cookies, and homemade Zebra Cakes.

Catch-a-Fire Pizza started as a food truck, set up shop inside Oakley’s MadTree Brewing, and eventually turned into a standalone brick-and-mortar pizzeria in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash in 2020. The restaurant is best known for its wood-fired pizzas, in both traditional varieties and creative American styles like Buffalo chicken or five-cheese barbecue ranch. It also serves up wood-fired appetizers like wings, potato skins, and peppadew peppers filled with basil and goat cheese. The whole menu is available for carryout.

Omar Garcia grew up in Michoacan, Mexico, watching his mother and grandmother grind corn from the family farm to make masa for tortillas. He continues the practice, making dough without flour or chemical preservatives, at his three Cincinnati-area locations of Tortilleria Garcia. The tortilla is the star, serving as vehicle for carnitas, pollo, carne asada, and al pastor tacos. The menu also includes tamales, burritos, and rotisserie chicken. There are family dinner packs, tortillas, and masa available to purchase as well.

Tickle Pickle was originally supposed to be called Buns N Roses, but the current name of the Northside burger restaurant won out in a staff vote. Nonetheless, it kept the rock ’n’ roll theme of the original concept. Burgers have names like Breadzepplin, Meatallica, Slaytar, and yes, even Buns N Roses. All burgers are made with 100 percent Angus beef, topped with everything from jalapeno poppers to bacon, egg, and cheese. Tickle Pickle also has an extensive vegan menu, featuring black bean and Impossible burgers. Food is available for delivery or carryout, and the outdoor patio has propane heaters for the cold months.

Ashak Chipalu came to the U.S. from his native Nepal, where his family owned restaurants, to pursue a career in nursing. But he found that he missed the flavors of home. He started serving Nepali cuisine as a vendor at Findlay Market before opening restaurants in Northside and downtown. Bridges aims to serve “a completely different Nepali cuisine,” combining familiar dishes like momos with more creative options like bowls, which consist of basmati or brown rice mixed with lentils or yellow peas and topped with hakku chuala (grilled chicken), pork chili, or aloo jhol (bamboo curry with black eyed peas). The menu is available for dine-in service, and the outdoor courtyard is heated in the colder months. Bridges also offers carryout and delivery.

Chef Derek dos Anjos operated one of the pioneering restaurants of Over-the-Rhine’s renaissance before closing it in 2018. He’s returned to the restaurant scene with a take-and-bake prepared-meal concept operating out of a deli, and he has plans to open a permanent location in an upcoming food hall. Parts & Labor serves lunch and dinner dishes with a rotating menu that includes items like miso butter grilled cheese, hot chili chickpeas, fried oysters with house tartar sauce, and hush puppies with Benton’s ham and honey butter. Meals can be picked up or delivered.

Fun fact: Northside Yacht Club is one of two landlocked boat clubs in Cincinnati. Founded by two longtime members of Cincinnati’s music scene, the Yacht Club used to be one part punk venue, and one part restaurant, the latter known for smoked wings (or cauliflower “wings,” one of many vegan alternatives on the menu) and award-winning poutine topped with fresh cheese curds and duck-fat gravy. The restaurant is best known for its irreverent limited-time menus that gleefully imitate and elevate classics from chain eateries. Past inventions include “nihilist Arby’s,” where each double roast beef (or seitan) was served with fries and an “inspirational” nihilistic aphorism, and Chronic’s, a CBD-infused take on Sonic in conjunction with a local hemp company, complete with roller-skating servers delivering carryout meals carside.

Chef David Falk is best known for fine dining. His restaurant Boca sits in the downtown space that formerly housed the legendary Maisonette, where Falk himself cut his teeth under French Master Chef Jean-Robert de Cavel. When the pandemic temporarily shut down dining rooms in Ohio, Falk brewed a new concept in the kitchen. What emerged was Domo, a prepared-meal delivery service that offers take-and-bake dishes like lasagna Bolognese and Peruvian whole-roasted chicken. Boca has since reopened, but Domo is going strong and has expanded to include dishes from other guest restaurants around town.

Cincinnati’s native dish — an all-meat chili, thinner than a Tex-Mex version, with obvious notes of cinnamon and a hint of chocolate — can be confusing to outsiders. It’s typically served over spaghetti and topped with shredded cheddar for what’s called a three-way (or a four- or five-way, with the addition of onions and/or kidney beans). There are chili parlors across the city devoted to the dish, which traces its roots to Greek immigrants, including the ubiquitous Skyline. Among all the options, go for Camp Washington Chili, a second-generation family-run shop that’s been in the neighborhood of the same name for 80 years, where the chili is a bit thicker and spicier than at rival institutions. If chili isn’t your thing, the restaurant also serves up diner classics like omelets and double-decker sandwiches. If you’re in a hurry, the drive-thru operates 24 hours a day, Monday through Saturday.

Erik Bentz and Elaine Townsend created Mochiko in 2019 to supply pastries to fellow food businesses and directly serve customers a menu of pastries and ramen inspired by yoshoku, or Western-influenced Japanese cuisine. Early in 2021, the pop-up evolved into a brick-and-mortar location in East Walnut Hills. Part bakery, part izakaya, the restaurant offers dishes like omurice, curry tonkatsu, and hamburger served on a fluffy bao bun, as well as sweets like a dalgona coffee pie.

Jeff Ruby, who famously banned O.J. Simpson from his restaurants, is the original larger-than-life food personality of Cincinnati. He has since passed the business on to the second generation of the family, and Ruby’s now has three locations in Cincinnati, but opt for the original Precinct in Columbia-Tusculum, where every steak still comes with a salad and side. In addition to meals in its opulent dining rooms and patio, the Precinct offers carryout, delivery complete with white linen tablecloths, and finish-at-home meal kits.

Goose & Elder is chef Jose Salazar’s third restaurant. Situated across the street from Findlay Market, Ohio’s longest-operating covered market, it serves a menu of casual American comfort classics like chicken wings, fried bologna sandwiches, and chicken schnitzel, alongside healthier fare like grain bowls, avocado toast, and roasted Brussels sprouts. The entire menu is also available for carryout and delivery, along with picnic meals.

Pepp & Dolores, the newest restaurant from the Thunderdome Restaurant Group, is a love letter to the Italian grandparents of cofounders Joe and Jon Lanni: Giuseppe (Pepp) and Addolorata (Dolores). All of the entries on its pasta-centric menu are made fresh daily, like mascarpone-filled butternut squash agnolotti or the bigoli, which comes topped with ”nonna’s red sauce,” veal and pork meatballs, and braised pork shoulder. Another family dinner favorite, the Dunk, was inspired by the remnants of salad dressing left at the bottom of the bowl at the Lannis’ grandparents’ table. It consists of olive oil, vinegar, and herbs served with bread for dunking. There’s a ski-lodge-inspired outdoor dining area, and the menu is available for carryout and delivery too.

Mike Stankovich worked his way across the Boston and New York bar scenes, most recently as the beverage director at Bushwick destination Roberta’s Pizza, before moving to his wife’s native Cincinnati to open Longfellow. A restaurant without a hood, Longfellow serves up sandwiches like Hungarian casino egg salad, dill pickle, and cheese, or the irreverent “scrap sandwich,” which combines scraps from the deli slicer, butter, pickled shallot, and sport peppers. There are also house-made chips with onion dip and hot dogs, as well as the option to add anchovies to anything. Everything — including bottled cocktails, alongside house-made bitters and digestifs — is served through a walk-up window to be enjoyed at a host of outdoor tables.

A collaboration between Julia Petiprin and Catherine Manabat, two veterans of the Cincinnati bar and spirits scene, HomeMakers Bar is a modern take on a 1950s cocktail party. The bar serves craft cocktails, hot and cold, as well as retro comfort food including both sweet and savory grilled cheeses, adobo chicken sandwiches, and French onion hummus dip. The entire menu is also available to go, along with bottled cocktails and picnic packs.

Molly Wellmann is Cincinnati’s original cocktail queen. Back when most bartenders limited drinks to two ingredients like whiskey and cola or gin and tonic, she was making her own bitters, syrups, and tinctures. At Japp’s, she offers a mix of classic cocktails and originals, like the Quit Yer Jibber-Jabbin with gin, absinthe, and bitters. You can also pick up to-go kits of spirits and mixers to shake and drink along with Five O’Clocktails, a cocktail class video series Wellmann launched on Facebook during the pandemic.

Lists of must-eat Cincinnati foods always include Montgomery Inn’s famous ribs, served in a unique sweet and spicy barbecue sauce. The restaurant’s downtown location not only offers contactless delivery and curbside carryout of its ribs, barbecue chicken, steaks, and seafood, but its outdoor patio has been enclosed and heated to host guests year-round.

Brothers Tony and Austin Ferrari opened the Hillside Supper Club and Provener Coffee in San Francisco before returning to their native Cincinnati and opening Mom ’n ’em Coffee & Wine in Camp Washington. Fausto, named after their grandfather, is their second restaurant, opened inside of the Contemporary Arts Center downtown. Fausto’s dining room sits in the lobby of the museum, but make no mistake — it’s a fully functioning restaurant, not a museum cafe. The seasonal California-inspired cuisine includes Carriage House Farms rabbit ravioli, shawarma octopus in sesame pita, a local mushroom melt, and roasted Gerber Farms chicken, all available for delivery or carryout. Fausto also offers prix fixe dinners for preorder, feeding two to four people.

Rich’s owner Bill Whitlow is a veteran of the hospitality industry, opening the Wiseguy Lounge speakeasy concept for Goodfella’s Pizzeria in three locations across two states. In his first solo outing, he created Rich’s inside an old watch shop in downtown Covington, serving up American pub fare with a Creole twist, with dishes like broiled oysters, braised pork lettuce wraps, and Kentucky bluegrass jambalaya. To sweeten the deal, Whitlow has sourced rare bottles of Kentucky’s native spirit, and special bourbons are available for purchase by the bottle alongside carryout orders of $35 or more.