With street after street of fine Italianate buildings, Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood is getting its due these days as one of the nation's premier historic districts. For decades in deep decline, OTR is now a grand tale of urban revival, booming as it is with some 150 new restaurants, bars, and shops and businesses that have opened in the last few years.
Supported by a 19th-century cast- and wrought-iron frame, which deservedly earns it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, Findlay Market is an OTR landmark to which many visitors make a beeline.
A good way to see and taste all the market delights is to put yourself in the hands of Cincinnati Food Tours whose guides have relationships with all the vendors, thus making your sampling as fun and informative as it should be.
You'll meet in the center of the 167-year-old market, happily facing a more recent food stand addition called Taste of Belgium. You'll watch waffle maestros prepare a thick dough that in a style from the city of Liège is cooked in a cast iron press that caramelizes its beet sugar. And then say goodbye forever to your morning waffles.
Today, most of the ground floors to the fine Italianate houses that surround Findlay Market once again hold food establishments and businesses. Whether dining indoors or sitting under a picnic tent out front, you can enjoy Vietnamese soups and bánh mì at Pho Lang Thang. From sustainable cacao sourced worldwide, small batch bars and truffles are made in-house at the Maverick Chocolate Co. Pop into Dean's Mediterranean Imports and you'll find hummus, labneh and all kinds of foods that the area's original German immigrants certainly never dreamed of.
