Cincinnati punches above its weight when it comes to excellent Indian restaurants, but Amma’s — which translates to “mother’s kitchen” in Hindi — is unique in offering up an entirely vegetarian menu in a kosher-certified kitchen. Amma’s provides a few ways to sample much of the menu, including a sampler platter with 10 offerings that range from rice pudding to soup, as well as a dinner for two featuring curries and dosas.

Hideki and Yuko Harada met in culinary school in Japan and refined their ramen recipes during pop-up dinners at Northside Yacht Club before opening Kiki in Cincinnati’s College Hill neighborhood in 2019. Ramen is a star at Kiki, but the menu also features Japanese dishes that Hideki describes as nontraditional bar food, like a pork bulgogi-stuffed cabbage roll in mushroom broth with black garlic oil and chicken (or jackfruit) karaage with sauces including miso mustard.

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 a 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.

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 potatoes and black-eyed peas). The menu is available for dine-in service, and the outdoor courtyard is heated in the colder months. The popular momos, steamed or fried, can also be bought frozen to prepare at home.

Before opening Mazunte, Josh Wamsley taught English around the world, but a disappointing taco experience during a visit home to Cincinnati inspired him to move to Mexico to learn how to cook. Upon returning, he opened this popular Madisonville taqueria, featuring the street food of Oaxaca. Tacos are the stars here, with chorizo, fish, chicken, pork, steak, or veggies served with avocado salsa, onions, and smoked red salsa atop house-made corn tortillas. The taqueria also serves prepared dishes over rice, like memelitas, tostadas, and chiles rellenos. Mazunte offers carryout and delivery, and just down the road is its Mercado, a larder where you can buy the same ingredients the restaurant uses in its dishes.

After a quarter-life crisis, self-proclaimed carb lover Alex Plattner left a job in education and traveled across Minneapolis working in pizzerias, learning the secrets of dough. He returned to his native Cincinnati in 2020 to open St. Francis Apizza, where the dough is made by hand daily and gets a long fermentation, which creates a light, airy crust that’s caramelized and delicately charred. The shop’s pizza is inspired by pies from New York; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Oregon. The Erie Ave, for instance, comes with mozzarella, pecorino Romano, grana padano, Ezzo pepperoni, pickled jalapenos, hot honey, and fresh basil. St. Francis Apizza has plentiful vegan options and offers tavern-style pizza with ultra-thin crust on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Cincinnati’s native dish — an all-meat chili, thinner than a Tex-Mex version, with obvious notes of cinnamon and clove — 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.

Pepp & Dolores, from the Thunderdome Restaurant Group, is an homage to the Italian grandparents of co-founders 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 (olive oil, vinegar, and herbs served with bread for dunking), was inspired by the remnants of salad dressing left at the bottom of the bowl at the Lannis’ grandparents’ table.

Nolia Kitchen is a love letter to the South and three generations of family cooks. Chef Jeffrey Harris made his way to Cincinnati from the 9th Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At Nolia Kitchen, he serves broadly defined Southern cuisine — like sweet potato doughnuts with quark cheese and pickled jalapenos and barbecued chicken that’s smoked and smothered in Alabama white sauce — though he also draws on the particular Creole spirit of his home. The menu starts with bar kri (raw bar), followed by piti (small plates) and gwo plack (entrees). Nolia was a finalist for the 2023 James Beard Foundation’s best new restaurant award.

Chicago native Daniel Wright’s first restaurant, Senate, was cheeky. It featured gourmet hot dogs with names like Guaca-saurus Rex, Spuds MacKenzie, and Lindsay Lohan. His second spot, Abigail Street, is more grown-up. The North African eatery offers small plates like roasted beets and labneh, wood-grilled octopus, crispy falafel, and merguez-stuffed dates. Abigail Street recently expanded into the neighboring space that formerly housed Senate, cementing its prominence in Over-the-Rhine.

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 for its ribs, barbecue chicken, steaks, and seafood, but its outdoor patio has been enclosed and heated to host guests year-round.

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. Cincinnati may sometimes seem like the city that fine dining forgot, but not at Boca. While Falk’s rustic Italian basement spot Sotto might be his most popular restaurant, the food, technique, and service just upstairs at Boca — in the same space where he got his start — stand out.

Chef Jose Salazar’s first restaurant bears his name, but his second might be his most personal. Named for his Colombian grandmother, Mita’s serves a tapas menu featuring the food and beverages of Spain and Latin America, ranging from traditional to modern. Dishes include ceviches, cured hams, cheeses, paella, and pozole. While Salazar himself is a five-time James Beard Award semifinalist for best chef, Mita’s was a finalist for outstanding restaurant in the 2023 awards.

The inside of KungFood Chu’s AmerAsia is a neon-tinged ode to anime and kung fu movies. The Asian fusion restaurant, from veteran chef Rich Chu and his son Johnny Chu, serves some fare familiar from pan-Chinese eateries, peppered with standout dishes like zonxon noodles, a take on the Cincinnati-style chili three-way but made with lo mein noodles and topped with a rich minced pork sauce, peanuts, cucumber, and cilantro. There’s also an old-school Taiwanese imperial beef stew served with cabbage, tomato, and lo mein in a spicy beef and tomato broth.

When Bouquet opened in 2007, chef-owner Stephen Williams embraced local, sustainable farming before it became trendy in the wider Cincinnati restaurant industry. Bouquet still has a reputation as the place vegetarians and vegans can go for upscale dining, but it also offers regionally sourced proteins like Maple Leaf Farms duck — served with mushrooms, roasted carrots, smoked grapes, and parsnip puree — and Eggleston Farm chicken breast with garlic-lime crema and mango pico de gallo.

Mike Wong was an engineering executive in Hong Kong before falling in love with America through John Wayne movies. After coming over on a tourist visa in 1972, he took a restaurant job to secure his residency and has been working in the industry ever since. In 1977, he opened the first of his own, and now three generations of the Wong family are operating the family business at two locations, serving elevated takes on Americanized dishes and traditional Chinese comfort food like faan ke beef (stewed tomatoes with beef and egg). Both locations, in Fort Mitchell and Hyde Park, offer online ordering for carryout, too.