Restaurant Synergy in Cleveland

Creative chefs abound in Cleveland. Yet, for the restaurants and chefs to be successful, people have to experience them. During Downtown Cleveland Restaurant Week this week, we have the chance to sample the creations of our local chefs.

Talented Iron Chef Michael Symon is a testimony to how the synergy between a chef and food can be ignited. Michael has again been nominated for the James Beard and Rising Star awards, and his Lola (pictured below), sister restaurant to Lolita in Tremont, is one of the downtown restaurant destinations featured during Restaurant Week. At Lola and other local restaurants this week, dinner becomes a heightened event amidst good service in intimate spaces. Michael Symon’s restaurant Lola is just one of many restaurants participating in Restaurant Week.

Classic Cleveland independent restaurants such as 1890 at the Arcade, Blue Pointe Grille, Crop Bistro, Metropolitan Cafe (pictured) and Sans Souci and after-work spots like Fat Fish Blue, Flannery’s Pub, Pickwick & Frolic, D’vine Wine Bar, and Sushi Rock are featured. Even the chains have gotten involved—the Hard Rock Café and House of Blues are participating. A complete list of highlighted restaurants can be found by clicking here.

The “restaurant week” concept is not unique to Cleveland. Other cities choose a week each year to highlight and invigorate their restaurant jewels. On a recent trip to New York City, I partook of a wonderfully-long lunch at a Grand Central Station restaurant during their Restaurant Week. For $22 I enjoyed a brothy bean soup, Italian white fish with vegetables, and chocolate mousse cake, each course beautifully and artistically presented with varied and fresh ingredients. I chose from a menu of options, as is typical in most European cities where sidewalk placards announce the chef’s daily selections. Apparently, Chicago and Los Angeles also have a restaurant week where chefs present menus of courses at a set price.

After 5:00 every night from Sunday, February 24, through Saturday, March 1, the downtown restaurants participating in the project offer three-course menus priced at either $20 or $40. The limited menus selected by the chefs are, in themselves, uniquely creative. Unfortunately, only a few restaurants divulge their Restaurant Week menus on their websites. Muse at the Ritz Carlton offers a choice of seared sea scallops, mixed green salad, or Caesar salad, followed by a choice of cobia, hanger steak, or organic chicken breast, and finished with a pave of chocolate and lemon, warm almond cake, or Muscavado cheese cake (for $20).

Dinner reservations are strongly suggested. After eating a fantastic meal, Restaurant Week diners are entered into a sweepstakes with a chance to win gift restaurant certificates, an overnight stay at a downtown hotel, or a personal culinary experience. There is $2 parking available at participating parking lots downtown, and Ace Taxi is offering a 10% discount on cab service to the downtown dining spots. And the rumors you hear are true -- the sweepstakes offers a winner the opportunity to experience 24 meals at the participating restaurants.

Downtown Cleveland Alliance, which is “committed to making downtown Cleveland the most compelling place to live, work, play and visit in the region,” has worked with the restaurants, Positively Cleveland, and sponsors to pull off this event. Josh Taylor, Public Relations Manager of Downtown Cleveland Alliance, says, “Cleveland’s Culinary community is getting national reviews” and “downtown has the corner market on dining where the experience of sitting in old building with exposed brick walls and watching what’s going on in the city is larger than just dining in a restaurant, it becomes an experience.”

While Downtown Cleveland Alliance is aware of New York’s Restaurant Week, they looked at what smaller cities like Philadelphia, San Diego, and Baltimore were doing with their Restaurant Weeks. It is hoped that people who come downtown will discover the positive changes that have taken place in the city and feel safe and comfortable being in the city at night.

Positively Cleveland has fashioned itineraries to showcase other downtown venues during an entire day spent in the city or during an evening out on the town. For example, a day could start by embarkation on Lolly the Trolley for sightseeing, followed by a visit to the West Side Market and lunch at Sokolowski’s University Inn in Tremont, and end with a trip to the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum before dinner at a Restaurant Week venues (see link here). If you don’t have an entire day, choose to have dinner before heading over to the Playhouse for Wicked or another show at Playhouse Square Center.

A night out on town can be special, and Cleveland’s downtown restaurants are giving us the perfect opportunity to partake of the culinary masterpieces of our fine chefs this week. The problem will be choosing amongst the 42 options. Restaurant Week is sure to create synergy in a City that too often drowses at night.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia J. Taller ctallerwritesATwowway.com
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