Start from 70 curated places around Cincinnati, OH, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Camp Washington Chili
The non-chain Cincinnati chili parlor, family-run since 1940 and the only one to win a James Beard regional classic award. Order a five-way or the goetta-topped version; this is the city dish done by people who never franchised it.
Pho Lang Thang
A Vietnamese counter inside Findlay Market that grew into a full bar-and-table room around the corner. The pho and the grilled-pork banh mi are the staples, and it is consistently rated one of the best cheap-to-mid meals in the city.
Trails & outdoors
Smale Riverfront Park
The flat, paved riverfront promenade between the Roebling bridge and the ballpark, part of the larger Ohio River Trail. It is the easy, accessible city walk with the constant payoff of the river and the bridge.
Eden Park
A 2.5-mile outer loop through a hilltop park with reservoir overlooks, the old water tower, and river-valley views. It is the close-in urban hike that still feels like it earns a view.
Things to do
Cincinnati Art Museum
An encyclopedic free art museum in Eden Park with 6,000 years of work and a strong local-art and Nabataean collection. Free admission and free parking make it the easy rainy-afternoon default.
Contemporary Arts Center
A downtown non-collecting contemporary art museum in a landmark Zaha Hadid building, rotating bold, sometimes provocative exhibitions. The architecture is itself the reason to go even between shows.
Landmarks & sights
Roebling Suspension Bridge
The 1866 John A. Roebling bridge that was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge, strung low over the Ohio River between downtown and Covington. Walking it gives you the cleanest skyline view in the city, and the deck hums when cars cross.
Cincinnati Music Hall
A High Victorian Gothic concert hall from 1878 that locals will tell you has some of the best acoustics in the country. Even if you skip a show, the brick facade and the Springer Auditorium interior are worth circling Washington Park to see.