Skyline Chili • Cincinnati

Chili Parlours are a who new thing for us. If it wasn’t for our trip to Cincinnati we’d never have known. When you dig in you discover a history and rivalry that’s hard to match. I’ll let Wikipedia give you the details but the basic deal is that mid-west chili is different from your, perhaps, more familiar chili con carne in two big ways. Flavor and consistency. It’s a thinner mixture than the Mexican version but the flavor is where you’ll notice the biggest difference. It took me back to my days in the Caribbean and rightfully so once I realized the spices involved were allspice, cinnamon and cumin. As if that wasn’t enough of a twist they than put this on spaghetti. Now I won’t even get into what my Italian-American brain was thinking when this was placed in front of me but I dug in none-the-less.

Empress was the original parlour which opened in 1922 as a stand next to the burlesque theater of the same name. These days the rivalry has many players but the main two are Skyline and Gold Star. We chose Skyline Chili because in 1949 a former Empress employee, Nicholas Lambrinides, branched out and started Skyline. We love a good break away story. The menu reads like a 2nd grade math textbook. Chili from 1 to 6 different ways. Literally. We settled on the Chili Three-Way – chili, spaghetti, and cheese. At $3.75 it comes with the standard pack of oyster crackers and a bib if you so require one. Forgoing my pre-concieved spaghetti ideals I pounded back this bizarre mixture until the white porcelain of the dish was completely visible. Good is an understatement. Mid-westerners have some weird concoctions but I have yet to try one that is not tasty. I’ll take a three-way any day. Uhh, you know what I mean.

Go there:
Skyline Chili
290 Ludlow Ave
Cincinnati, OH 45220