Cincinnati chefs are getting creative with this mashup of meat and grain
CINCINNATI — Chris Breeden, manager of Arnold’s Bar and Grill, open since 1861, describes his casual menu as “Cincinnati condensed.”
Burger meat is a mix of ground chuck, short ribs and Wagyu beef from the 125-year-old Avril Bleh butcher shop, four blocks away. Patties go on buns from the local Sixteen Bricks Bakery. The default side is Grippo’s potato chips, made in Cincy since 1919.
The best-selling specialty burger is Yo Mama, named for Ronda Breeden, mother of Chris and a longtime Arnold’s waitress who worked her way up to owner at the city’s oldest bar.
“It’s like breakfast on a burger, and the hardest burger to make” because of all the layers, the son explains. The cheeseburger gets a spicy kick from chipotle mayo and a potato pancake spiked with crushed red pepper.
On top is a sunny side up egg, but what makes the pudgy sandwich truly indigenous is a thin slice of fried goetta (that’s GET-ah).
Goetta?
“It was medieval peasant food,” says David Glier of Glier’s Meats, whose family produces more than a million pounds of goetta a year in Covington, Kentucky, a hop across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.
What began as a humble German stew of long-simmering oats, seasonings and ground-meat scraps — pork and beef livers, hearts, tongues, skin and more — has turned into a ubiquitous food of regional pride, used by chefs in both casual and upscale settings.
“So many opinions about goetta are out there, starting with ‘I’ll never touch that,’ ” says Dann Woellert, a food historian and author of “Cincinnati Goetta: A Delectable History” (Arcadia Publishing, 2019). He’s a selfproclaimed “goettevangelist.”
“Some chefs have taken goetta to almost a hipster level,” he says.
Brewers too: Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. released a goetta-inspired beer (made with pinhead oats) for Cincy’s first goetta pub crawl this year.
Chefs across the city have embraced goetta as a local product, and some are taking culinary risks with it, spicing it up with jalapeno and cayenne.
For the city’s famed Oktoberfest, Busken Bakery made glazed doughnuts filled with cinnamon crunch ice cream and goetta. Another vendor called “Hey Hey” sold goetta sauerkraut balls.
Taste of Belgium at The Banks, known for its waffles and crepes, serves the slightly sweet ’Nati