Mita's from Jose Salazar may very well be Cincinnati's best restaurant

This story was originally published in March 2023. We noticed that the world at large has been catching on to the Mita's fever recently, so we decided it was time to resurface Keith Pandolfi's glowing feature on the Downtown tapas restaurant. Let's dig back in.

Is Mita’s having a moment?

I asked myself this question as I sat with a few of my friends at a plush circular booth at the downtown tapas restaurant earlier this month. I’ve been to Mita’s quite a few times over the years, but there seemed to be a little more energy in the air; an excitement that took me almost by surprise on a rainy Monday night in March.

Part of the buzz might be due to Mita's recent James Beard nomination as a finalist for the most outstanding restaurant in America award. Not just the Great Lakes region, mind you, but America. (Winners were announced in June.) Or maybe it was the recent accolade of being named the best restaurant in the city by Cincinnati Magazine. I’m told that Cincinnati Magazine’s food coverage should be viewed as competition, but I have to agree with them on this one.

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Mita’s opened about eight years ago, but under the guidance of current chef Tim McLane, general manager Molly Traylor and beverage director Nicholas DeFilippo, it’s flourishing, continuing the personal story owner Jose Salazar began sharing with diners in 2015. A story of his childhood memories with his grandmother (or Mita) in Colombia and a story of his own culinary journey told not with words, but with sweet fried plantains, tangy seafood pozole, pupusas and other foods he grew up with or learned about later and respectfully reinterpreted through the years.

That said, it took me years to fully appreciate what, exactly, Salazar was doing with Mita’s.

The first time I visited was just after it opened. I was still living in Brooklyn and visiting Cincinnati for the Food & Wine Classic. Back then, Mita's was still opened for lunch and I went there to meet with an old high school friend. From what I recall, we had a charcuterie plate, blistered shishito peppers, the patatas bravas and quite a few glasses of good red wine. It was a casual but out-of-the-ordinary meal that stuck with me long after I flew back home; the kind of meal I would tell my editors in New York about, letting them know that Cincinnati was about far more than chili.

As good as that experience was, I wondered if Mita's would last. Sure, Jeff Ruby could open a downtown steakhouse that’ll knock Cincinnatians’ socks off. But could a guy from Queens open a restaurant meant to honor his Columbian grandmother do the same? The answer, it seems, is yes. Absolutely yes.

Let’s go back to that dinner I mentioned above. I started it out at the bar with the best possible antidote for a dreary Monday night: the pineapple margarita, a mood-enhancing concoction of Dole pineapple juice, citrus cordial (made with lemon peels) and agave nectar (note: while the drink is usually served as a mocktail, I asked for a spike of tequila in mine; either way, it'll knock your socks off). It reminds me of both my childhood in the 1970s and spring breaks in the 1980s all at once. In other words, it's perfect.

Once we sat down, the dishes came out in a flurry. All of them thoughtfully imagined and beautifully executed by chef McLane and his crew. We ordered the empanadas, inspired by the same empanadas Salazar’s grandmother once made with the white masa she hand cranked. Unlike her version, these were stuffed with beef short ribs, an otherwise heavy dish brightened and lightened by the accompanying cilantro chili sauce. Then there was the poached rock shrimp, with cool and crunchy jicama, cucumbers and corn nuts, and papusas stuffed with sausage and refried beans (Mita's adds a flavorful twist by topping it with fermented cabbage). The bok choy was marinated in Japanese koji, tossed with tofu and coated in Spanish romesco sauce, showing just how many influences are melded together here.

After that dinner, I turned into a bit of a Mita's addict. And so, a few nights later, I sat at the bar with a friend and ordered more tapas. When you’re playing with the kind of bold flavors Mita's dabbles in, balance is key. And their mastery of it is displayed in the trout ceviche with juicy pomegranate seeds, grapefruit and red onions as well as the Galician-style octopus (pulpo), a popular Spanish tapa made of small chunks of octopus and perfectly cooked fingerling potatoes with a kick of paprika. Given that I'm not a huge fan of octopus, I let my friend order it, thinking I would just try a bite. In the end, I had a hard time not just ordering one for myself.

Now let's go back to that James Beard Award nomination I mentioned above. Salazar has been nominated for a Beard five times as “Best Chef Great Lakes Region,” the category into which Cincinnati falls. Despite all the nods, he’s but never made it past the first round. That's why he almost laughed it off when I congratulated him on his nomination last year. But this year was different. It was the first time that Mita’s has been nominated for outstanding restaurant, something he gushed about on social media as soon as he found out.

"This means way more to me," he wrote. "Restaurants aren’t about just one person. It’s the work of the entire team that makes our restaurants special. It’s their cumulative talents and hard work that earned this."

Win or lose, each and every recognition he’s received is well earned. Salazar has been in Cincinnati so long at this point that we tend to forget that he had a life before he moved here. We overlook the fact that he worked under such esteemed chefs as Thomas Keller, Geoffrey Zakarian and George Vongerichten. That he came here not to open his own restaurant but to take over the kitchen of what was once among the city’s best: the old Palace.

He follows the trajectory of another great chef. The late Jean-Robert de Cavel, who came here to take over the Maisonette before branching out on his own. And one would guess that de Cavel was quite proud of Salazar and everything he's accomplished here.

The intersection of Fifth and Race, where Mita's is located, hasn't fared well in the years since the restaurant opened. Across the street at the Hilton Netherlands Plaza, the loss of Orchid’s, which under the stewardship of Todd Kelly, earned a coveted five-diamond restaurant rating by AAA, is a shame. Kelly left for a job in Georgia in 2017 and after Orchid's shuttered during the pandemic it never reopened, though the adjacent Palm Court bar is serving a limited menu.

Then there was the more recent closing of Saks Fifth Avenue, which now looks like the bombed-out shell of a long-ago downtown dream. I hope the city can figure out a way to revitalize this area sooner than later. After all, it's a shame to have such a sad surrounding for what might very well be Cincinnati's best restaurant.

Mita's, 501 Race St., Downtown, 513-421-6482, mitas.co.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mita's from Jose Salazar may very well be Cincinnati's best restaurant