Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Montreal’s Godspeed You Black Emperor! is on a mission to change the world. On the front lines of what it must see as the serrated machine of contemporary culture, GYBE! is a continuous, eloquent protest against all that’s alienating about our world. Interviewing the band is a difficult prospect, as the group has turned the…
Best Trade
Indians GM John Hart has never been shy about making trades. He detests letting players walk away for nothing via free agency, and he loves veteran hitters. (Yes, Kevin Seitzer and Dave Winfield really did play here.) Our pick for the best deal is the one last season that sent David Justice to New York…
Best Place to Buy a Fancy Front Door
Homeowners who want their front door to be as elegant as a piece of fine furniture need look no further than this showroom across from the Eton Collection on Chagrin Boulevard. Part of a chain that specializes in fancy doors, the Woodmere location also carries custom leaded glass, architectural details like carved mantels, and hand-forged…
Best View From a Running Track
It hurts getting to the top of Stinchcomb-Groth, the clumsily named peak that juts out the side of Hogsback Hill in the Metroparks’ Rocky River Reservation. Stinchcomb is short but steep, and many a runner has bailed out before the top — or skipped the side trip entirely. It’s a mistake, because the view is…
Best Scapegoat
Around the beginning of August, if you happened to turn on the television or radio when Carmen Policy, Dwight Clark, or Al Lerner were talking about this year’s Browns, a curious thing happened: It was as if, by magic, the trio had showed up in January to take over the team — a time that…
Best Country Living in the City
Russell feels remote. It could be the way the undulating landscape hides the homes. Maybe it’s the abounding trees, the wild pastures, the two-lane roads, or the occasional barn and livestock. There’s a silence at night unknown to city dwellers, and there’s about as much crime as Andy Griffith had in Mayberry. Still, just over…
Best Crunch Player
Most professional athletes use the excuses of age and injury to explain woeful performances. Not Hector Marinaro. Despite closing in on 40 and being sidelined for six games in the 1999-2000 season, he still earned his sixth consecutive National Professional Soccer League scoring title, amassing 231 points. He has also been named the NPSL’s most…
Best Restaurant When Someone Else Is Buying
There are more than a few reasons — fine service, impeccable foods, and the peerless ministrations of chef-owner Paul Minnillo among them — to choose this stately inn as the best restaurant in town, period. But, jeez, it’s pricey. When Veuve Cliquot goes for $17.50 per flute, and even a glass of milk will set…
Best Sushi
A gasp of fierce wasabi, a splash of salty soy, a shout of pungent ginger, and the patient clicking of pearly chopsticks form the soundtrack to a meal at Shinano’s little sushi bar. There’s no pulsating house music here. No kimonoed waitresses or sunken tables. Instead, the modest decor specializes in function over form, and…
Best Burger
Good — even great — burgers abound in our hometown, and picking just one to represent the entire species is a challenge. But after a year’s worth of thoughtfully sinking our teeth into glorious ground-meat patties (one has to do one’s research, after all), we nominate the succulent half-pound ground sirloin burgers at the Little…
Best Cheesecake
There’s plenty to love about this venerable Jewish deli, from its fat garlic pickles to its fizzy chocolate phosphates. But when it comes to New York-style cheesecake, Corky and Lenny’s rules. Staffers bake upwards of 20 of the behemoth beauties each day, filling the graham-cracker-crumb bottoms with pounds of cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and…
Best Jerk Chicken
Kingston is a long way from South Euclid, mon, but you can forget all that when you bite into chef-owner David Sterling’s incredible Jamaican Jerk Chicken. So deeply roasted, it makes one marvel that it reaches the table still in one piece . . . so lusciously seasoned, it makes one want to lick the…
Best Arts and Crafts Festival
There’s a walking trail in the front yard of St. John West Shore Hospital that meanders underneath graceful trees and ends at a pond that a family of mallards calls home. One weekend each July, hundreds of white tents are raised along this shaded footpath, so that professional artists can display and sell their creations…
Sense and Spirituality
Growing up Catholic, Judi Bar was mystified by “this God thing.” Even as an adult, she didn’t know what she believed, and she couldn’t bring herself to pray. Then her father became gravely ill. He lingered, comatose, in intensive care, attended by Bar, her mother, and brother. At the moment of his death, all three…
Money Mark
Like a drunk who keeps scarfing down hors d’oeuvres, the pop renaissance man rarely digests everything he bites into. See Elvis Costello as classical maestro, Todd Rundgren as techno Buck Rogers, Prince as triple-disc conceptualizer, and Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines. Core audiences are insulted, critical goodwill is squandered, and golden touches are lost over…
Best Rookie
In early April, a 6-foot-7, 250-pound figure strode to the middle of the Jacobs Field diamond, climbed the mound, and proceeded to hurl 98-mph baseballs past guys like Cal Ripken Jr. At the time, he wasn’t old enough to get into a bar. C.C. Sabathia had become, at just 20 years old, one of the…
Best Sports Venue
The Jake is simply a great place to watch a game. Most important, though, is the fact that you’re almost assured of seeing good baseball on a given evening there. If Cleveland ever gave a gift to itself, it’s that stadium.
Best Art Gallery in Someone’s House
Inside an old East Cleveland duplex decorated with paintings of crying blue faces and a cross, Albert Wagner, a man with a long gray beard and an eccentric’s rambling train of thought, lives with a few family members amid a thousand of his paintings. Roughly rendered, earth-toned faces stare down from every wall, looking stern,…
Best News Babe
Blondes are to television news what John Wayne is to westerns, but Channel 3’s Carole Chandler stands apart from the other fair-haired girls. Her nightside reporting gives Cleveland a cool, gleaming edge. The petite, rasp-voiced John Carroll grad seems as though she could elicit a confession from a murder suspect and offer tips on where…
Best Way to Kill Time in Rush-Hour Traffic
When you’re on your way to work, and I-77 looks more like a used-car lot than an actual route of travel, try some aromatherapy. That’s the practice of smelling — or rubbing on your skin — plant-based essential oils. Among their purported attributes, these oils are supposed to help you relax — something that’s hard…
Best Place to Experience Cognitive Dissonance
It is the forum for our discontent. Love it (lawyers, court reporters, journalists) or hate it (everybody else), the lawsuit is how we settle disputes in this nation. And if you’ve got a beef against somebody in Cuyahoga County, chances are you’re going to have to come here sooner or later. This is the Clerk…
Best Florist
A native Clevelander, Valerie Seeley moved to Chicago to further her floral career when her children left for college. There, she did flowers for private parties and institutional galas at places like the Shedd Aquarium, her celebrity clients including Jenny Jones and Oprah Winfrey. “She was simple,” Seeley says of Oprah. “She liked purple tulips.”…
Best Re-Creation of a Literary Figure
In Porthouse Theater’s Big River, a musicalization of Huckleberry Finn, Andrew Tarr, who is in his early 20s, was easily able to call up a huge dose of adolescent sexuality. His Huck was a boy/man perched between the recklessness of youth and the sensitivity of young adulthood. Tarr did a lot more than CliffsNotes to…
Best Steak
A caveman walks into a bar and growls, “Gimme a steak.” Michael, the chef, rightly figures that no sissy filet mignon is going to satisfy this tough customer, so he sets out to create a steak dinner that will turn Mr. Cave Dweller into just one more happy camper. To that end, he takes an…
Best Local Artist
Fine art photographer Douglas Lucak’s Cleveland is sad, lonely, and magical. It’s a city of fences, smokestacks, and wire, where even the shiny buildings of downtown seem to carry the weight of the city’s industrial toil. Lucak takes most of his photos with a pinhole camera — a simple box that lets the natural light…
Best Merlin of Musicals
As a performer, his Betty Boop voluptuousness, Ricky Ricardo accent, and John Travolta penchant for self-mockery made his eponymous Raoul in Beck Center’s Eating Raoul the most giddy creation since the birth of the leisure suit. As a director, particularly of Once on This Island and Chicago, Urdaneta demonstrated an uncanny ability for recruiting and…
Best Cleveland-Based Website
Are you frustrated because you can’t seem to find a decent radio station that’ll play all your favorite Ohio Players songs? Are you humiliated when your co-workers rip on your collection of the complete vinyl works of Earth, Wind & Fire? Do you lie awake at night, wondering what Rick James is doing right now?…
Backfield Devotion
‘Tis football season, the high holy days for fantasy geeks, bookies, and the I-Gave-My-Wife-an-Orpheus-Roye-Jersey-for-Mother’s-Day type of fans, who flock to the sports bars to be at one with their religion. But devotees beware: There are obstacles to this sacred pursuit. Far too many false temples advertise themselves as sporting establishments, yet offer televised fare no…
Spiritualized
In the four years since Spiritualized’s last album, the cosmos-tripping Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, singer-guitarist Jason Pierce more or less fired the group that helped assemble that drug-fueled landmark and returned to the studio as, basically, a one-man band with a lot of hired professionals to fill in the gaps. The…
Best Pizza
It’s worth a drive into Avon to sample Theresa Bryant’s award-winning Barbecue Chicken Pizza, a mouthwatering combo of breaded chicken bits, bacon, mozzarella, provolone, pineapple, and zesty homemade BBQ sauce, all piled onto a sturdy crust. Bryant won third place and $200 for the original-recipe gourmet pizza at the Mid-America’s Pizza Pizzazz contest in February,…
Best Driving Range
The Range isn’t exactly your typical bucket-of-balls-and-a-Coke-machine driving range. First, it’s affiliated with the Boston Hills Country Club, which gives it immediate cachet. But the Range offers more than reflexive snobbery. With a cigar bar, an Arabica coffeehouse, and a downright clubbish atmosphere, the joint has a pleasantly manly feel. If you like golfing more…
Best Park
Down in the Flats — just before Columbus Street crosses the river, passes Hoopples and zooms up to Duck Island — there is what has to be the least-visited public place in Cleveland. It celebrates a poet, of all things — one who called Cleveland home during his formative years. (Crane once lived on East…
Best Local Filmmaker Working Without a Budget
Cleveland short-film auteur Robert Banks can sniff out a deal on celluloid the way a great white shark sniffs chum from three miles away. Call it “buyback,” “expired,” or “short-end film stock”; Banks calls it thrifty, and he uses the footage to award-winning ends. Honored this year by the BBC and here at home by…
Best Cleveland Neighborhood
This neighborhood, approximately between East 30th Street and East 79th Street, north of Payne Avenue, isn’t flashy, but it’s immensely livable. It’s got a good blend of homeowners and renters. Homes are affordable and close to downtown. It has a full-sized grocery store, a Croatian bakery, an Asian shopping plaza, and restaurants whose fare ranges…
Best Place to Buy Vinyl
Resale record stores and vinyl are usually a bad, if not scary, combination, resulting in way too many beat-up copies of Shaun Cassidy, Kris Kristofferson, and Olivia Newton-John. Fortunately, the proprietor of My Mind’s Eye turned his own collection into inventory when he opened for business, resulting in racks filled with original Black Sabbath, Led…
Best Deal on a Facial
Okay, so there are no plush white robes or piped-in Yanni music, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better-quality facial than at Grace College. The senior students, working to be state-licensed cosmetologists or aestheticians, will transport you to Facial Heaven. The 90-minute deluxe facial — a mere 17 bucks — gets you the works:…
Best Brewpub
Even if you resist drinking Great Lakes’ award-winning beer, you can still get a taste of the brews’ distinctive flavor. The bratwurst is soaked in perennial favorite Dortmunder Gold; the tangy salad dressing takes its flavor from the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. The porter pops up later in the scrumptious chocolate chunk ice cream. It’s hard…
Best Bites for Bikers
When Debbie Meyers first brought a vintage dining car into her family’s motorcycle shop, she was just looking for a way to keep anxious bike owners from pestering the service staff while their cycles were being repaired. Those initial cups of coffee, intended to soothe her customers’ nerves, soon grew into a large menu of…
Best Noodles With a Greek Flair
Italians aren’t the only ones who know their way around a pasta bowl. The Greeks who own Stix, a restaurant renowned for its barbecue, also cook up some great noodles. Our favorite is a huge platter of delicate angel-hair pasta, tossed with chunks of roma tomato, fresh basil, spinach, roasted red pepper, and pitted kalamata…
Best Lasagna
Like lasagna? Then you’ll love Bruno’s, home to the most delicious lasagna in town. No sloppy, slumping blob of blandness here. Rather, each firm, neatly stacked serving is constructed from layer upon layer of thick homemade noodles, interspersed with seasoned ricotta, grated Romano, and finely ground beef, slathered with a sweet-tart marinara and capped with…
Best Non-Musical Performers
The moniker “star” and its offspring “superstar” have become the language’s most abused clichés. Decades of media-inflated hyperbole aside, the essence of a star is someone we cannot take our eyes off of — a performer imbued with boldness and self-confidence. Over the past year, these performers reaffirmed their star status in local theater: Scott…
Histrionics on Parade
Lacking the good taste to postpone the release of this silly thriller until a less volatile time in American history (assuming one ever comes), the producers of Don’t Say a Word have opted to foist upon us images of detonating New York City buildings, carefully calculated acts of violence, and even someone being buried alive.…
Ryan Adams / Jay Farrar
Proficiency notwithstanding, Ryan Adams still has a lot of growing up to do. His debut, last year’s Heartbreaker, strayed from his alt-country roots and cannily played up the “singer-songwriter” tag. In a way, it seemed designed primarily to dispel his Whiskeytown legacy. And yet, Pneumonia, the final Whiskeytown album, was released with much fanfare earlier…
Best Belly on a Tribe Player
If there’s one thing baseball fans love more than bloated numbers on an all-star slugger, it’s a bloated pitcher who can strike him out. Leading the Indians in saves and trips to the buffet is Bob Wickman, whose considerable girth makes him better suited to the rigors of big-time bowling than big-time baseball. But if…
Best Vintage Clothing
“Are you on a mission?” proprietor Linda Bowman asks first-timers here. That’s because a lot of her customers are. They might need a knockout 1960s tennis dress for a garden party or a little beaded number for New Year’s Eve. They’ve come to the right place. Two of the three floors of Bowman’s century home…
Best Haircut for Men Not Afraid of a Razor
When the eponymous barber takes up the scissors and clippers, he’s an artist with a blank canvas. At least that’s the impression you get sitting in the chair, listening to the machine-gun-fast metallic click of the blades, interspersed with the occasional question on stylistic choice (always phrased in the royal “we”: “Do we like sideburns?”;…
Best Movie Star Loyal to Cleveland
The cover of Maxim magazine is typically reserved for the hottest actresses in Hollywood. So what was Clevelander Monica Potter doing there? Well, Potter has done all right for herself in Tinseltown, if leading roles in Patch Adams, Along Came a Spider, and Head Over Heels mean anything. But she reviles the place, and as…
Best Tilt at a Windmill
The man would make a good mayor. He’s smart, affable, and media-savvy. And he has the experience. He’s run the state department of public safety. He’s been Cleveland’s safety director. He’s headed up the county’s Department of Children and Family Services. He knows both the possibilities and limits of a city administration. Yet he has…
Best Video Store
The East Side may have the art museum, the Cinematheque, and most of the decent bookstores, but the West Side has B-Ware. Score one for culture! Not the highbrow kind, but the low-budget, swamp-monster kind. One of the few video emporiums in the city that’s not part of a franchise vying for world domination, B-Ware’s…
Best Seafood
A gold-and-cobalt swirl of elegance and sensuality, Blue Point’s aristocratic dining room makes a fitting setting for its fine and flavorful seafood. Whether we feast upon the namesake Blue Point oysters, the velvety seafood chowder, the ephemeral Nags Head grouper, or the buttery yellowfin tuna, we inevitably end our meals feeling pampered and indulged. Not…
Best Local Beer
For decades, breweries dotted Cleveland’s near West Side, turning out brews to slake the thirsts of the working people who made the city go. Though the last vestiges of these barleyed behemoths stand in ruin today, their progeny are turning out fine beers for the Gap crowd. Our choice, for its smooth flavor and moderate…
Best Comedy Club
There are no marquee names among the cast of Cabaret Dada — at least, not yet — but these are the bravest, most inventive comics in Cleveland. The job requires it. In a purely improvisational format, the audience shouts out the silliest, most perverse scenarios it can conceive. Cast members might depict a narcoleptic Elvis…
Best Sculptor
Jee Sun Park has said she is interested in shapes that result from pushing forms to their breaking point. She’s fascinated by that moment when natural expression and control are most in conflict. You can see this in pieces that are often mixtures of the natural and the manufactured: wax casts of gourds locked within…
Best Fast Recovery
When Beck Center decided to present Terrence McNally’s Master Class, artistic director Scott Spence called on local theater legends Dorothy and Reuben Silver to act and direct the tale of international legend Maria Callas. This was a risky proposition. Dorothy Silver was vastly removed from Callas in age and temperament. Even her most ardent devotees…
Best Concert Venue
In danger of being replaced by the new Tower City Amphitheater, Nautica might not be hospitable when it rains (there’s no cover for the crowd) or when the temperature rises (there’s no shade). But the views of downtown are spectacular, and the proximity to the river provides ample sightseeing, especially when large boats come through.…
Stand by Them
The cynic may notice only how Hearts in Atlantis plays like a Stephen King best-of compilation, a reheating of familiar stories and favorite themes. At times, it feels so much like Stand by Me — with its nostalgic, flashback tale of cherubs and bullies, accompanied by sad and weary narration — that you might confuse…
Danny Frye & the Devildolls
Don’t get used to seeing singer-guitarist Danny Frye around Cleveland much longer. With Hellbent, his world-class full-length debut, Frye and the Devildolls are on a full-bore punkabilly pace to bring their new, millennial greaser rock to the world at large. Frye learned his lean and muscular guitar skills, and sharpened his sense of rock’s visceral…
Best Mall
While it isn’t the ritziest of malls, the Avenue at Tower City Center has energy and a good mix of stores and people. The shops range from funky newcomer Charlotte Russe to old favorites like Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers, and the eats are similarly eclectic. Where else can you go from an A&W root…
Best Mountain-Biking Trail
Mountain biking may be strictly verboten in the Metroparks and most other areas conducive to the sport, but Vulture’s Knob would stand out among any competitors, legal or not. The course, a quick trip off State Route 83 in Wooster, crisscrosses 125 acres of rolling land. The privately owned course, designed specifically for mountain bikes,…
Best Grocery Store
Lest complaints begin that Akron is too far to drive for groceries, note that buses come to the West Point Market from Pittsburgh. The family-owned gourmet grocery has also wowed Esquire, Bon Appétit, and The New York Times. If you take the trip, you’ll understand why. The prepared foods are tantalizingly good. The varieties of…
Best Place to Spot Celebrities
A celebrity comes to Cleveland. Johnny’s Downtown gets another customer. “Whenever they’re here, they’re here,” says owner Joe Santosuosso. Of course, the famous don’t wish to be pestered, and their dinner reservations are a secret Santosuosso and his staff keep sacred. He did, however, confirm that Denzel Washington supped at Johnny’s when he was scouting…
Best Bartender
Pat Hanych is a great bartender — not because she knows how to mix the right amount of Absolut with cranberry juice, but because she’s kept Pat’s going as one of the best working-class, rocker-friendly bars in town. Hanych serves breakfast to steelworkers and truckers in the earlymorning hours and lets independent promoters book rock…
Best Dance Club
Picture your living room if someone dropped a bar and a DJ in the middle, and you probably know what to expect at Big Family Lounge. Some of the hottest sound systems in the city bless the speakers with dance-hall reggae fresh off the presses. But be warned: This room is intimate, very close quarters,…
Best Window Display
A glittering Euclid Avenue remnant from the days of “Millionaires’ Row,” this location of the 122-year-old family jewelers was established in 1917 to serve that monied clientele. Twenty-year employee Richard Chase arranges the diamond rings and sapphire pendants in patterns that seem positioned expressly to catch the noon light, the rainbow twinkle luring clusters of…
Best New Wine for Impressing Red Heads
Stuart Cellars, established in 1995 by West Geauga High School graduate Marshall Stuart, produces a variety of award-winning reds, but probably none more remarkable than its Tatria, a big, supple blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cab Franc grapes. This enticingly plummy California wine still isn’t especially well known in Ohio, making it an almost…
Best Sunday Brunch Buffet
Where better to indulge a taste for the exquisite than at the renowned Cleveland Museum of Art? Here, amid the glass and marble, one can nourish the soul with 5,000 years of fabulous artwork — anything from a Jackson Pollock to a collection of Egyptian amulets. And then, when the soul is sated, one can…
Best Coffeehouse
Sure, it’s corporate coffee. But sometimes it takes corporate backing to get the recipe right, and Panera (with its delicious pastries, soups, and sandwiches, all served in a soothing, earth-toned atmosphere) has done just that. Apologies to those who prefer their coffee with tie-dyes and incense, but we’ll take Panera’s hazelnut brew and a Peanut…
Best Bubble Tea
The Turbo Four is a) a performance-car parts store; b) a sort of off-campus communal living room, complete with sofa and television; c) Cleveland’s only bubble-tea café; d) all of the above. If you circled “d,” give yourself an A and head over to this quirky little spot on the edge of Chinatown to research…
Best Club to See Regional Acts
An old Croatian social hall that co-owners Mark Leddy and Cindy Barber have turned into a concert site, the Beachland is perhaps the most artist-friendly venue in town. With two rooms — a spacious ballroom and a small tavern — the Beachland can present a variety of shows on different scales. It has hosted concerts…
Judgment Day
On the busy floor of Cleveland’s city council chambers, members schmooze with the public after a February meeting. Some are friendly, eager handshakers, some polite and businesslike, but none as shy and subdued as Merle Gordon, who represents part of Old Brooklyn. When someone mentions this fall’s elections, she responds with a neutral remark, but…
Best Scenic Drive
Because Cleveland’s main roads were built to lead to and from downtown, it’s hard to drive, say, from Lakewood to Middleburg Heights. But there is a way to make the north-south trek less frustrating. Valley Parkway gives drivers a beautiful route past the aggravation. It meanders from Lakewood to Strongsville along the Rocky River, through…
Best Cavaliers Player
Good thing we used a pencil. The first time this list was passed around, “C. Weatherspoon” was written under the heading. Alas, Weatherspoon, an undersized, hard-working forward, signed with the Knicks in July. So the honor falls to Andre Miller, who is about to begin his third season pushing the ball up the Gund Arena…
Best Place to Lose a Whole Day
Flea markets are notorious for piles of tube socks selling for a quarter each or stacks of coffee-stained eight-tracks “priced to move.” That’s true of Jamie’s Flea Market, only more so. With 200 vendors indoors and 400 outdoors, it’s so big that it takes a full union shift just to see everything — then you…
Best Neighborhood Bar
Normally we don’t rely on drinking holes for our feng shui, but there’s a soothing symmetry to the 5 O’Clock. To the right as one enters, swiveling stools surround a half-moon bar; to the left, semicircular booths encourage cozy gatherings of friends. It feels just right, like a Michael Graves clock. Lakewood suffers from no…
Best Place to Take Out-of-Towners
They think they want to go to the Flats. They heard (from someone who was here 5 years ago, who heard it from someone 10 years ago) that the Flats is The Place to Go in Cleveland, the Symbol of the City’s Rebirth. But your friends are not the type who enjoy puking in sidewalk…
Best Local TV Newscaster
Some investigative reporters in television news should wear capes. After all, they’ve already donned superhero titles (e.g., “The Investigator,” “The I-Team”), and they seem to believe that, with a mere camera, they can right the wrongs of society. Dave Summers, lead investigative reporter for WKYC-TV/Channel 3, largely resists the comic-book style of his colleagues. Show…
Best Independent Toy Store
The chain stores have more going for them in the way of the hottest new toys and games, but Big Fun can’t be beat when it comes to nostalgia, collectibles, and — yes — fun. Looking for a Happy Days lunchbox, a Yellow Submarine-era Beatles figurine, or I Love Lucy memorabilia? You’ll find it here,…
Best Burrito
We admire Mi Pueblo’s welcoming interior, with its beautifully carved chairs, handsome tile-paved floors, and friendly staffers. We love the big, rich flavors of the silken tomatillo-spiked beef tongue . . . the robust caldo de pollo . . . the fiery pork tamales. And we adore Mi Pueblo’s famous burritos. They’re as big as…
Best Shot of Whiskey
Nothing insults the whiskey connoisseur more than a shot served in a thimble-sized glass that looks as if it came from a Barbie Kitchen Playset. True scholars of the field know that a decent shot requires at least two gulps and packs enough punch for the instantaneous growth of chest hairs. Few understand this most…
Best Bistro by the Book
Coffeeshops have books. Bookstores have coffeeshops. But spots that offer a first-rate selection of titles along with a full-service bistro are rarities . . . except for Joseph-Beth Booksellers on Shaker Square. There is something for everyone inside Brontë, the bookstore’s cleverly named restaurant and café, from early-morning cappuccinos and muffins to noonday soups and…
Best Gallery
Though it suffers from its doctor’s-office origins (small rooms, low ceilings), Lakewood’s Dead Horse Gallery more than compensates with a selection of shows that promote much of the best local talent along with national and international artists. In addition, curator Kim Eggleston is an active promoter who gives artists a fair shake at having their…
Best Bakery
There’s flan. Then there’s Maria Sapia’s flan, served in big custardy wedges with exotic flavors like coconut and almond, as well as superlative renditions of the classic vanilla and cheese. Once you eat your fill of it, start exploring the cheesecakes, in flavors like guava, mango, pineapple, and coconut. There are also tortes, cassata cakes,…
Best Regional Act
Although the Chargers have yet to release their first album, this Cleveland band has already established a reputation based on its frenetic live shows, which often teeter on sheer chaos. Equal parts New York Dolls and Sex Pistols, the Chargers mix garage rock and punk sensibilities; as their alter ego, the Ashton Bros. From Way…
Parma: City of Intrigue
France is a great place to send a postcard from. But some travelers simply aren’t wowed by châteaux and berets. For an alternative vacation destination, we suggest Parma, a working-class suburb easily accessible from Interstate 71. It’s affordable, it’s navigable, and it’s convenient. It even has a castle, if you count the Royal Donut shop…
Best Drugstore
When aliens explore America, after we’ve rendered the planet uninhabitable, surely they will remark, “Damn, what’s up with all these drugstores?” As the CVS-Rite Aid arms race drops a haze of fluorescent lighting on every other street corner, Discount Drug Mart should be celebrated for its unobtrusiveness alone. Most stores inhabit strip malls, not space-wasting,…
Best Roller Rink
The largest roller rink in the region (and one of the few around that still has a hardwood floor), Brookpark Skateland is home turf for some of the best roller skaters in the world. On Sunday and Wednesday nights, the “skate rats” tango, flea hop, waltz, and swing to live organ music. During intermission, they…
Best Indians Player
No one’s a better bet for a clutch hit than Roberto Alomar. No one hustles doubles into triples like Alomar. No one — not even Omar anymore — goes into the hole like Alomar. No one continues to slide into first base, despite all conventional wisdom, like Alomar. But we’ll overlook the belly-flopping for everything…
Best Natural Foods Store
At the Mustard Seed, you can finally track down those vegetables you’ve been hearing about on the Food Network. There’s frisée and fingerlings for Martha, peppers in seven varieties of “bam” for Emeril, and red dandelion, red bananas, and red kale for Mario. Labeling its fresh produce as either certified organic, transitional, or conventional, the…
Best Cemetery
Even before a year-long art exhibit was installed, Lake View was already Greater Cleveland’s most surprising, magical cemetery. Wandering its paths and hiking its rolling hills, you can easily happen upon famous Clevelanders, from John D. Rockefeller (his grave marked with a tall obelisk) to Eliot Ness, whose ashes only recently came to rest there.
Best Local Radio Personality
Host of Metal on Metal on WJCU-FM/88.7 for more than 10 years, Bill Peters knows more about hard rock and heavy metal than anyone else in town. With Breaker, the local hard rock group he manages, he’s played festivals in Europe and made many friends among the metal intelligentsia overseas. As a result, his friends…
Best Pulled-Pork Sandwich
Tiny little Chubby’s serves up exemplary slabs of St. Louis-style ribs and big corned beef sandwiches that could expand anybody’s waistband. But what we usually pig out on are the giant pulled-pork sandwiches — towering temples of tastiness, slathered in a sweet-and-tangy homemade barbecue sauce and stacked up on firm, fresh kaiser rolls. Side those…
Best Cop-Stop Doughnut Shop
Maybe the safest place in all of Parma, Royal Donut offers proof that everything you’ve heard about the cop-doughnut connection is true. Stop by this claustrophobic construct of the ’50s, or drive through for a quick sugar dose, and you’re likely to see two of this ‘burb’s finest nursing pastries and coffee. Sometimes, they keep…
Best Re-Creation of a Historical Figure
Dan Folino was busy being born when Mandy Patinkin played Che Guevara on Broadway. Folino, in the same role, moves with dangerous grace, exerting the intensity of a song-and-dance Rasputin. If this gifted performer fails to land in the big time, it’s further proof of an unjust universe.
Best Service
Face it: It’s fun to be coddled. And the staff at One Walnut has coddling down to a fine art. Genial staffers whisk away your coats when you enter; the dapper mâitre d’ shakes your hand as you depart. In between, indulgent, pleasant, and always professional servers cater to your every whim, making certain that…
Best All-Night Diner
At Dianna’s, omelets blanket the entire plate. The burgers have real grill marks. Best of all, the deli meat is stacked so high on the bread, you can hardly get your mouth around it. There’s a nice variety in the crowd, too. Go on a Sunday, and you’ll find elderly couples dining next to families.…
Best Buffalo Wings
Owner Mickey Krivosh claims he was the first to bring Buffalo wings to Cleveland, not long after their “invention” in the kitchen of the Nickel City’s Anchor Bar. While we can neither prove nor disprove that assertion, Krivosh also says his wings are the best in town, and on that point we enthusiastically agree. Big,…
Best Band That Doesn’t Really Exist
Who is that freaky guy — the one gazing at us creepily from the walls of Cleveland’s finer rock-and-roll-hellhole bars and indie record stores? The guy with “100,000 Leagues Under My Nutsack” scrawled across his giant forehead. Turns out he’s the poster boy for an imaginary band, the side project of local musician Robbie Stevens.…
The Times, They Are A-Changin’
Managers at the Free Times, Cleveland’s leading outlet for Birkenstock liberalism, apparently missed the Be Nice to the Little People lectures in PC 101. So say employees, who are moving to unionize the paper under the Newspaper Guild. This isn’t a standard wage-and-benefit beef. Talk privately to employees past and present, and they’ll say the…
Best City Public Library
When this 70-year-old library gave itself a makeover in 1994, it took a cue from Borders by including a coffeeshop. Library patrons can thumb through novels and magazines over a steaming cup of java and sink into a muffin if the mood strikes. The snacks will fortify them for a browse in the library’s gift…
Best Hands-On Lock Demonstrations
At least one weekend a month through the warmer months, Lock 38 on the Ohio & Erie Canal stirs to life at the hands of costumed reenactors — and a few hapless spectators suckered into labor by their families. The reenactors easily engage their audience, spouting off historical canal wisdom while bossing their modern helpers…
Best $10 Million Value in Baseball
Throughout the John Hart era, most of the Indians’ big free-agent money has gone to players who ended up making rock music and tending to crops before their teammates reached October. But in Juan Gonzalez, Hart has found a player who is probably capable of playing guitar and tending crops while he posts MVP numbers,…
Best Late-Night Hangout
Tremont offers a civilized choice for weary boozers who want to sober up before heading home. Within stumbling distance of Professor Street’s bars, Grumpy’s reopens every Friday and Saturday from 2 to 4 a.m. The breakfast-anytime menu is just the kind of comfort food we crave at that hour, and the homey decor is soothing,…
Best Sporting Goods Store
There are sporting goods stores built for the bleachers, and there are those built for the game. Cleveland Sport Goods caters to players, no matter what their game might be. It’s the only place where you can walk in like a civilian and come out looking like an NHL goalie or an NFL linebacker. It’s…
Best Local Boy or Girl Who Made Good
We have more than a little soft spot for Susan Orlean. One reason is because she started her writing career in the late ’70s at an alternative weekly in Portland, Oregon, called Willamette Week, and ended up being a staff writer at The New Yorker. This is roughly the equivalent of going from being the…
Best Way to Stick It to Aging
These 12-inch soft-sculpture dolls, fashioned out of muslin, come in male and female versions exhibiting visible signs of aging. The point (literally) is to tackle double chins and sagging body parts in a way that’s both satisfying and cathartic: by sticking a pin through them. The dolls are enormously popular at both Garden Folly locations,…
Best Place to Buy a Chocolate Rosary
The perfect gift for Catholics with a sweet tooth, this $12 set contains a real rosary and one that’s only shaped like one — that is, until the first bite gets taken out of it. Even better, to assuage any Catholic guilt, the proceeds go to Cleveland’s Providence House. There can’t be many calories in…
Best Buns
Okay, kids, get your minds outta the gutter: We are talking about bread here, not about a part of your server’s anatomy. Our vote goes to the buns at Barnacle Bill’s: steaming-hot balls of free-formed dough, fresh out of the deep fryer, served with mounds of sweet honey-cinnamon butter. They’re an addictive treat — and…
Best Karaoke
Where else can you belt out “Wind Beneath My Wings” on a stage decorated like a gymnasium at a junior prom? This is where the hard-core karaokeers hang out, elevating the working man’s parlor game to an art form. Couples have met here, married here, and — after they’ve gotten divorced — sang “Up Where…
Best Female Performer in a Musical
Every metropolis needs its own Chita Rivera: an always dependable musical performer who can play any brassy, sassy dame. She must be tough, funny, and tarty to enchant the gay boys while at the same time sexy, ironic, and vulnerable to keep everyone else enthralled. A happy fate requisitioned Sandra Emerick to fit the bill.…
Best Touring Stage Production
Last October, Playhouse Square pulled a coup by being one of only six cities to grab a painfully brief tour of Parade, the most underrated musical of the ’90s. With a score by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Driving Miss Daisy’s Alfred Uhry, Parade is a musicalization of a sad footnote to American…
Best Regional CD
Uptown Sinclair’s debut, an untitled eight-song demo, leans heavily on the pop end of rock’s wide spectrum. The band is the second go-round for singer-guitarist Dave Hill and guitarist Tim Parnin, who played together in the Sons of Elvis and recorded briefly for Priority Records. The album is an amalgam of guitar-heavy punk, pop, and…
Law & Disorder
Rene Balcer, like you and everyone you know, can’t stop talking about what we now refer to simply as The Attack. We may resume our lives, fall back into our routine until it again feels mundane and comforting, but sooner or later, The Attack becomes the only topic of conversation. As we count the missing…
Best Reason to Live in Cleveland
In Cleveland, everything — from tacos to opera tickets — is remarkably affordable. And there is never an overabundance of stimulation. In show-offy metropolises like Chicago and Boston, one’s head is likely to explode from the cornucopia of entertainment options. Here, life is simple. There are enough cultural activities so you won’t have to spend…
Best Playground
Situated on the bluffs overlooking Lake Erie, Lakewood Park has all the essentials of weekend life: baseball fields, basketball and tennis courts, picnic areas, a pool, and a band shell where the city holds free concerts. Its crown jewel, however, is the newly rehabbed playground, which is a monument to the virtues of treated lumber.…
Best Coach
Snicker at his syntax. Dread his drawl. Josh his John-Wayne-with-a-hernia gait. But last we looked, the Indians were comfortably atop the A.L. Central standings. Cleveland’s headed for the playoffs where, barring some Hargrovian meltdown, the Tribe’s fortunes will be determined by the guys who actually play the game. Yes, Manuel draws from an awesome lineup,…
Best Kosher Chocolate
The mother-daughter team of Eleanor Newman and Stacy Twigg operate the only kosher chocolate store in Ohio, hand-dipping delicious semisweet chocolate truffles, fruit-and-nut clusters, creams, barks, and chocolate-covered strawberries in their kosher kitchen in the rear of a former Helen Hutchley’s. The business began as a way to sweeten up their Orthodox Jewish neighbors, most…
Best Place for a First Date
Having a date at the zoo eliminates a lot of typical first-date worries, like how to dress (casually and weather-consciously), what to talk about (the beautiful beasts around you), and what to eat (a picnic under the oaks). You and your date can take a quiet stroll down the “boardwalk” stairway or trot by the…
Best Political Backflip
When it looked as if the school levy would constitute a referendum on Mayor White, arch-nemesis George Forbes stunned the community by unleashing a campaign to kill it — saying he feared the mayor would give the construction contracts to his buddies. Forbes eventually backed off, the levy passed, and nearly $900 million in local…
Best Place to Get Framed
After 30 years in business, this Cleveland Heights shop has custom framing down pat. Patrons can choose from among more than 1,000 prefinished moldings, but if nothing catches their eye, no problem. The store will take the unusual step of making the frames from scratch, out of raw wood. From the molding on up, the…
Best Downtown/Flats Club
Where do you go for good ’80s music and a dance floor consistently too packed for dancing? The Velvet Dog, of course, which has become the club of choice for the party-hearty crowd that finds other clubs too pretentious or too overrun with 19-year-olds. With a tiki-lit outdoor patio on the third floor, good martinis,…
Best Radio Station
The DJs seem to have such pride in their voices when they tell us we’re “listening to WRUW-FM/91.1, Cleveland, broadcasting from the campus of Case Western Reserve University.” Or maybe the station break has become a mantra for us — an affirmation that there is a refuge from the commercial stations playing the same few…
Best Irish Pub
Mike and Karen O’Malley’s tidy Irish pub and restaurant is a charmer, with a half-timbered Tudor-style exterior and an airy, attractive inner space distinguished by vaulted ceilings, extensive wood moldings, and tall windows overlooking Lake Erie. Executive Chef Bob Sferra does his part by dishing out big portions of homey yet deftly prepared Irish dishes…
Best Sub Sandwich
Tripping through the doorway into Dave’s Cosmic Subs is like having a flashback to Kent State circa 1969. But even without the groovy psychedelic decor and loud ’60s music, we would still flock to Dave’s, like hippies to Woodstock, just to savor his oversized subs, thoroughly stuffed with notably fresh ingredients and wrapped in the…
Best Bet for Feeling Trendy
Sure, we know that by the time we become regulars in a place, the serious hipsters have already moved on. But that doesn’t stop us from feeling très cool each time we pull up a tall, handsome leather sling chair to Zibibbo’s sinuous blue-pearl granite bar or slip into a colorful booth inside Circo. Here,…
Best Reissue of a Regional CD
On both albums, which were reissued this year on Crypt Records, the Pagans show why their reputation as unruly punks has survived, even though the group called it quits in 1979. Shit Street is a gratifying mix that includes a manic live set of tunes from shows the band played just before imploding. The band…
Dizzy From the Local Spin
Shoring up our commitment to negligence: As a loyal reader of both Scene and The Free Times, I must say that, this week, your issue [September 13] borders on embarrassing. For a national news story to occur on the day before your press deadline and not to run any coverage on it at all is…
Best Villain
If Manny really wanted to play for a cursed, luckless baseball franchise, why didn’t he stay in Cleveland? Ramirez went to Boston this season, lured by the real Green Monster: cash. Tribe fans not only lost their team’s best hitter; they endured his whining on the way out. Apparently, Indians management had the nerve to…
Best Gym
A real fitness club isn’t purely about wringing calories from your body. It aims for a broader definition of wellness, including interpersonal health. The Cleveland Athletic Club has embraced this model for all of its 93-year existence. Besides the full range of fitness equipment, the CAC gives its members a social venue on each of…
Best Eyeglasses
Jerold Rabnick opened his eyeglass store in 1946, when he was a newly minted optician in his early 20s. He passed the trade on to his children, optician Lisa Rubin and glass-cutter Loren Rabnick. Though Jerold is semiretired, he still works twice a week. Five years ago, rising Gateway rents forced the store to move…
Best Bar Food
Unfortunately, the Lava Lounge dropped the veal meatball sandwiches when it revamped its menu a few months ago. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better late-night meal in town. With appetizers like fresh guacamole and chips, oysters, hummus, and Brie, the Lava Lounge offers elegant dining at affordable prices. The sandwiches, pasta, and omelets…
Best Place to Buy Comic Books
A wide selection of alternative comics and graphic novels distinguishes this store from the fray. On the shelves, you’ll find not only the latest superhero rags and Powerpuff Girls paraphernalia, but selections by some of the best picture storytellers around: Chris Ware, the Hernandez Brothers, Julie Doucet, Daniel Clowes, and a whole lot more. As…
Best Place for People-Watching
Urban legend has it that the intersection of East Ninth and Euclid is the place to watch skirts fly (something about wind currents created by skyscrapers near a big lake). Women come around the corner and — whoosh — there it is. But whether the phenomenon is real or mere wishful thinking, this corner has…
Best Vegetarian
Much of the Coventry vibe can be attributed to the granola eaters who once were the sole demographic of places like Tommy’s. Nowadays, “hummus” and “falafel” snuggle next to “pizza bagel” and “Croissan’wich” in our culinary lexicon. And that’s thanks to places like Tommy’s, the Northeast Ohio health-food pioneers who’ve been doing wacky things with…
Best Drive-Through for Weekday Lunch
The fast-food construct relies on a team of low-wage workers taking orders, slaving over the fryers, and packing up the food. Somewhere in all that, “fast” service is usually downgraded to “adequate” — even at the drive-through, which was designed to shave off precious seconds lost walking across the parking lot during your company-timed lunch…
Best Custard With a Past
Clevelanders love to live in the past. Get a group of us together, and it’s only a matter of time before someone starts conjuring up images of the Sterling-Lindner Christmas tree, the Flying Turns at Euclid Beach, or the old railroad tunnels crisscrossing the bowels of the Terminal Tower. But while most of these phenomena…
Best Museum
She just turned 85 years old, but the Cleveland Museum of Art is still a sassy, saucy lady with an eye for the newest and the boldest. We’re not just talking about the much-hyped “Marilyn x 100,” added in 1996. Director Katharine Lee Reid continues to forge new trails to bolster the museum’s modern art…
Best New Restaurants
It’s been a great year for hungry Cleveland diners, with lots of new restaurants providing stylish showcases for some of our favorite chefs. These three are the cream of the crop: Erie Bleu Both the food and decor are eclectic and artful. Throw in an excellent wine list and a host of crisp specialty cocktails,…
Best Venue for Live Theater
When it’s time to indulge in some Americana, there is no better way to do so than by hopping in the old gas buggy and whizzing past untold churches, contented cows, and rustic lawn ornaments until you find yourself on the inviting grounds of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre. Here, in this vintage ’50s haven, dwells the…
Best Room for Romance
There is no aphrodisiac more powerful than the scent of money. And there are few places where the decor speaks of dollars more loudly than Johnny’s Bistro San Roche. It seems no expense has been spared to turn this space into the most beautiful yet intimate dining room in the city. Heavy silver Cristofle vases,…
What’s in a Name?
Chuck Cleaver has writer’s block. The worst case, he claims, in his entire life. It’s so bad that even his reliable trick of escaping to the solitude of a nearby motel hasn’t worked this time around. Ever since the Ass Ponys’ singer-guitarist left the studio last September, he hasn’t written one song and says he…
Best Public Golf Course
If you’re planning on playing Northeast Ohio’s finest 18, be sure to pack an extra box or two of Top Flights — chances are, you’re going to need them. With more than 150 water hazards and sand traps, the Reserve at Thunder Hill has myriad ways to make your ball disappear, along with your handicap…
Best Beach to Take Kids To
Describing Lakeview Beach as the coolest thing in Lorain County doesn’t do it justice. There’s a big, state-of-the-art playground right on the sand, along with a boardwalk that runs the entire length of shoreline. Other cool things include the lighted fountain, which nightly shoots out streams of color, and the enormous rose garden. Older kids…
Best Player Who Got Away
If the Indians’ trade patterns have been shrewd in one way, it must be that the best departed talent has been shipped to National League teams, where ESPN highlights and all-star games are the only way we’re subjected to their conquests. Just put it out of your head that Brian Giles has become the superstar…
Best Weird West Side Market Food
Maybe you’re feeling adventurous, so you prowl the West Side Market in search of the strangest food you could possibly bring home for Saturday dinner. Or you’re searching Cleveland’s carnivorous emporium for the ultimate in Halloween shock value. Or you just took a wrong turn while looking for a nice, civilized half-pound of cold cuts…
Best Collection of Search-Friendly Obituaries
Budding genealogists don’t have to risk paper cuts or aching eyes from scanning obituary records and microfiches anymore. While the Cleveland Public Library’s database is not a complete record of all deaths in Cleveland, it does include around 800,000 from the early 1800s to 1975. Gleaned mostly from Plain Dealer, Cleveland Herald, Cleveland Press, and…
Best Historic Landmark
The old monument at Public Square has barely changed since it was built in 1894. The white marble inside, like a 19th-century Vietnam wall, is inscribed with the names of more than 10,000 Cuyahoga County men who fought in the Civil War. Display cases with severely yellowed labels hold bullets, a tinful of musket caps,…
Best Secondhand Furniture
Who wants to pay big-ass prices for Granny’s old chair, even if it is upholstered in a fabulous navy blue and fuchsia plaid? Not us! That’s why this one-woman operation is such a find. Actually, we’d rather not even tell you about it, because we don’t want you to buy up all the mod wall…
Best Liquor Store
When Simone’s began work on an addition last year, some Lakewood neighbors assumed the brightly lit liquor store would be adding staples like garbage bags and deli sandwiches to its aisles of gin and rum. Not so. What owners Simon and Marc Zkiab did instead was add 3,000 varieties of wine. They also added cigars,…
Best Ice Cream
Whenever we think of Mike and Pete Mitchell’s extraordinary homemade ice cream, we experience our own little Homer Moment. You know, when your tongue lolls out of your mouth, your eyes roll back in your head, and drool starts drizzling down your chin? “Arrgghh . . . ice cream,” we gurgle, in a spasm of…
Best Fun Fusion Fare
Just when you think the Cleveland-area food scene is getting too full of itself, along comes a place like Weia Teia, a funky little restaurant inside Great Northern Mall whose motto could well be “We have fun with food.” The large menu is a gathering of rambunctious appetizers, salads, noodle bowls, and entrées that blend…
Best Restaurant Reinvention
Who says change isn’t good? Surely not the folks at Sapphire Grille, the bright and beautiful dining room that has been fashioned from the former Eugene’s. Owners Eugene and Larisa Em, along with partner Mary Ann Davis, now have a restaurant as light and airy as a Southern California daydream. And Chef Chris Feuerborn’s classy…
Best Coffees of the World
Whether it’s an honest cuppa joe, gulped from a sturdy white stoneware mug in a little offbeat diner, or a sleek, dark espresso, sipped from a porcelain demitasse in a pricey salon, coffee is the indispensable ending to meals around the world. And in Cleveland, we have a wide selection of international styles from which…
Best Local Politician
Congressman Kucinich has come a long way from his mayoral days, when corporations fled the city, citing the “anti-business” stance of his administration. Since then, he has figured out how to work with business, not against it, without betraying his core beliefs or his constituents. Kucinich worked to save LTV Steel so that Clevelanders could…
The Echoes That Remain
A restless, fastidious reporter, Nick Tosches is a distinctive chronicler of American mongrel music. His goal is complex and philosophical, be the topic Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, or Emmett Miller, the subject of his latest book. Tosches is out to make sense of history — without stripping it of its mystery. “True history seeks,…
Best Department Store
While other department stores are a virtual cacophony of screaming color and piped-in Muzak, Nordstrom is a quiet oasis of good taste. Its three floors croon, “Rest . . . relax . . . browse” while offering amenities like the Nordstrom Café (perfect for sipping lemonade and sampling a pear-and-gorgonzola salad), an espresso bar, and…
Best Downtown Jog
Just after dawn on spring and summer Saturdays, downtown Cleveland is a jogger’s paradise. If you live in the ‘burbs, ride the RTA to East Ninth Street. To begin, jog away from the lake till you’re outside Jacobs Field. Turn onto Eagle Avenue, which borders left field, and peer past the gates as you run.…
Best Bowling Alley
With the flashing lights, the lasers, and the music detonating at 169 decibels, the modern bowling alley often seems like an ’80s glam-metal show hosted by George Lucas. Mahall’s harks back to purer, better days, when Bowling for Dollars was a television staple, and the neighborhood alley — along with the parish and pub –…
Best Ribs
When your server sets down a platter of Cooker’s barbecued ribs, you’ll swear you hear choirs of angels singing. The smoky-sweet-clovey aroma puts you into a trance even before your first bite. Slow-cooked for six hours, these slabs of pork baby-back ribs are meaty and tender, without a bit of fat. Before you know it,…
Best Architecture
It’s not done yet — and it’s an obvious choice — but the new Frank Gehry-designed building at Case Western Reserve University is going to be extremely cool. All sweeping curves and tilted angles, the building will house the Weatherhead School of Management. Gehry is the preeminent architect working today, and anything with his name…
Best View of Cleveland
Once you’ve toured the elaborate Victorian Gothic interior of one of the largest U.S. presidential tombs, take an aesthetic breather on the upstairs porch. The city sprawls out before you, and faraway downtown Cleveland seems so close, you can practically sip from the lake. This is a panorama worthy of champagne toasts and marriage proposals,…
Best Indian
As long as we can get sweet lassi and iced masala tea with our exceptional tandoori breads, meats, and seafood, we don’t care that this top-notch Indian restaurant doesn’t have a liquor license. It’s enough for us that the spice mixes are freshly blended, the paneer is homemade, and the warm paratha practically melts on…
Best Joint for Manly Chow
It is said that the quality of food is best measured by its volume. No restaurant adheres to this truism more than Hometown Buffet, conveniently located at a strip mall near you. Hometown makes food just the way your mom does — not exactly fine dining, but at least the supply never runs out. This…
Best Gay Club
You don’t have to spend hours in the gym to feel at home at this spacious downtown gay and lesbian club. You just have to forgo that early bedtime. The joint starts jumpin’ at about 1 a.m. on Saturdays and stays open as an after-hours club until 4 a.m. Clubgoers travel from as far as…
Best Museum for Things Other Than the Tours
No matter how great it is, once you’ve toured a museum, you usually don’t want to go back for a couple of years, unless the in-laws show up and are bored. Stan Hywet serves as the glaring exception to that rule. Most weekends, year-round, there is something else going on at the museum, from elegant…
Best Link Among National Restaurant Chains
While no one would mistake the 180-seat J. Alexander’s for a cozy neighborhood hideout, the corporate gurus of the Nashville-based business get high marks for infusing the restaurant (one of 22 nationwide) with style and sophistication. Plenty of polished wood, brick, and natural stone give the place a warm, lodge-like feel; white cloth napkins, black-garbed…
Best Local Stage Production on a Big Budget
The Cleveland Play House reheated this 90-year-old Hungarian pastry until it was sweet and savory. Ferenc Molnár’s The Guardsman is one of those gossamer comedies where elegance of style is all. This insightful farce expounds upon the dilemma of an insecure actor who masquerades as a Russian guardsman to keep his wife’s interest. He fancies…
Best Handmade Cards
Seems as if everybody and their sister-in-law with a color printer are churning out their own cards now, but those postmodern attempts usually come off as either trite or trying-too-hard. Tremont graphic designer Lorelei Minton’s cards, however, are visually exciting yet succinct. It’s amazing what can be done with nice paper, unique clip art, and…
And the Beat Goes On
Sitting on Don Dixon’s fireplace mantel is one of many paintings by his wife, singer Marti Jones. From a distance, it resembles a framed Rorschach Test. If you look closely, however, you can see the image is of a pale torso, with a squiggly red line darting between two pink buttons that resemble nipples. It’s…
Best Putt-Putt Course
It’s no wonder our great country turns out the world’s finest miniature golf professionals: The bucolic courses on which they hone their skills are second to none. And in the Cleveland area, it’s hard to beat the charms of Goodtimes’ dual 18-hole courses. From the towering dragon that greets you at the first hole (then…
Best Wading Pool
Look carefully, or you’ll miss the circle of benches at the back of the Mastick Pavilion, a mini-park just south of Puritas Hill and the Valley Parkway intersection. You’ll see the pavilion, the horseback riding trails, and the swings, but it’s easy enough to glance right over the concrete wading pool tucked in between. With…
Best Hike Through the Woods on a Paved Trail
Many area parks boast paved trails, most of which are barely wide enough for two people. But Lorain County’s Black River Reservation has the woodsy equivalent of an eight-lane highway cut through the forest. There’s plenty of room for bikes, skates, and strollers, and still enough off-pavement diversions to make it feel as if you…
Best Men’s Clothing Store
The kid who sold you that $400 department-store suit the other day may have been selling refrigerators the week before. But at M. Lang Executive Attire, on Euclid Avenue at East 13th Street, you’re guaranteed a salesman who’s style-savvy. Owner Mike Lang will greet you at the door and, in his characteristic debonair style, usher…
Best Shrine
In 1922, Cleveland nuns from the order of Good Shepherd Sisters traveled to the shrine at Lourdes, France — renowned among the faithful for its healing powers. They brought back a piece of the stone where, a young girl said, the Virgin Mary appeared in 1858, and they transformed a recently bequeathed Euclid vineyard into…
Best Place for a Last Date
Breaking up is hard to do, but if your last date is at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, at least you can see a lot of cool exhibits with (or without) your soon-to-be-ex. If you’re the one who’s taking a little piece of their heart, swing by Janis Joplin’s exhibit to see some…
Best Thrift Store
There really is no excuse for shabby dress — not when so much good clothing is so cheap. The Salvation Army’s Strongsville thrift store has racks and racks of good gear, organized by color and size. Other thrift stores might have more in the way of transistor radios and cup-and-saucer sets, but the denim selection…
Best Women’s Clothing Store
Joss just feels good. Maybe it’s the aesthetic way the merchandise is arranged; maybe it’s the background music that’s neither sappy nor obtrusive, or the soothing sound of water trickling from a tabletop fountain. Whatever the reason, this is a pleasant place to shop for clothes that range from the whimsical (purple “ski jammies” in…
Best Gelato Among the Geraniums
Queen Victoria would feel right at home in Angelo Petitti’s Strongsville garden center, an enormous “Crystal Palace” of glass and steel, bursting at the seams with plants, flowers, and greenery of all description. Should too much shopping cause the queen to feel a trifle peckish, Rick Serio and his little European-style café are right on…
Best Outdoor Dining
There are few Cleveland streets more handsome than Clifton Boulevard, with its broad pavement, tree-lined sidewalks, and sturdy homes. And there are few places more pleasant for soaking up the urbane view than the spacious sidewalk patio at Mise. Here, beneath jaunty red market umbrellas, surrounded by boxwood, arborvitae, and crimson geraniums, diners have the…
Best Restaurant
Some days, we eat to live. Other days, we live to eat. Either way, there’s the Fulton. In a cramped little kitchen inside an undistinguished Ohio City building, Executive Chef Steve Parris works wonders with organic produce, free-range meats, and dairy products from grass-fed cows. Sauces are far more likely to be based on miso…
Best Local Stage Production on a Small Budget
This homoerotic parable, focusing on the damage inflicted by Hollywood’s morally bankrupt power brokers, is another in a long line of Mamet-flavored battle cries from outraged intellectuals. Director Roger Truesdell created with austerity and aplomb a production that shined with malevolent fascination. Its taut 90 minutes took audiences on a Faustian sightseeing tour, as an…
Best Browns Player
Sure, laugh, he’s a punter. He gets about the same amount of respect as a pederast used-car salesman — the wuss boy on a squad of hulking mercenaries. But Gardocki is no wuss. He’s 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, for one thing. He also excels at his position. Consider: The man averaged 45.5 yards per punt…
Scott Henry
No DJ has been more active in promoting the vibrant Washington, D.C. dance scene than Scott Henry. In the mid-’80s, while still a student at Towson State College in Maryland, Henry earned his reputation as one of the States’ most prominent tech-house DJs by spinning at some of the East Coast’s earliest raves. It wasn’t…
Best Place to Buy Good Luck
Believers in the supernatural power of fire, rejoice and light your matches. Mystic Imports is Cleveland’s source for magic candles that will solve all your problems. Does your sweetie play around? You can buy a Bust Up Break Up candle to dispel the other woman or man. Low on cash? Try lighting a flame for…
Best Weekend Getaway
Developed as a Methodist retreat, Lakeside does have its overtly Christian leanings (check out the crucifix atop the pier’s flagpole), but its focus is more on family values. The town is situated between Marblehead and Port Clinton, where scores of passengers are ferried to and from Kelley’s Island each day. But the summer denizens of…
Best Sports Bar
If the Athletics are shellacking the Indians, just rack up a game of eight ball on any one of the Main Event’s 12 tournament-quality pool tables. If the Browns can’t move the ball any better against the Ravens than your local prep team, challenge your compadres to a game of darts or air hockey. It…
Best Store for Used Books
If your book-buying trips tend to be meandering, hedonistic affairs — lounging around, drinking coffee, listening to bad folk music, picking up the latest Grisham — Half Price Books may not be the place for you. Nor is it the place to find rare gems. Don’t expect to stumble across a first-edition Ulysses here. This…
Best Place to Buy CDs
We love independent record stores that still indulge peculiar tastes, in a music world increasingly bound by chains. Still, mega-stores are tempting places, because you know the odds are good they’ll have what you’re looking for. That’s why we’re so impressed by My Generation. The bins in this indie store’s long aisles are crammed with…
Best Renovation
Those who don’t believe it’s possible to step back in time have not set foot in architect Jonathan Sandvick’s radiant masterpiece. It’s like walking into a colorized movie — one set more than a century ago. Five stories of 1890-style decor glisten under a glass skylight. On every floor, in every corner, surprises reward the…
Best New Club
As posh as any New York City nightclub, the Asian-themed Funky Buddha is one of the most upscale clubs in the Warehouse District, with its silk-covered couches, antique tables, and velvet drapes. Ambiance isn’t all it has going for it, however: Since opening last year, it has hosted DJ Rap, Halo & Justin Long, LTJ…
Best Store for New Books
With two spacious stories and bookshelves that swallow you whole, Joseph-Beth provides a browsing experience unique to Cleveland. Like other big bookstore chains, it’s teeming with best-sellers and gift items; unlike the others, it strives to feel small. Cozy corners, logically arranged sections, and a traditional bookstore atmosphere make for a pleasurable visit.
Best Deli
This highly efficient, family-run eatery in Playhouse Square recently moved to larger, more aesthetically pleasing digs. Now, downtown workers have a strikingly urbane atmosphere in which to order the Hanna Deli’s nourishing grub. And they get it fast, too. Even the cooks seem to take pride in getting lunch-breakers fed and back to their pods.
Best Art Show
Anything goes at Cleveland State University’s biannual People’s Art Show, an exhibit open to anyone who can get his or her work to CSU’s art gallery. It’s the only art show where you can see dancing electronic Santa Clauses exposing themselves, heartfelt oil paintings of pets, and graffiti-inspired drawings of low-riders — all surrounding an…
Best Wine List
Except in the matter of paychecks, bigger is not always better. Thus, while there are plenty of upscale restaurants with massive tomes of rare and pricey vintages, we count the comfy little Grovewood’s collection of a mere 150 or so bottles as one of the best wine lists around. The assortment is excellent, and nearly…
Best Movie Theater
Keep in mind we’re talking technical aspects of the moviegoing experience here: the seats, the sound system, the access to keg-sized buckets of fresh popcorn. We’re not talking the choice of movies being shown. This is not about the merits of independent cinema vs. Hollywood blockbusters, foreign vs. domestic. With its huge theaters, stadium seating,…
Best Performance by a Writer
Put most writers on the stage in a real live play, and the best one can hope for is petrified participles. Last June, Dick Feagler, cantankerous talk show host and Plain Dealer doyen of Cleveland nostalgia, put his reputation on the line to play American theater’s most revered curmudgeon, Sheridan Whiteside, in Kaufman and Hart’s…
Ray Davies
Ray Davies earned his position in rock history as the rhythm guitarist and principal singer-songwriter for the Kinks. To this day, the British Invasion group ranks among rock’s most influential bands. It’s worshiped by legions of mod revivalists, ranging from ’70s punk/power-pop groups like the Jam to contemporary acts such as the Swinging Neckbreakers. Yet,…
Best Beach for Pondering Life
What’s a poetical soul to do in this age of frenzy and rush? Even the water’s edge, that traditional spot of dreamers and thinkers, has become filled with jet skis, whining children, and boomboxes. The spit of beach at Avon Lake’s Veterans Memorial Park has none of these, which is exactly what makes it so…
Best Reason to Go to a Cavaliers Game
Normally we reject the distractions of mascots and T-shirts shot out of cannons. But, hey, when Lamond Murray doesn’t care, pulling for the Cavs can be a chore. The tasteful bumps and grinds of the Cavs Dance Team provide a nice break from the inaction on the court. Pom-poms, costume changes, abs of steel –…
Best Beach for Swimming
One mile of sand. Blue water. Blue skies. It doesn’t get much better than Headlands Beach State Park in Mentor, one of the longest beaches in Ohio and certainly the longest and cleanest in Greater Cleveland. The park is free, although you might want to bring money to rent a windsail. Also, take time to…
Best Place to Buy a Pet Coffin
“We’re making pet coffins today,” co-owner Jackie Zubal says cheerfully, as she emerges from a back room where her sewing table is awash in lamé, leopard print, and bubble wrap. At Gotta Have It, every day brings a new project, be it fashioning a patchwork wall collage out of fun-fur remnants and plastic Mexican wrestler…
Best Stuffed Dog
The secluded star of Cleveland’s palace of taxidermy was once the most famous dog in the country, even before he inspired a kids’ movie. In 1925, Balto, a Siberian husky, led a team of sled dogs through the last stretch of a relay across Alaska, bringing an antitoxin to the town of Nome to stop…
Best Downtown Oasis
Sometimes the need hits to escape the office or, if fortune hasn’t been smiling, the park bench. A great place to hide and get some work done is lovely Brett Hall, on the first floor of the Cleveland Public Library’s Main Building. The room is of Renaissance design, with classical Roman details; murals of the…
Best Antiques Shop
This wooden structure has as much history as many of the goods for sale within it. It housed the Olde Players theater in the ’50s, and an old sign at the entrance lists some of the productions put on by the troupe. The building was then turned into a recording studio before becoming an antiques…
Best Free-Range Burrito
Pork fans are riding high on the hog since Chipotles nationwide started using Niman Ranch meat this summer. Roundly seasoned with an exotic blend of fresh thyme, juniper berries, bay leaf, and freshly ground black pepper, the slowly braised meat is almost unbelievably succulent and flavorful. Wrap it up in a warm tortilla with some…
Best Menu Item at Jacobs Field
Sushi and chicken sandwiches are fine, but when we want culinary satisfaction at the ball game, our strategy is to pick up a cold brew and flag down the nearest peanut vendor. This classic pairing of barley malt and legumes gives us our daily requirement of B vitamins and protein, to sustain us through another…
Best Corned Beef
There are plenty of Clevelanders who have made Slyman’s towering corned beef sandwiches a lunchtime ritual. And there are plenty of Clevelanders who have had to let out the waistbands on their Sansabelts as a result. At three inches high, nearly a pound in weight, and full of positively addictive flavor, the sandwich can have…
Best Movable Feast
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou . . . well, you can get almost everything you need for an impromptu meal from the Mustard Seed Market & Café. Whether your tastes run to sushi or olive-orzo salad, peanut Thai chicken or grilled salmon, ginger-baked tofu or fruit crisp, you’ll find it…
Best Off-Season Use for Jacobs Field
It’s November in Cleveland. The boys of summer are gone, the city is cold and gray, and the wind off the lake is bitter. What could bring the Jake back to life at this time of year? A major-league wine tasting, held at the Terrace Club on November 2-3, is just the ticket. Heinen’s and…
311
It’s hard to believe that a group as limited as 311 has been around for more than a decade. It’s even more baffling, when you consider that it still regularly places albums in the Top 10. The Nebraska-bred quintet, which includes a member who calls himself P-Nut, recently released its sixth album, From Chaos, which…
Best Working-Class Millionaire
Men of lesser fortitude might sooner crumble than overcome a late-May batting average under .200. Jim Thome didn’t hang his head or reach for an excuse. He weathered daily criticism from the town he’s dedicated his career to, and — eventually — he caught fire. Posting the best offensive statistics of his career, Thome has…
Best Sportscaster
The Los Angeles Lakers have Kobe and Shaq. The Sixers have Allen Iverson. In Cleveland, the go-to guy is Joe Tait — no matter who’s out sweating in the droopy shorts. In his 30th year as the voice of the Cavaliers, Tait has weathered a mind-melting barrage of mediocre basketball. He could broadcast quilting bees,…
Best Place to Make a Childhood Memory
What Cedar Point is to 17-year-old prom-goers, Kiddie Park is to the 6-and-under set. Generations of Clevelanders have ridden the painted horses of the carousel, hanging on for dear life while fighting brutal centrifugal force. A boat or train ride provides the stomach a good break before you board the spinning car ride (where you…
Best Lawyer You’ve Never Heard Of
Think of Roberto Alomar. Think of him playing for 12 or 13 years, but not for the Indians. Think of him doing it for, say, the Buffalo Bisons. Not because he’s lost his mind, but because he wants to. This, basically, is what Amata has done. For more than a decade, he’s worked as a…
Best Bed & Breakfast
Guests at this 1874 red brick town house not only get an elegant place to stay that’s close to Cleveland’s cultural amenities; they can also enjoy a lesson in the city’s history. That’s because innkeeper Robin Yates has an unabashed enthusiasm for his hometown, and he eagerly shares it with anyone who’s interested. He goes…
Best-Looking Church
Sweet Jesus! Across from the bland architecture of CSU stands the magnificent Trinity Cathedral, whose construction commenced one century ago this year. Cleveland architect Charles Schweinfurth designed the English Gothic cathedral at the request of the Episcopals, and he came up with a beauty. The cut-and-molded limestone exterior dazzles. Inside, a 108-foot tower rises from…
Best Tabletop Adventure
Don’t go to this quirky Puerto Rican restaurant expecting to be coddled. The large bilingual menu is hard to decipher, the servers seem bored, and your meal’s pacing may be idiosyncratic, to say the least. But these little eccentricities — along with the tasty traditional fare, based on Grandma Lozada’s family recipes — are exactly…
Best Club DJ
Mick Boogie, formerly of WJCU and now 107.9, has finagled tokenism into a career as one of Cleveland’s premier hip-hop DJs. He’s booked on black nights uptown, downtown, and in between, exploiting his whiteness and near-talent to attract limp biscuits and hot boys alike. While it’s true that Boogie is Cleveland’s best DJ, he is…
Best Gay Romp
Beck Center in Lakewood has been turning out shows at the same astonishing rate that Volkswagen turns out Beetles. Just before last Thanksgiving, five giddy, self-proclaimed gay divas donned the wildest feathers and frills, the fruits of six individual costumers. They then commenced to croon, hula, and knock every hoary show-business convention on its tail.…
Best Power Breakfast
Even captains of business and industry have to eat a good breakfast. So for many of them, that means an early-morning stop at Century, the Ritz’s elegant dining room. How can market forecasts look cloudy, when the day begins with homemade croissants and freshly squeezed orange juice? Belgian waffles with marinated berries and Chantilly cream?…
Best Dessert
Pastry Chef Darlene Gantar bakes up some remarkable goodies in the kitchen at Pier W — items like voluptuous strawberry shortcake and vanilla-scented crème brûlée. But our favorite is her fresh-from-the-oven Liquid Chocolate Center Cake, a shatteringly rich, underbaked miniature chocolate cake with a warm liquid center. Gantar plates the cake on a bit of…
Best Festival
On almost any given summer weekend in Northeast Ohio, you can get your Greek on. The festivals are hosted by seven churches — four in Greater Cleveland, one in Akron, and two in Canton. None charge admission, and all offer Greek dancing, games, and raffles. But there’s a reason “ambrosia” is a Greek word: The…
