Why You Should Be Dining at the Fidelity Hotel in Cleveland

The Club at Fidelity Hotel Credit: Photo by Doug Trattner

(Editor’s note: Every Saturday, Scene dining editor Doug Trattner takes you behind the scenes of the beat in Cleveland Bites, his weekly newsletter, to share notes on what he’s eating and what he’s doing. Here’s an entry from last week’s dispatch. Subscribe to Scene’s dining newsletter here if you haven’t already.)

The cover story of last week’s issue of Scene is a profile on Dan Young, the executive chef at the new Fidelity Hotel in downtown Cleveland. Already in his professional career, Young has worked at some of the best restaurants around, suffered personal tragedy, found sobriety and returned home to Cleveland. That’s where I caught up with him for this story.
Given the situation – the chef and I dining together in the Club Room of the hotel – I won’t be filing a review. But I do want to talk about the food and setting. The boutique hotel was a years-long project that converted a former 100-year-old office building and street-level strip of retail storefronts into a posh landing pad for travelers. Guests step into an elegantly appointed lobby dripping with texture, soft seating areas, art deco fixtures and local art. To get to the Club Room and lounge, diners walk through arched doorways and into the sweetest little dining room downtown.

Before I opted to pen a chef profile instead of a traditional dining review, I had lunch at Fidelity with a pal to check it out. The chef was not present that day and in fact had no idea I had even dined there when we sat for the interview.

The menu in the Club Room is one that comes across as approachable and familiar American fare, the type you’d find at hotels and country clubs around the nation. The lunch and dinner rosters are concise with an eye on expansion down the road. But as soon as the plates started landing on the table, you could tell that a veteran chef and leader was behind the scenes. From the ingredients to the preparation to the presentation on tasteful ceramic tableware, the “familiar” gets a major glow up.

You could inspect the Cobb salad under a microscope and you wouldn’t find a blemished green. None of the hard-boiled egg yolk had that taint of green and the green goddess dressing was rich and creamy without being cloying or heavy. The large white-meat chicken pieces were so juicy and tender they might have been poached.

Young and I have at least one thing in common: we both adore club sandwiches. He told me as much when we met days after I ordered the one above at lunch. Clubs are items that soar or flop on the caliber of ingredients and build. This one, starring smoked turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, Dukes mayo and Leavened Bakery bread, is dreamy.

Young, a native Clevelander, reaches into our city’s shopping basket when creating his menus. His uber-crispy chicken schnitzel, served on a pool of roasted beet and mustard sauce, is one example. So too are the pierogies, stuffed with braised beef short ribs and gilded with creme fraiche. The appetizer (pulled from the latest menu) is an obvious nod to the beef cheek pierogies they served at Lola.

Over the course of two visits I enjoyed a Caesar salad, mussels with chorizo and grilled scallion butter, bacon-wrapped, pimento cheese-stuffed dates, and a plush non-smash burger with all the trimmings.

The next time you’re downtown and looking for a stylish escape from same-old places, check Young and Fidelity out for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

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