For the second profile in my series about Unsung Cities, I travel to the American Midwest to enjoy few tasty days in the lowbrow wonderland of Cleveland, Ohio.
A couple of days ago, I wrapped up my annual Best of series of lists about the top food, drink, and travel related items I came across over the past year. For 2018, those lists comprised a dozen categories: podcasts, hotels, cafes, breakfasts and brunches, pizza, burgers, ice cream, beer, cocktails, cheap eats, bars and pubs, and restaurants.
Next to London – the city where I live and write about the most – one place stood out prominently with multiple entries in a majority of categories. That place was Cleveland, with at least one listing in most categories and a couple or more in a few of them.
Pizza Paradise
I was especially impressed with the city’s pizza scene, and left assuming there must be plenty of quality slices that I was unable to try. Next time? I’d love that.
The three pizzerias that made my Best Pizza of 2018 list are as follows:
- Edison’s Pizza Kitchen (edisonspub.com)
- Il Rione (ilrionepizzeria.com)
- Saucy Brew Works (saucybrewworks.com)
Beyond the pizzerias, the overall food and drink scene wowed as well. As a beer lover, I was spoiled for choice.
As for the categories where Cleveland didn’t make an appearance, some simply didn’t apply to my situation. For example I didn’t have a burger while I was in Cleveland, and my Cheap Eats list only featured eateries in London.
I believe if I had stayed in Cleveland longer, more businesses and local offerings would have appeared across more of my Best of lists. Indeed, I probably would have had to come up with new categories: best pinball machines, best donuts, hotdogs …
Serial
Even one of my favourite podcasts of the year was about and based in Cleveland.
Hosted by Sarah Koenig, Serial is an investigative journalism podcast co-produced by Koenig and Julie Snyder and developed by This American Life. It received a lot of attention and praise for its first season, which dug deep into the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, Maryland and the subsequent and questionable arrest of Adnan Syed for the crime.
For the third and latest season of the show, Koenig headed to Cleveland to examine “ordinary cases” in the city’s criminal justice system, “one courthouse, week by week.”
Serial doesn’t paint the rosiest picture of Cleveland. But it should be noted that the city government allowed Koenig and crew to “record everywhere — courtrooms, back hallways, judges’ chambers, prosecutors’ offices. And then to follow cases “outside the building, into neighborhoods, into people’s houses, and into prison.”
Can you imagine any other municipality opening up its judicial system to be so freely scrutinized by one of America’s best-known journalists and serialized in one of the world’s popular podcasts? Cleveland’s got problems for sure. But the willingness to shine a light on its troubles and acknowledge the place is far from perfect only adds to the reasons I love it.
More about the third season of Serial:
serialpodcast.org/season-three/about
More
This is not the first time for me to write about the Cleveland area. I hope it won’t be my last.
Soon after my mid October visit, I posted about the blast I had at Cedar Point, the “roller coaster capital of the world” about an hour out from downtown Cleveland. I also shared a post about my visit to the house where, one of my favourite movies, A Christmas Story, was filmed.
A Christmas Story is not the only flick from Cleveland that I love. Another is American Splendor about local comic book legend, Harvey Pekar. An unexpected highlight of my visit was happening upon Pekar’s grave at Lakeview Cemetery and see the writing pens stuck into the ground in front of the tombstone presumably left by writers and artists inspired by Harvey’s work.
A lot of my time in Cleveland was spent interviewing local independent business owners about what they do for a living and why they love doing it in Cleveland.
Follow this link to read the Cedar Point and Christmas Story posts and to listen to the podcast interviews:
tikichris.com/category/tcinthecle/
Lowbrow Wonderland
As everything mentioned above suggests, Cleveland is a lowbrow kinda town. And that’s just fine by me. For affordable and quirky fun, I can think of nowhere I’d rather revisit. The same goes with respect destinations I’d recommend for gourmand getaways and laidback city break.
Folks were as friendly and welcoming as anywhere I’ve been, with a beautifully balanced mix of hometown pride and humility.
Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.
– Harvey Pekar
Keep an eye out for more posts to come in my series about Unsung Cities.
