The city that unleashed culinary conveniences such as Wendy's and White Castle on the world is now fast garnering a reputation for superior dining with a distinctively local flare.
With a demand fuelled by students and faculty at Ohio State, America's largest university in terms of enrollment, and insurance mega-employer Nationwide, the city has an eager clientele ready to spend on all things mouth-watering from taco street vendors and curbside cupcakes to eateries serving fare from the owner's garden and internationally famous fine dining.
A recent weekend in Ohio's state capital set the table, expanding the mind to how flavourful locally grown food can be and expanding the waistline for those who cannot resist the lure of the famous Sugardaddy's brownies or the 3 Babes and a Baker cupcake truck that patrols city streets. While ordinary cities offer hotdog street vendors; cosmopolitan Columbus provides everything from tacos from various regions of Latin America to Japanese-style crepes and the regionally famous and not to be missed Jeni's Ice Cream.
This summer, the city hosted food and travel journalists from as far away as Canada, California and New York for a tour that, preliminaries aside, began at the table of Kent Peters and his Blackcreek Bistro.
Peters, whose first career job for national chain of restaurants kept him on the road and away from his young family, decided to go home and go local when he not only opened his own restaurant 10 years ago, but built a menu around his own garden produce and that of a nearby urban mini-farm called Sunny Meadows.
The result? Spectacular treats such as salads featuring rare heritage tomatoes not normally seen in restaurants.
"Serving and eating locally produced food is worth it. The taste experience, knowing that you are supporting your neighbours and having choices not found in other restaurants makes dining that much more of a special experience," Peters said.
The local food movement is not lost on even the city's high-end restaurants, including the Refectory. Located in a former church, its menu features local cheeses, produce, meats and eggs.
Ditto for Alana's in the trendy and dynamic University District, where chef/owner Alana Shock draws daily menu inspiration from the farm-fresh products and special supplies of the city's North Market. Shock's rapport and banter with customers is a Columbus legend and her restaurant a stop of choice for serious foodies passing through Columbus.
Food has also been a catalyst for change in Columbus, the most dramatic example being Rigsby's Kitchen in the trendy Short North. Owners Kent and Tasi Rigsby and their restaurant were the catalysts for transforming the Short North from a seedy centre of sin to a lively neighbourhood filled with good eating and fine art. Their menu varies with the available fresh food of the season, but always available are artisan breads produced nearby at the restaurant's own, private bakery.
Of course not all things gastronomic are serious. Foodies with a sense of humour cannot miss Knead Urban Diner, where the Mother Clucker chicken sandwich is just part of the fun for husband and wife owners Richard and Krista Lopez.
And lineups are common and a packed house the norm for Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace near the downtown core where locovore Liz Lessner offers not just funky dogs, but surprisingly scrumptious surprises such as melt-in-your-mouth fried leeks. Try them once and remember them forever.
But the best food-and-corporate combo lies outside the city limits at Woodhaven Farm near Johnstown, Ohio, where former stock broker Tami Cecil hosts cooking classes, corporate team-building through cooking and parties in a barn turned kitchen. She once bid adieu to a conference group of 80 dentists by giving each a pack of dental floss.
"We started this with no vision, just good karma," said Cecil, who is also a cookbook author and host of a TV show.
"When people are cooking and eating together, there's no better day," she said.
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