Special Report

What Food is Ohio Known For: 11 Iconic Foods to Eat in the State

Colman Andrews

Published: November 11, 2023 10:37 am

Last Updated: November 11, 2023 10:38 am

Ohio is in the middle of it all. It borders the Midwest (Michigan and Indiana), the South (Kentucky and West Virginia), and the East Coast (Pennsylvania) – and it’s right across Lake Erie from Canada. It has significant Hispanic and Asian populations today, but its immigrant roots are largely German and to a lesser extent Italian and Polish. Its central position and mix of cultural influences have given Ohio a wide range of foods that aren’t to be missed.

Let’s dive into 11 of the state’s most famous foods.

Foods Ohio Is Known For

• Goetta
• Cincinnati chili
• Buckeyes
  
• Cleveland-style pizza
• Ohio Valley pizza
• Johnny Marzetti
• Fried lake perch
• Graeter’s ice cream
• Barberton chicken
• Polish boy
• Shaker lemon pie

1. Goetta

Source: Courtesy of Glier's Goettafest / goettafest.com

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: GoettaFest

This specialty, created by German immigrants to Cincinnati though not something found in Germany itself, is a kind of sausage, similar to scrapple, made with pork or a pork-beef combination, steel-cut pin-head oats, and various spices. It’s typically eaten for breakfast, fried crisp alongside eggs or pancakes. Many old-school local butchers make their own, but the main producer is Glier’s, located just across the Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky.

The best place to sample goetta in all its glory is at GoettaFest, held in late July and early August every year in Newport, Kentucky, next door to Covington (Glier’s sponsors the festival). Here, goetta leaves breakfast far behind, appearing in nachos, empanadas, shepherd’s pie, mac and cheese, even brownies and cannolis.

2. Cincinnati Chili

Source: bhofack2 / iStock via Getty Images

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Camp Washington Chili

Texans roll their eyes when they hear this meat sauce (scented with cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices) described as “chili,” but it’s a beloved regional specialty with a history dating back to the early 1920s. That’s when a Greek immigrant named Tom Kiradjieff developed the sauce to use on spaghetti at his coney (hot dog) stand. It became a local tradition, often with grated cheddar added. Today, fans order it in different “ways” – two-way (just chili and spaghetti), three-way (cheese added), four-way (kidney beans or onions added to a three-way), or five-way (all of the above). 

There are numerous purveyors of Cincinnati chili today. The best-known of these is Skyline Chili, founded by another Greek in 1949; today it has branches all over Ohio and in Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida. But Camp Washington Chili, opened in 1940 by two more Greeks in Cincinnati’s Camp Washington neighborhood, has been repeatedly hailed as the best in town.

3. Buckeyes

Ohio Buckeyes (CC BY 2.0) by Travis Wise

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Marsha’s Homemade Buckeyes

Ohio is the Buckeye State, named for its abundance of buckeye trees, and the Buckeyes are the athletic teams of Ohio State University in Columbus. But buckeyes are also a variety of candy well-loved throughout the state. They’re balls of peanut butter fudge, partially dipped in chocolate, leaving an exposed crown of light-colored fudge at the top, so that they resemble the (toxic) nut of the buckeye tree. They appear to have been invented sometime in the 1960s, perhaps by a home cook.

At first, buckeyes were strictly a homemade treat, in any case, but they’ve long since been a fixture at candy stores all over the state. There’s even an official statewide Ohio Buckeye Candy Trail. One of the essentials on that list is Marsha’s Homemade Buckeyes in Perrysburg, near the Michigan border (they do mail order). Marsha’s has been making buckeyes – and only buckeyes – for more than 30 years, and theirs find a balance between too-perfect and too-homemade in appearance.

4. Cleveland-Style Pizza

Source: stuart_spivack / Flickr

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Master Pizza

There are regional pizza styles all over the country, and Ohio has a few of them. In Cleveland, the local pizza is known for its soft, semi-thick bread-like crust with crimped edges. Toppings are spread all the way to the edges, and the cheese of choice is provolone, which may or may not be combined with the more traditional mozzarella. 

A go-to favorite for Cleveland-style pizza is Master Pizza, which now has 15 locations around northeastern Ohio. Its Old World Pepperoni and Sausage pie was a winner on HULU’s “Best in Dough” series.

5. Ohio Valley Pizza

Source: Creative Commons 2.0

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Original DiCarlo’s Famous Pizza

Here’s another pizza style born in Ohio (though now found in parts of next-door West Virginia and Pennsylvania too). This one’s really different: It’s baked in a square pan and covered generously with oregano-spiked tomato sauce. Then the toppings, traditionally shredded provolone, pepperoni, and sometimes banana peppers, are added – cold – on top of the hot pie. It sounds strange, but fans say once you try it, you’ll be converted.

Ohio Valley pizza is best sampled where it originated – at the state’s first licensed pizzeria, opened by the DiCarlo brothers in 1945 in Steubenville, along the Ohio River just west of Pittsburgh. Today, with the DiCarlo family still in charge, there are two locations in Steubenville, plus one in Columbus, four in West Virginia, and one way down in Knoxville, Tennessee.

6. Johnny Marzetti

Source: Shutterstock

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Wieland’s Market

Not a person, but Ohio’s own signature pasta dish, Johnny Marzetti is a casserole of noodles, ground beef (or sometimes sausage), cheese, and tomato sauce. Its origins are hazy. The legend is that it was invented in the early 1900s by Teresa Marzettii, an Italian immigrant restaurateur in Columbus, who named it for her brother-in-law. However, no one has ever been able to find the dish listed on one of her restaurant’s early menus.

Then there was a luxury food wholesaler named John Marzetti – no relation to Teresa – who opened several restaurants in Columbus in the late 1800s, but the dish never appeared on one of his places’ menus either. Ohio History Central says it had become popular in the region by the 1920s, but the first published mention of Johnny Marzetti seems to have come in the food section of the Columbus Dispatch in 1953.

In the 20th century, Johnny Marzetti was a standard dish in school cafeterias, and some restaurants still feature it as an occasional lunch special. But the family-owned Wieland’s Market usually has it available in their prepared food section, and they do it right.

7. Fried Lake Perch

Source: Shutterstock

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Jake’s on the Lake

The Friday night fish fry is a Midwestern tradition (now spread across the whole week in many places), and the fish of choice for the occasion is often lake perch, which is mild and virtually boneless, but sturdy enough to stand up to a good seasoned batter. Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline is full of places serving this local specialty – often accompanied by fries and maybe coleslaw, but also served in sandwiches, tacos, and other fashions. Cleveland Magazine covers fish fries frequently and publishes a compendium of articles as a Fish Fry Guide for the Lenten season every year.

Jake’s on the Lake in Avon Lake – which isn’t technically on the lake, but about 175 yards inland – is one of many favorite fried fish places in northern Ohio. It offers a full menu of appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, and entrees, but fried perch is a specialty, and it does a splendid job.

8. Graeter’s Ice Cream

Source: Shutterstock

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Graeter’s (see locations here)

Graeter’s was started as an ice cream stand in Cincinnati in 1870 by Louis Charles Graeter and has grown into a chain, still family-owned, of more than 50 stores in five Ohio cities and four other states. Its wares are also sold in about 6,000 supermarkets and by mail order nationwide. Graeter’s is a Cincinnati legend, and unique in the ice cream world. It still uses a version of its original French pot method, involving a cylindrical metal bowl set into another bowl filled with ice and salt. This is used to make two-and-a-half-gallon batches, which are then hand-packed, so that the mixture contains only 20%-25% air (most commercial ice creams have twice that). That makes Graeter’s denser and heavier than its competitors; a pint weighs about a pound.

There are always at least 30 flavors available, including seasonal favorites like Peppermint Stick, but the Graeter’s signature and best-seller is Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip. Graeter’s will taste the same wherever you find it, but somehow one of its 18 outlets in its hometown seems most appropriate for sampling its wares.

9. Barberton chicken

Source: Shutterstock

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Belgrade Gardens

Mike and Smilka Topalsky, immigrants from Serbia, were forced to sell their family farm during the Depression, and in 1933 opened a farmhouse-style restaurant called Belgrade Gardens in what had been Mike’s father’s home in Barberton, southwest of Akron. They served food they’d known in Serbia, specializing in their kind of fried chicken, coasted with flour and breadcrumbs seasoned only with salt, and fried in lard. On the side, they served coleslaw and fried potatoes or rice with peppers. 

Based largely on the chicken dinners, the restaurant grew over the years, and was followed by three other fried chicken places in the region, opened by different Serbian restaurateurs but all serving the same kind of bird. All do a good job, but Belgrade Gardens remains the standard.

10. Polish boy

Polish boy (CC BY-SA 2.0) by stu_spivack

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Little Polish Diner

The Polish Boy is where Poland meets barbecue country. A gut-busting sandwich of grilled kielbasa sausage, French fries, coleslaw, and BBQ sauce on a bun – sometimes served in foil because it’s a messy proposition – is said to have been invented by one Virgil Whitmore at his Whitmore’s Bar-B-Q back in the 1940s. In calling it one of America’s best sandwiches, Esquire dubbed it “soul on white.” 

Cleveland Scene named the Polish Boy at Cleveland’s popular (and really little) Little Polish Diner the city’s best in 1920, ‘21, and ‘22. As a variation, the restaurant offers sauerkraut in place of slaw.

11. Shaker lemon pie

Source: Shutterstock

• Best Place to Buy This Iconic Food: Local bake sales

This dessert, also called Ohio lemon pie, is unusual in that its filling is made with entire lemons, sliced thin, instead of just the juice. It was developed by members of a Shaker religious community in Ohio, possibly at the Union Village settlement in Turtlecreek Township, in the southwestern corner of the state, and probably in the early 19th century. The Shakers were known for frugality and practicality, and lemons, which don’t grow anywhere near Ohio, would have been expensive, so it would have made sense for them to use the whole fruit. (The slices are macerated with sugar, which breaks down the peels.) 

While you might find an authentic example at an occasional bakery, your best bet is to look for a homemade version at a church or school bake sale.