🥃 Incline Public House

The Story

The Price Hill Incline was completed in 1874 and began carrying passengers in 1875. At the top, the Price family built the Price Hill House, a restaurant and resort overlooking Cincinnati. While the city's other incline resorts were known for beer gardens and drinking, General Rees Price was a teetotaler and wouldn't allow alcohol. The hill became known as Buttermilk Mountain. The original restaurant burned in 1899, but a restaurant and gardens remained on the site until 1938.

Incline Public House opened on that same historic site in 2012, and it has a full bar. People often don't think about the restaurant's history, but I do, and I share it with the people I take there. Knowing somebody was sitting in this same spot 150 years ago adds something to the meal.

The Vibe

The building feels more like two places. Inside is a tall wood-ceilinged room built around the bar, with the old Incline sign mounted high on the wall and windows facing the city. Then there's the deck, which is where I always want to be.

We waited twenty minutes for a deck table on a Saturday afternoon. That's the honest number, and it's worth knowing that the wait is for the outside specifically. You can usually sit inside right away unless you're hitting it at total prime time. Get a drink, step outside and let the twenty minutes go by while you take in the city from about 400 feet above.

Small thing I liked: the menu is named after the neighborhood. The W 8th Street Pie is the address. The Elberon salad is a street a few blocks over.

The Food

The short rib poutine is the reason to come, and I say that as somebody who ordered five other things on this day and have eaten here more than a dozen times. House fries under braised short rib, demi-glace, and white cheddar. The sauce is the whole argument. It's deep and beefy without going salty, and there's real shredded rib in there rather than a few threads floating in gravy.

One note for purists. The curds do not stay in chunks. They melt into sheets, and the cheese pulls halfway across the deck. This is not poutine in the Québécois sense and it isn't pretending to be. If you're hunting for a squeak, look elsewhere. If you just want the dish to be excellent, it is.

The fried cod is not fish sticks. The breading is light and stops short of hard crunch, and the fish underneath comes apart when you pick it up. The tartar sauce is house made, in line with other menu items. They bring exactly one small cup of it with four sizeable pieces of fish, which is not close to enough. Ask for more when you order. We asked once and got two.

Blackened mahi tacos are built with actual intent. The fish has real char and stays flaky, the chipotle aioli has a genuine pop, and the pineapple salsa underneath is there to pull that heat back down. Somebody designed that.

Crab cakes come two to a plate and they're large. Good density, no filler mush, browned all the way across, with a remoulade carrying a little bite and not overdoing it.

The soup that day was chicken and dumplings, off a rotating Soup of the Moment slot. Thick, creamy, flavorful. Exactly what it says it is. Making it on a hot day in late August is a choice I respect.

The fries deserve their own sentence. Crisp and golden outside, tender inside, and they held their structure under a lake of demi-glace on the poutine. A kitchen that gets its default side right on every single plate is telling you something.

The cole slaw is the one flat note. It's mild to the point of not doing much. My wife prefers it that way. I want some tang in mine. Take that for what it is. It's still good.

Which points at the one real pattern here. This kitchen consistently pulls up just short of aggressive. The remoulade has a bite but not too much. The aioli gets moderated. The slaw sits quiet. They're seasoning for a full room rather than for the person who wants it loud. Safe to that's the right call, and it's why the place is packed.

Our server was Ellye. She answered the tartar question straight instead of guessing, brought refills without making it a project, and did it while working a full deck. That's the version of good service that actually matters.

The Bottom Line

Everybody writes the view. The view is genuinely worth it. But the reason to put this place on your list is that the kitchen is doing more work than the view requires it to. House-made sauces, house fries that show up right on every plate, a fish fry that embarrasses the category, and a poutine I'm going to think about for a while.

Come early or come ready to wait a few minutes. Ask for extra tartar. Sit on the deck.