Chili here is more than a meal here. It’s a culture.
P
eople in Cincinnati don’t just like having three ways; they are truly passionate about them. Everyone has their favorite particular proclivities about just how to have a three-way. I mean, I personally like mine juicy, while some don’t. They even like four-, five- and, sometimes, even six-ways.
Is the city’s population particularly kinky? After all, Cincinnati was the location for the short-lived reality TV show about swingers called Neighbors With Benefits.
The reality is far less racy, though, as the concept of “ways” is just how you order Cincinnati chili. A three-way is spaghetti, which is then layered in the town’s unique spin on chili, all topped off by a towering bouffant of shredded cheddar cheese. A four-way includes either beans or onions while a five-way includes both. Some chili parlors get creative and offer a “six-way,” which might consist of something like jalapenos, chopped garlic, or another unique twist.
“I think it gives us an identity. It’s our thing,” noted Maria Papakirk, the third-generation owner of Camp Washington Chili. “When people come here, you have to try it. It’s like when you’re in Nashville, you have to try the hot chicken. Or if you’re in Pittsburgh, you have to have a Primanti Brothers sandwich. It’s pretty cool that Cincinnati has something so uniquely its own. I honestly think the chili put Cincy on the map in the culinary world.”
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The dish is so popular that there are some 250 chili parlors in the greater Cincinnati region, which covers parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. There are roughly 100 restaurants each for the two big chains, Skyline and Gold Star, while the other 50 are local parlors. Residents’ preferences are so ingrained, and the parlors’ menus are so simple that you can tell someone isn’t local if they ask for—or even look at—a menu.
To understand the allure, you must first understand the chili, which isn’t like traditional chilis. The beef is finely minced, so the texture is more like a soupy marinara sauce. There is a subtle taste of cinnamon within the other spices, including nutmeg, allspice, clove, cumin, chili powder, and bay leaves. There are no vegetables in it. If you are new to it, don’t think of it as chili in a traditional sense. It’s more a Mediterranean-spiced sauce, like a Macedonian Bolognese.
“It’s based on a Greek meat sauce,” notes Dann Woellert, author of The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili. “It’s based on Middle Eastern spices and very cinnamon-forward. It’s not Texas chili, so don’t even try to go there. It’s just very unique.”
A popular myth asserts that it also contains a small amount of dark, unsweetened chocolate. Woellert’s passion for the dish comes to bear when asked about this.
“That’s the one myth that burns my craw. It’s not true. I interviewed every chili proprietor in Cincinnati, and they all laughed when I asked them about using any chocolate. There are 14 other spices in Cincinnati chili, so even if there was chocolate in it, you’d never taste it.”
He adds that one potential source for the myth is that some of the parlors may have added chocolate to a dish solely for a photo shoot, as it gives the chili a nice sheen.
Locals raised on the stuff generally love it, while people not originally from the southwestern Ohio region are often split. (I grew up elsewhere but fall on the side of loving it.) The region consumes some 2 million pounds of it each year, topped by 850,000 pounds of the fluffy shredded cheddar cheese. Some even “shotgun” cans of it to celebrate sporting events.
I was once chastised by my nephew, who is from Cincinnati, for not eating my four-way properly (by the way, my four-way order is onions on the side, light spaghetti, juicy, thank you very much). He insisted that you have to turn the dish so that you’re facing the oval-shaped bowl on the long axis. Regardless of your bowl’s orientation, you then eat it like a casserole, cutting bites with your fork. One does not ever twirl the noodles.
It all started at the Burlesque Empress Theater in 1922. The Kiradjieff brothers were immigrants from the Macedonian town of Hrupishta (now Argos Orestiko, Greece) and had a hot dog stand nearby. They started to ladle their unique sauce on hot dogs (called “Coneys” after Coney Island) and eventually, by customer request, over spaghetti. In the early 1930s, a late-night taxi driver had an additional request: put cheese on it. The three-way was born.
While the two large chains now dominate the regional chili industry, purists insist that it’s the little guys who do it right. Some say that Dixie Chili, with its three stores on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, is the best, while neighborhood biases toward individual parlors in Pleasant Ridge or Blue Ash are typical. But others are adamant that, if you have to choose one over the rest, it’s Camp Washington Chili.
Papakirk’s single restaurant has been in the same neighborhood for going on 80 years. “In order to give the food our undivided attention, you really must have one place. With one restaurant, we’ve been able to keep the entire family involved and just generally keep a better eye on everything.”
She notes that their parlor has a Cheers-like element, where everyone knows your name. She also proudly rattles off the various employees who have been there for 20 or more years.
On a recent visit to the Camp Washington neighborhood, Papakirk’s restaurant was still busy well past the lunch rush, the tables filled with customers often in blue-collar uniforms or with their name emblazoned on a patch on their shirts. With their one store and a very dedicated local following, though, Camp Washington Chili could very well be the purest incarnation of Cincinnati Chili–and they certainly have the accolades to back it up.
In 2000, they won a James Beard Foundation America’s Classics Award, while Smithsonian magazine named Camp Washington Chili as one of the “20 Most Iconic Food Destinations in America” in 2013. They’ve appeared on the Travel Channel, Food Network, Cooking Channel, and CBS Morning News. Their décor of choice is to cover the walls of their parlor with framed prints of their many newspaper and magazine articles.
The dish is such a part of local culture that there are often unique spins on it, well beyond the simple addition of another ingredient to create a “six-way.” Northside’s Blue Jay Restaurant offers a Cincinnati chili cheese omelet. Camp Washington has the “513-Way,” which references Cincinnati’s area code and utilizes the city’s second most notable culinary creation, the Germanic sausage called “Goetta.” And, perhaps most ambitious of them all, the Tuba Baking restaurant in Dayton, Kentucky, takes a spin on it via a lens that embraces the region’s deep German roots. The restaurant specializes in Swabian food, so it pours a vegan version of the sauce over spätzle noodles and covers it with white cheese. It’s called the “Swabinatian.”
No matter how you order up your Cincinnati chili, by partaking in it, you’ll be embracing the local culture, bite by glorious bite.
When asked what the chili means to the city, Woellert’s passions again shine through. “It’s what we’re made of, I mean, literally. It’s in our DNA. It’s in our veins. It’s family, it’s friends, it’s tradition. When locals return home, it’s often the first place they go. It’s served at football games, reunions, and events. Every year, the parlors see an uptick in visitors the day after Thanksgiving because all the families are going to the parlors. It’s just who we are.”
Now, you can come to Cincy and fearlessly ask someone for a three-way. And, most importantly, you’ll now know that it’s a Mediterranean-spiced meat sauce covered in a pillow of shredded cheese and perhaps the bedrock of the region’s culinary landscape.
