Cordelia

Cordelia opened in 2022 at 2058 East Fourth Street, the downtown block that has carried Cleveland's restaurant reputation for two decades, from chef Vinnie Cimino and co-owner Andrew Watts. Cimino describes the cooking as Midwest melting pot meets modern grandma — a celebration of the region's farmers, run through the immigrant home cooking the city was built on — and the recognition arrived fast: Cleveland Magazine named it Best New Restaurant in 2023, Cimino was a James Beard Award finalist, and Food & Wine put him on its Best New Chefs list in 2025, calling the restaurant an unabashed homage to Cleveland. The pair have since announced a second restaurant in the former Alea space in Ohio City. The dining room does dinner Tuesday through Saturday, a Sunday brunch, and a "Bellie Up" tasting menu for anyone who wants the full run.

The bar programme is held to the kitchen's standard and treats zero-proof as a build rather than a substitution. Instead of keeping a short separate list, the team makes non-alcoholic versions of cocktails from the main menu, leaning on Lyre's and Seedlip alongside the house-made syrups and shrubs already in use behind the bar. The reference drink is the 3 Dope Boyz In A Cadillac at $17 — Lyre's American Malt and Lyre's Amaretti with apple cider, ginger beer and fresh lemon, finished with candied ginger — which reads as a long autumn whiskey drink rather than a spiced soda, and which Cleveland Magazine used as one of the city's benchmarks in its 2026 mocktail guide.

The pricing is the clearest signal of intent: at $17 the zero-proof drink sits level with the alcoholic list rather than being discounted into afterthought territory, and it is made with the same number of steps. Valet parking is validated at $14, which matters on East Fourth on an event night.