Zhug

Zhug opened on Cedar Road in the Cedar Fairmount district of Cleveland Heights in 2020, the eastern-Mediterranean concept from Douglas Katz — one of the most influential chefs in Cleveland over the past twenty-five years, and the man behind Fire in Shaker Square before it — now operated with Todd Thompson under the Edgewater Hospitality banner. The cooking runs through hummus, wood-grilled vegetables and mezze built around the Yemeni chilli-herb sauce the restaurant is named for, and the dining room does dinner six nights a week, closing Sundays.

The beverage list is unusual in Cleveland for giving non-alcoholic drinks a permanent place inside the menu's own naming system rather than a separate mocktail box at the bottom of the page. The Zhug N/A No. 2 is built on a Ritual gin alternative with lemon, jade and chardonnay vinegar, the vinegar supplying the sharp finish a spirit would otherwise give; the N/A No. 3 uses Monday non-alcoholic whiskey with jalapeño, hibiscus, lemon and ginger beer for a longer, hotter drink. Alongside them sit the house gazoz — the Israeli-style fruit-syrup sodas that have become a signature — with No. 8 a sparkling pear shrub with cardamom and No. 10 a sparkling blueberry with lavender and lemon. The numbers rotate with the season, so the list is a live one rather than a fixture. Non-alcoholic beer, non-alcoholic sparkling rosé, mineral water and coffee drinks fill out the rest.

Cleveland Magazine's 2026 mocktail guide listed the N/A No. 2 at $12 and the gazoz at $11, both several dollars under the alcoholic cocktails. Between Zhug and its sibling Amba in Ohio City, Edgewater Hospitality is now the most consistent multi-restaurant group in the city for named, printed non-alcoholic drinks, which makes either a safe booking for a table where only some people are drinking.