Hearing a Boogie-Woogie tune on the piano while sipping a craft cocktail on a brightly furnished patio with a magnolia tree in view — you wouldn’t even have to squint to think you were in New Orleans. The atmosphere and cuisine at BrewRiver Creole Kitchen brings the spirit of the Crescent City to Cincinnati in a stately 150-year-old building on Eastern Avenue.
From 2011 until 2018, owner Joby Bowman and chef Michael Shields ran BrewRiver GastroPub on nearby Riverside Drive before deciding to branch out in two directions at once: BrewRiver became a taproom food provider at Sonder Brewing in Mason at nearly the same time they made the transition from a smaller gastropub location in the East End to a larger building in Linwood (previously occupied by Bella Luna).
The Creole Kitchen location has opened up options for chef Shields to add new items to the menu — broiled oysters, fried green tomatoes with a pecan cornmeal crust and bread pudding for dessert. And the team envisions more and more seasonal and New Orleans-inspired dishes, given the larger kitchen.
A few months after opening, BrewRiver Creole Kitchen has begun to settle into its niche: upscale fusion dishes in a historic setting.
“We are family-owned, through and through,” Bowman says. “This restaurant is a letter of love, an expression of the passion that we have for what we do.”
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Photos by Hailey Bollinger
