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Last August when I spotted a stop work order on the Cincinnati-themed lounge cum chili parlor Cinners, building out in a tiny space in Lincoln Square, I wondered if it was a vanity project of some neighborhood kid of Greek extraction whose dad owned the building. After all, in ancient times, Macedonians invented Cincinnati three-, four-, and five-way chili, and though I’m not enough of a food historian to theorize with any confidence, it is tempting to imagine a connection between the Greek dish pastitsio and the Queen City’s tomatoey stew, redolent of baking spices, plopped over spaghetti, all covered with cheese. And even though the stuff hasn’t often made its way too far out of Cincinnati, the little pocket of Lincoln Square where Cinners is located is kind of like Balkantown, with plenty of Greeks, Albanians, and immigrants from the former Yugoslavia. Why not a hitherto unknown link between the foodways of Cincy and Chicago Greeks?
But would it be real Cincinnati chili without a dash of controversy?
