Food & Drink

Salt: Cleveland's 25 Best Restaurants

Earning a third James Beard Award nomination this year, chef Jill Vedaa continues to be one of Cleveland's top chefs as she rolls into the 28th installment of her menus in Lakewood.

by Dillon Stewart | Apr. 28, 2022 | 12:00 PM

Nicole Steffen

Nicole Steffen

The third time was not the charm for chef Jill Vedaa, who didn’t make the final cut for a James Beard Award despite being nominated for best chef in the Great Lakes region once again. Lucky for us, the chef of Lakewood’s innovative small plates and cocktail restaurant doesn’t think like that. If she did, we might not have gotten the 28th installment of her modern American menus in April.

Though we’re always happy to see menu favorites such as the white bean puree ($13), which is similar to hummus but chunkier with more garlic and citrus notes and topped with mashed olives, how can you not get excited about the future when Vedaa keeps coming up with dishes like oxtail tostada with pickled vegetables ($16), charred baby octopus with a duck fat cauliflower ($14) and mushroom fritters with charred poblano mojo ($12).

So we’ll keep looking forward to what’s next from Vedaa — even if Mr. Beard doesn’t think it’s good enough for a gold medal. saltcleveland.com

Our full list of 34 Best Restaurants, 10 Best New Restaurants and reader-voted Silver Spoon Awards is your guide to Cleveland’s best bites.

Dillon Stewart

Dillon Stewart is the editor of Cleveland Magazine. He studied web and magazine writing at Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and got his start as a Cleveland Magazine intern. His mission is to bring the storytelling, voice, beauty and quality of legacy print magazines into the digital age. He's always hungry for a great story about life in Northeast Ohio and beyond.

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