Mike Stankovich on punk rock, culture and the cocktail you need to try at Longfellow
When Mike Stankovich learned he was a James Beard award finalist, the news came via text message from Wildweed chef and co-owner David Jackman – the only other finalist to hail from Cincinnati this year. Or Ohio, for that matter.
"He texted me, 'Where are we getting drinks in Chicago?' That's how I found out," Stankovich confessed on this week's episode of The Enquirer's That's So Cincinnati podcast.
Stankovich, owner of Longfellow Bar in Over-the-Rhine and Downtown's Mid-City Restaurant, is a finalist for the new award category of Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service. He finds out if he wins on June 16 at the James Beard Foundation Awards in Chicago.
On the podcast, Stankovich talked about his years as a guitarist in the Washington DC-based punk band Striking Distance (not to be confused with the Bruce Willis movie), how he became a well-known cocktail specialist thanks to a feature in the New York Times, and what led him to Cincinnati. (Spoiler alert: It had to do with a girl.) He also shared the secret behind hiring what Enquirer food writer Keith Pandolfi called 'one of the most enviable staffs in Cincinnati.'
'You know it's cliché, but I'd rather hire someone with a good personality rather than a great skill set," Stankovich said. 'I can teach you skill … then it's kind of just maintaining culture.'
Stankovich also revealed his favorite libations at Longfellow and how he really feels about the smoked cocktail trend.
That's So Cincinnati, The Enquirer's weekly podcast on what's making news in our community, features a who's who of special guests. Listen to it at Audioboom, Apple or your favorite podcast platform.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Longfellow owner Mike Stankovich on That's So Cincinnati Podcast
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Eater
an hour ago
- Eater
James Beard Award-Winning Southern Chef Sean Brock Is Opening a Restaurant in West Hollywood
One of South Carolina's most celebrated chefs will open his first Los Angeles restaurant in West Hollywood later this summer. Sean Brock, best known for his Southern restaurants in Charleston and Nashville, will introduce Darling, a new restaurant featuring seasonal ingredients prepared over a live-fire grill in the former Soulmate space on Robertson Boulevard. The Charleston-based chef will also introduce Bar Darling, an adjoining cocktail bar that will serve cocktails while vinyls play over a hi-fi sound system. As one of the South's most notable chefs, Brock is a high-profile figure dedicated to showcasing Southern Cuisine. He grew up in Virginia's Appalachian mountains before finishing culinary school and becoming executive chef at Charleston, South Carolina's Husk from 2010 until 2018; he then became a partner at McCrady's Restaurant. Brock won the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2010, and became a New York Times bestseller with his first cookbook Heritage , which also garnered a James Beard Award. After opening (and stepping away from) multiple Husk locations throughout the South, Brock opened Atlanta's Minero in 2015, then debuted Joyland in 2020. Joyland was his first solo restaurant, followed by a stream of openings, including a duo of Nashville restaurants centered around Appalachian food. Brock joins a handful of recent non-California-based chefs bringing their experience to Los Angeles, including the Jamaican-born Adrian Forte for Lucia in Fairfax, and chef Eyal Shani's Miznon. Darling will open in July or August across the street from Lisa Vanderpump's Sur and the trendy spinoff from Vanderpump Rules reality TV stars' sandwich shop, Something About Her. Related How Sean Brock Reinvented Himself (and His Restaurants) Sign up for our newsletter.
Eater
an hour ago
- Eater
5 Openings to Know in the Bay Area this June
This is a list of the Bay Area's most notable restaurant and bar openings , with new updates published once a week. Did we miss something great? Please, drop us a line . June 5 EMBARCADERO — IRL cookie monsters (and, hey, Cookie Monster, too) will most likely want to hear the news that Gott's Roadside has launched a new cookie counter at its Ferry Building location as of Wednesday, June 4. So far, four flavors are on the menu, including a classic chocolate chip and a double chocolate peanut butter option, but it's pairable with one of three 'dipping milks' — we're looking at the strawberry milk option. DOGPATCH — Standard Deviant Brewing throws open the doors to its huge new taproom and production facility at Building 12 at Pier 70 on Friday, June 6, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Expect a massive 30-foot-long bars for visitors to pony up to, with plenty of Standard Deviant beers to choose from, like Kolsches and blondes. PARK MERCED — Seattle-based Supreme Dumplings makes the leap to California with the opening of their latest restaurant in San Francisco's Stonestown Galleria with a grand opening set for Sunday, June 15. The San Francisco Chronicle also caught this opening, writing that the restaurants specializes in Taiwan-style xiao long bao, and also offers pan-fried dumpling options along with noodles and fried rice dishes. LOS GATOS — New cafe Petals Creamery is now open in Los Gatos, serving ice cream highlighting fun and floral flavors, desserts, and drinks, some with Persian flavor inflections, Palo Alto Online reports. Think akbar mashti with saffrron, rosewater, and slivered pistachios; ice cream sandwiches on lightly sweetened tahdig; and rose yuzu lemonade ice cream. MENLO PARK — An edomae-style sushi option comes to Menlo Park with the opening of Ren, which opens its doors on Saturday, June 7. The restaurant is led by Wen Zhao, who previously worked at San Francisco's Omakase restaurant. Sign up for our newsletter.
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Powerful play ‘Memorabilia' explores the hope and limits of memory through the eyes of a clown
Jean Claudio, a formidable Chicago-based talent who lives on Instagram as @el_clown, can dance, juggle, tumble, perform handstands and unleash a variety of -style clowning, a function of having a remarkably pliant and supple body and having trained in circus and physical theater in Buenos Aries and at the Actors Gymnasium in Evanston. Claudio is not an actor who moves. He's a legitimate circus professional with an uncommon facility for generating empathy. And in 'Memorabilia,' a very enjoyable solo show now at the Filament Theatre in Portage Park, Claudio sets about extending his skills and engaging persona into a bigger narrative, one that explores the limits of memory and the possibility of its reawakening. The show is produced by Teatro Vista, and if I add that the Alzheimer's Association is one of the show's sponsors, you probably have a sense of the world that Claudio is inhabiting here. But it's far from conventional or based on just one of life's travails. Claudio is, after all, a clown. And the 80-minute show, which is perfectly fine for family audiences, is a mostly joyful experience as an inventor named Salvador interacts physically and comedically with a whole bunch of stuff from his prior life (a plate, a piece of fabric, a coffee pot, a song, a body, a love), the significance of which he often struggles to remember (or is it to face?). But on designer Lauren Nichols' set, Salvador has a Rube Goldberg contraption to aid him in his quest to recall what matters most. It's a sculpture made up of old televisions and monitors, drawers filled with objects, maybe a toaster oven to gobble up life's cues. In its best moments, which are fantastic, Claudio dives deep into the unsettling nature of memory loss and denial but also into our incredible ability to recall and survive things from long ago. It's an affirmative piece that really challenges the notion that 'I can't remember' has to be a permanent state. If your family (as was mine) was or is touched by Alzheimer's, you'll know that one of the main challenges faced by those with the condition is to sort out what is significant (a loved one, say), and what can and should be discarded to the sands of time. After all, the ability to forget is the only way we can manage to stay content; if we recalled every past slight and example of unfair treatment, we'd spend our days in a stew of resentment. It's to his great credit that Claudio's show brings all of this up. Like a lot of clowns trained in South and Central America, Claudio has developed an expertise in what is known as crowd work, the name given to audience interaction. This, too, here, is about prompting memory, mostly through a very extensive accompanying sound design from Satya Chávez that really becomes a second character in the show. I think 'Memorabilia' still needs some work: its potentially potent emotional trajectory, its arc of feeling, sometimes get pushed aside as Claudio gets too involved with all of his stuff on stage and the thread gets lost. Ironically, given the subject, the show has some ways yet to go when it comes to signaling what is and is not the most important and, although the conclusion is inspiring, it would be yet more powerful if it were allowed more room to breathe. It's mostly a question of finding the right focus and pairing down what does not get used, and I thought those issues most acute in the less cohesive second part of the evening. If Claudio could focus as much on the audience's journey of feeling as he does on trying to make us laugh, he'd really have something here. That said, 'Memorabilia' is still a very rewarding and unusual show and a piece of new work with formidable potential. As I watched, I kept thinking about how great it would be for a child with grandparents struggling with memory to see this piece with someone who could explain what it was trying to say, but then the same would apply for an adult with a forgetful parent or, indeed, to persons themselves working mightily to remember, in all the complexity of that word. Memory is a wonderful theme for el_clown to explore because he is so vulnerable and empathetic. All he has to do now is ask himself what in his show matters the most. Review: 'Memorabilia' (3 stars) When: Through June 29 Where: Teatro Vista at Filament Theatre, 4041 N. Milwaukee Ave. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes Tickets: $20-$55 at
