City: Cincinnati, OH

Category: Restaurants

Telephone: (513) 272-0859

Address: 6918 Wooster Pike

Description: When Cincinnati’s Louis Graeter began concocting ice cream way back in 1870, he could never have imagined that one day Oprah Winfrey would crown Graeter’s as her very favorite brand on Oprah nationwide.The phone lines haven’t stopped ringing since.In Graeter Cincinnati everyone—it seems—has a favorite parlor in the chain. Some lean toward the shop located on the village square in Mariemont, others prefer the downtown branch. But for an all-around original experience, the parlor in Hyde Park Square is hard to whip. This parlor, which opened more than 80 years ago, is laden with vintage flavor. There’s a nod to modern with the neon ice-cream cones glowing on the wall, but the tin ceiling and nostalgic atmosphere are a trip back in time. On a summer’s eve many patrons choose to stroll Hyde Park Square with their delectable creations in hand. Call it the Cone Zone.Graeter’s makes ice cream in a French pot, an old-world technique, according to Graeter family members such as Rich and Chip (seriously, those are their names). The French pots are vertical-batch freezers that press the air out of the mixture (some commercial brands actually add air to fluff up their products). The ice cream is lovingly paddled by hand in two-gallon batches.Another unique aspect of Graeter’s is that the chip flavors (including the perennially popular black raspberry chip) aren’t chocolate chips at all, but are more like chunks. July’s flavor of the month, one of the best sellers among the monthly choices, is peach; the Graeter family credits its use of fresh peaches, not canned, for the flavor’s peachy success.