I had an excuse for a return trip to Boca last night for dinner. As usual it rocked. There are two things you can count on when it comes to dinner at Boca. It is going to be expensive, and it is going to be good, no, really good. It's easy for two people to drop $300 on dinner at Boca, but they manage the kind of high-wire act both in service and food that makes you shrug your shoulders and reach for the credit card. yes, it's that good. When you're in Boca, you forget that you are in Cincinnati, Ohio. You could just as easily be in the West Village of Manhattan or the Gold Coast of Chicago. Owner/Chef David Falk is doing food that ranks right up there with the best chefs in the big cities. We opted for the 3 course tasting menu plus dessert and a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. The food at Boca is "Italian" in the way that Mario Batali's is at Babbo in NYC. That is that Falk is using Italian preparation and a fiendishness for the best and freshest ingredients. So, you will see gnocchi in toothsome wild boar ragu, but you will also see perfect oysters on the half shell annointed with glistening cubes of sashimi grade tuna as an appetizer, or a frisee lardon salad spiked with duck confit fit for a french bistro. The glazed and braised pork belly is straight from the Tom Colicchio playbook, and why not, no one has trumped it yet. It was startlingly tasty. Desserts are fine if not quite at the level of the appetizers, pastas, and main courses. the wine list is manageable in size and contains enough gems that making a selection can be difficult. Many of the wines are pricey, but the sommelier is excellent and the juice is served in top-flight stemware.
There is no question in my mind that this is the best restaurant in Cincinnati right now.