Cleveland destination guide: quintessential American city packed with action

Until a few decades ago, many assumed Cleveland, Ohio could be summed up by the drab, nondescript colour of its American football team: brown.

This perennial underdog was blighted by post-industrial decline and has attracted little international attention. It seemed to live in the shadow of its more pushy and powerful neighbours, Chicago and Detroit, and fly under the radar.

But if you come at "The Land", as it is known locally, you will quickly see that the city has emerged from its dour slump as an unexpectedly chic and cool destination.

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The city is known as "The Land of Urban Outdoors", close to the mighty Lake Erie and the 33,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a great spot for hiking.

At Cleveland International Airport, you are greeted by a gigantic Superman figure, created in 1933 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, a pair of inspired local teenagers. It could be a metaphor for the city: an unassuming presence suddenly transforming into a soaring superhero.

What to do

Top of the sightseeing charts in Cleveland is The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Opened by Chuck Berry and Yoko Ono in 1995, the museum is in a very appropriate location. In 1951 it was here in Cleveland that local radio DJ Alan Freed from first used the term "rock and roll". Before you could say "Good Golly, Miss Molly," it became a global phenomenon.

Housed in a striking double pyramid on the shores of Lake Erie, "The Rock Hall" showcases a quite dizzying selection of memorabilia. It possesses more priceless items of rock 'n' roll history than you can shake an auctioneer's gavel at. There is not enough money in the world to buy this collection.

From the jacket Michael Jackson wore in the "Thriller" video and John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", to The Cloud #2 Blue Angel Guitar that Prince played on "Purple Rain", it's all here. 

What is particularly enticing is the sheer volume of esoterica that the museum has on display: everything from the 1964 contract The Rolling Stones signed to compose a soundtrack for a Rice Krispies ad, and the telegram that the Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren sent to Sid Vicious's mother in 1979 informing her of his death, to the trophy U2 won at the 1978 Limerick Civic Week Talent Contest.

In another display case are the remnants of a left-handed Fender Stratocaster. It was wrecked on stage by Kurt Cobain with a technician's drill at Inglewood, California in 1993. He performed the stunt to impress fellow guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who was in the audience that night.

Another terrific feature is The Garage, a jam room where you can join a pickup band to play a song from the extensive playlist. It's an extremely high standard. When I was there, a woman in a beanie hat strolled up to the microphone and belted out a superb version of Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools".

The Hall of Fame is only rock 'n' roll, but I like it.

Containing the Cleveland Orchestra's famed Severance Hall, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and many other cultural institutions, the University Circle district is widely recognised as having the US's highest concentration of arts venues per square mile.

Another notable institution here is the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. One of the many astonishing artefacts in this eye-catching building, which underwent a $150 million refurbishment in 2022, is the fearsome "Happy", who greets you in the lobby. This 70-foot-long skeleton of a Haplocanthosaurus was discovered in Montana in 1954. Even though it dates from the late Jurassic Period 155 million years ago, it still looks capable of guzzling you as a tasty pre-dinner canape.

Also well worth a visit is the West Side Market, open daily. Constructed in 1912, it is one of the oldest and largest indoor food markets in the US.

Its Insta-worthy stalls reflect the rich immigrant history of the city. For example, the Polish pierogi, a potato, cheese and sauerkraut dumpling, is so popular, it is now a Cleveland speciality. The city hosts an annual "Pierogi Week", and locals say that gym membership always doubles the following week.   

Don't leave West Side Market without sampling the hot dogs at Frank's Bratwursts, made to a secret recipe. For ease of navigation, Ilse, the scion of the fourth-generation Austrian family who run the booth, wears a turquoise basketball vest with "Wurst" emblazoned across the back.

Another very pleasant experience is wandering around Cleveland's vibrant downtown, home to "Playhouse Square," the largest theatre district in the US outside New York City.

The Rotunda at Heinen's, a historic Downtown Cleveland grocery store, is particularly arresting. This aesthetically satisfying construction was built in 1908 for the Cleveland Trust Company, the bank that guarded the wealth of the Carnegies and Rockefellers.

Now a National Historic Landmark, the building boasts a 85-foot-high rotunda crowned with a Tiffany-style stained glass dome. The interior is encircled by a striking 13-panel mural depicting The Settling of Ohio. The artist, Francis David Millet, had quite a remarkable life. After serving as an assistant surgeon to his father in the Civil War, aged just 15, he became a decorated war correspondent in the Russo-Turkish War.

Once home again, he developed a career as a well-regarded artist. With his earnings from the Cleveland Trust Company mural, he bought a ticket on the Titanic, where he was last seen helping women and children into lifeboats before his death.

It's a life that his close friend Mark Twain could have turned into a novel.

Where to stay

The Hyatt Regency at The Arcade is a compelling slice of Cleveland culture. The hotel sits within the dramatic gallery of The Arcade, one of the world's first indoor shopping malls when it was built in 1890.

Its construction was funded by local-born millionaire John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil. It cost $875,000. If you wanted to build The Arcade today, you would have to add several zeros to that figure. 

Rockefeller based the design of the five-storey edifice on the world-renowned Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, aiming to show that Cleveland could hold its own with other world-class cultural centres. 

The top-floor gallery is ringed by a pride of fearsome lion gargoyles, perhaps snarling at anyone with the temerity to suggest that Cleveland is no match for Milan.  

The hotel certainly has an innate sense of theatre and carries itself with grace and grandeur. Downtown hotels start at around $150 per night. 

Where to eat and drink

One of the most celebrated restaurants in Cleveland is Amba at 1430 West 28th Street. It boasts elegant dark interiors and grew out of a pop-up restaurant started during the pandemic. The menu, crafted by the acclaimed chef Douglas Katz, features ingenious plates infused with the multi-layered flavours of Indian cooking. 

You might at first be put off by the name of one of the mains, "Spicy Sloppy Joe Keema," but don't be. The venison and goat curry, mingled with tomatoes, serrano chilli and red onions, is an inspired melange of the best of American and Indian cuisine.

Also worthy of a pit-stop is Larder Delicatessen and Bakery at 1455 West 29th Street. 

A tremendously atmospheric restaurant, it was built in an old fire station that was decommissioned in 1976. It still has a firefighters' pole, the original wooden ceiling and signs on the wall warning: "Do not obstruct – stretcher." It even has an old yellow hi-vis jacket and red firefighter's helmet hanging by the counter.

To underline its culinary heritage, Larder also displays a picture of the fire crew winning the National Chili Cook Off Competition in the early 1970s.

The owner, Jeremy Umansky, regularly forages for ingredients. His motto is, "if we can't make it, we won't serve it," and he produces home-made deli sandwiches that are worth crossing several continents for.

The verdict

At first glance, Cleveland may feel off the beaten track for the average British or Irish traveller, but this need not be the case. If you fly with Aer Lingus, you can take advantage of an excellent scheme, allowing you to "pre-clear" US Immigration. It ultimately means a clear walk through Cleveland Airport straight to the city, without enduring the infamous US security queues.

Once you've arrived, Cleveland clearly offers many elements that you might not have expected from a major post-industrial US city. Largely eschewing big chains, it has many unanticipated, alternative features.

The Hingetown district, for instance, has an attractively buzzy, progressive vibe. It is the hub of the city's thriving LGBT+ community. In case you didn't realise this, the crosswalks in the area are painted in the colours of the rainbow flag.   

Many of Cleveland's shops also provide an appealingly quirky ambience, very far removed from the giant corporate retail names that dominate most of the US. For instance, Coco's in the Colonial Arcade in Downtown Cleveland is an ingenious store. The largest selfie museum in the US – how many others are there? – it has 25,000 square feet of backdrops and over 70 photo-opportunity spots beside antiques, relics and upcycled junk. The store's entrance is a pair of heavy wooden cupboard doors, paying homage to the gateway to Narnia in "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe".

It's an apt image for the city. Come on in; you'll be very pleasantly surprised by what awaits you beyond the doors to Cleveland.  

James Rampton was a guest of Destination Cleveland and Aer Lingus.