What’s The Best Cincinnati Chili? The Results Of My Cincinnati Chili Challenge

When we visited Cincinnati, OH early on in our 50 state road trip, I taste-tested a lot of Cincinnati chili to see which I thought was the best.

Skyline Chili won that competition, but we subsequently received a number of comments suggesting other Cincinnati chili parlors.

We recently spent a month in Cincinnati, so I thought it’d be fun to conduct a new Cincinnati Chili Challenge by adding in some other challengers based on the suggestions given.

One of the chili places we ate at last time – The Root Beer Stand – wasn’t really a chili place, so I left that location off the list for this new competition. Here’s a list of the seven Cincinnati chili restaurants I decided to rate this time:

• Skyline Chili
• Camp Washington Chili
• Gold Star Chili
• Dixie Chili
• Chili Time Restaurant
• Price Hill Chili
• Blue Ash Chili

How The Scoring Works

My ranking last time wasn’t very scientific, so for this new chili challenge I decided to rate each chili parlor out of ten based on several different factors:

• Chili flavor
• Softness of buns
• Quality of fries
• Portion size
• Value

I was going to rate the oyster crackers for each restaurant too, but not all of them provided a packet of oyster crackers due to the menu items I ordered. For each of the restaurants I’ll mention what their oyster crackers were like when we received them (it’s worth noting as some were very bland), but I won’t include that in the scoring.

I conducted this test in June and July 2020. As this was during COVID-19, all of these meals were ordered as takeout rather than eating in-restaurant. I also don’t like cheese (please don’t judge me!), so that’s why my coneys and chili fries aren’t piled high with cheese in all the photos.

Speaking of the coneys and chili fries, that’s what I ordered from each restaurant so that I could compare apples to apples coneys to coneys.

Who will come out top of my 2020 Cincinnati Chili Challenge? Read on to find out. The list below is the order in which I ate at them, with the final rankings at the end.

Skyline Chili

I ended up eating at Skyline twice – once by ordering through DoorDash and once by ordering drive thru at the restaurant around the corner from the hotel we were staying at in West Chester.

Skyline was my favorite the last time I did my chili challenge and it was just as good both times I had it this year. The buns were soft, the shoestring fries were good and the oyster crackers that came with our first order were the best of all the oyster crackers we tried.

The chili was the star though. I’m not entirely sure what Skyline does to their chili that the other chili parlors don’t, but there’s something about the taste that always makes me want to come back for more as it’s so distinctive.

Something else worth noting is that the first Skyline Chili we ordered from got our order 100% accurate. We were having dinner at our friends’ house, so there were seven of us including their kids. We made a number of customizations in the DoorDash app (no cheese on the chili cheese fries, extra bags of cheese, etc.) and every single item we ordered was correct. Considering how often restaurants have gotten our orders wrong at the drive thru and using delivery apps, it was impressive that no mistakes were made or food forgotten with a larger order like ours.

Here’s how Skyline Chili rated:

• Price – $8.97
• Chili flavor – 9.5
• Softness of buns – 9
• Quality of fries – 8
• Portion size – 8.5
• Value – 9

Gold Star Chili

The second chili restaurant I ordered from was one of the larger chili chains in Cincinnati – Gold Star Chili. Unlike some of the other chili places, they serve crinkle fries rather than straight cut.

The chili you get from Gold Star is a little more meaty and more spicy than Skyline, so in that respect it’s better. However, there’s something about the flavor of their chili which results in me not enjoying it as much as Skyline. I don’t know if it’s that they add too much cinnamon or if it’s something else, but whatever it is overpowers the other flavors.

The oyster crackers served by Gold Star aren’t as good as Skyline’s, but are far better than the crackers received at some of the other restaurants.

There are a few ways that Gold Star can be better than Skyline though. First, they have a Gold Star eClub which you can sign up for in order to get emails with promotions. Within a day or two of signing up I received a Buy One Get One Free coupon when ordering 3-ways (spaghetti, chili and cheese).

They also offer a free kids meal every Tuesday from 4-9pm for each adult order of $8 or more. That can save you a decent amount of money if you have kids and eat there frequently.

I haven’t included those features in my scoring though because this is all about the food. Here’s what Gold Star Chili received:

Blue Ash Chili

My third chili experience was at Blue Ash Chili. This should’ve been my second chili experience, but the first time I showed up there at lunchtime the restaurant was closed for some reason.

I therefore returned another time to order. Blue Ash has a few locations in Cincinnati and I ordered from their restaurant in Blue Ash itself. Their chili had a good spiciness to it which I liked, but it didn’t have a distinct flavor like Skyline’s or Gold Star’s.

The wieners in the coneys seemed a little meatier than the ones you get from Skyline Chili or Gold Star Chili, but that might have just been my imagination. The buns weren’t particularly soft though; they weren’t dry or stale – they just weren’t anywhere near as soft as the buns from the other chili restaurants I ate at.

As for their oyster crackers, they were fairly bland. Not quite as bland as Camp Washington or Price Hill, but I don’t feel like I’d have missed out if they hadn’t included them with my order.

• Price – $8.17
• Chili flavor – 7
• Softness of buns – 6.5
• Quality of fries – 7.5
• Portion size – 8
• Value – 8.5

Camp Washington Chili

I didn’t give my digestive much time to recover from my previous chili meal as the next night I grabbed dinner from Camp Washington Chili.

Camp Washington is the oldest chili parlor remaining in Cincinnati and is one of the places we ate at during the first chili challenge. Reading back over what I wrote then, it seems like it hasn’t changed in the last couple of years which isn’t too surprising seeing as they’ve been in business since 1940!

The chili was perhaps the most meaty of all the chili’s I tried, but they skimped on how much chili was served on the coneys and fries compared to all the other chili places. As for the flavor, it tasted perfectly fine, but wasn’t memorable. The fries weren’t particularly flavorful either and their crackers were very bland.

This might make it sound like it wasn’t an enjoyable meal, but it wasn’t bad – it just wasn’t as good as most of the other chili restaurants I ordered food from.

• Price – $9.70
• Chili flavor – 6.5
• Softness of buns – 7
• Quality of fries – 6.5
• Portion size – 7
• Value – 7

Chili Time Restaurant

Apparently I neglected to take a photo of my meal from Chili Time Restaurant, so you’ll just have to imagine it in your head. From what I can remember they served crinkle fries, but I might be misremembering that. Whether they were straight-cut or crinkle-cut, the portion size was massive – probably the largest portion of chili fries I received from any of the restaurants.

The buns were nice and soft. As for the chili, it was good, but not memorable – it didn’t have a distinctive flavor like Skyline and Gold Star.

• Price – $7.85
• Chili flavor – 7
• Softness of buns – 9
• Quality of fries – 8.5
• Portion size – 9.5
• Value – 9.5

Price Hill Chili

I braved a torrential downpour to pick up lunch from Price Hill Chili one afternoon. They don’t have a drive thru, so I ran into the restaurant to place my order.

When ordering, I asked for no cheese on the coneys or the chili fries, but ended up with cheese on the coneys. Thankfully I noticed before leaving, so I was able to get that fixed. I was also asked if I wanted any crackers with my meal and said yes, but those weren’t included in the bag.

Although they made a couple of mistakes with my order, the food itself was pretty good. The fries were nice and crispy and I was given a very generous portion, while the wieners seemed like the most meaty of all the coneys I ate in Cincinnati. Similar to some of the other restaurants, their chili was good, but it didn’t particularly stand out.

• Price – $9.16
• Chili flavor – 7.5
• Softness of buns – 8.5
• Quality of fries – 9
• Portion size – 9
• Value – 8.5

Dixie Chili

My seventh and final chili experience was at Dixie Chili. Dixie has a few locations, but they’re actually all across the river in Kentucky. It’s all still classed as the Cincinnati Metropolitan Area though and a few people had recommended it, so I decided to try them out.

I like waffle fries, so it was nice that those are what’s served at Dixie Chili. The coney buns were pretty soft and the chili, while tasty and a little spicy, wasn’t overly distinctive.

• Price – $8.61
• Chili flavor – 7.5
• Softness of buns – 8.5
• Quality of fries – 8.5
• Portion size – 8.5
• Value – 9

Cincinnati Chili Challenge – The Results

While conducting my Cincinnati Chili Challenge, I didn’t keep track of how the chili restaurants scored compared to each other, so writing this post is the first time I’m seeing the final results too!

Without further ado, here’s how all the different chili parlors placed:

1. Skyline Chili – 44/50
2. Chili Time Restaurant – 43.50/50
3. Gold Star Chili – 43/50
4. Price Hill Chili – 42.5/50
5. Dixie Chili – 42/50
6. Blue Ash Chili – 37.5/50
7. Camp Washington – 34/50

As you can see, it was an incredibly tight-run thing for the most part, with only two points separating first place from fifth. I’m glad to see Skyline Chili came out top based on the scoring because it felt like that was what all the other chili restaurants were being measured against and I didn’t feel like any were as good as Skyline.

It feels like you could jumble up the order of the chili parlors that finished second to fifth and I couldn’t complain about the alternative placings. Chili Time, Gold Star, Price Hill and Dixie all had something about them that was better than the others in some respect, whether it was the meatiness of their wieners, the crispness of their fries, the type of fries, the spiciness of their chili or something else.

If I could create my ultimate Cincinnati chili restaurant, it would have Skyline’s chili flavor, Gold Star’s spiciness, Chili Time’s portion size and the crispiness of Price Hill’s fries.

In hindsight, maybe I should have weighted the scores for the different elements, as the taste of the chili is more important than how soft the coney buns were. I’m also wondering if I should have included scores for the oyster crackers after all, but also weighted the score for those too seeing as one or two of the restaurants didn’t include them with my order.

I guess that gives me a good excuse to return to Cincinnati again in the future to conduct Cincinnati Chili Challenge – Round 3!