Polly Campbell

pcampbell@enquirer.com

UPDATE: Pleasantry has opened for breakfast, coffee and lunch. Daniel Souder said they're waiting for a liquor license, so they are not yet serving wine. They expect to be licensed later in May, when they'll open for dinner. Their breakfast menu includes savory bread pudding, cured salmon on an everything biscuit and several kinds of toasts. Lunch includes strawberry gazpacho, bibb and fennel salad, ancient grains with kale and grilled squash and a burger with pimento cheese. See www.pleasantryotr.com for the full menu and updates.

The original story:

In November, Joanna Kirkendall and Daniel Souder, both of 1215 Wine Bar, announced they'd be opening a new restaurant in Over-the-Rhine. They've now told The Enquirer the name, the chef and the restaurant's wine and food concept.

It will be called Pleasantry, after its location at the corner of Pleasant and 15th streets, in a building that 3CDC is turning into condos. The chef is Evan Hartman, who was most recently sous-chef at The President's Room at the Phoenix, where he worked with Souder.

The wine list will be central to the restaurant's focus. “Our food philosophy at Pleasantry inverts the usual relationship of food and wine,” said Souder.

Natural wines will be central to the wine list. Souder, who will be running the restaurant day-to-day, said that they want to select wine differently than many restaurants do.

"So many chefs and chef-driven restaurants pay a lot of attention to using local ingredients, and to knowing where everything they use comes from," he said. "Then they don't think about it at all with their wine, which is also an agricultural product. A lot of wine is full of pesticides, and it's really a commodity product."

He is working with wine producers in California and Europe, and with distributors who can help bring to Cincinnati wines made with organically-grown grapes, minimally manipulated, without added sulfites. "We will serve wines that are made by people, not made in labs," he said.

Pleasantry will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There will be a full coffee bar, which, like 1215, will feature manually-made espresso and ethically-sourced coffees from local roaster Deeper Roots. Breakfast will be ordered at the counter, and one item planned is an "everything" biscuit (with the flavorings on an "everything" bagel) with house-cured salmon and cream cheese.

The dinner menu will feature about 12 items, mostly small plates, nothing over $18. The items aren't set, but Souder said that an example of how they'll cook will be to get locally-raised ducks and serve the breasts, use the fat, make rillettes out of the rest of the meat. This area of Over-the-Rhine is becoming more residential, and Souder said they hope to be a neighborhood restaurant and see regulars a few times a week.

The decor will also be natural, with a rustic look of wood, white-washed bricks and warm colors. 15 seats will be in a courtyard. MSA Architects is handling the architecture and interior design.