City guide · Ohio
Best Sausage and Peppers in Cleveland
Where is the best sausage and peppers in Cleveland?
Cleveland's sausage and peppers lives in Little Italy on Murray Hill and at the West Side Market, where the sausage is coarse-ground, heavily fennelled and usually sold by the pound to cook at home.
| City | Cleveland, Ohio, USA |
|---|---|
| Ask for it as | Sausage and peppers |
| Top 100 spots here | 2 |
| Best time to go | Mid-August, during the Feast of the Assumption on Murray Hill. |
| Local rule | This is a buy-it-and-cook-it city more than an order-it-out city. The best version is the one you make from market sausage. |
Cleveland's Little Italy grew around the Lakeview Cemetery stonecutters, and Murray Hill still keeps the bakeries and butchers that came with them.
The West Side Market is the other half of the story: a century-old hall where several butchers make their own Italian sausage, and the peppers come from the produce arcade fifty feet away.
Cleveland on Larry’s Top 100
| Rank | Where | Order this | Larry’s note |
|---|---|---|---|
| #16 | Little Italy — Murray Hill | Sausage and peppers with cannoli chaser | Feast of the Assumption weekend is the peak. |
| #18 | West Side Market stalls | Hot Italian sausage sandwich | Saturday morning, before the crowd. |
Menus, feast dates and opening hours change. Call ahead before you travel.
How to order it in Cleveland
- A pound of hot and a pound of sweet from a market butcher, cooked at home in cast iron.
- At the Feast of the Assumption in August, take it on a roll from a street stand.
- Ask which day the sausage was ground. They will tell you.
The local rule: This is a buy-it-and-cook-it city more than an order-it-out city. The best version is the one you make from market sausage.
Best time to go: Mid-August, during the Feast of the Assumption on Murray Hill.
Questions people ask about Cleveland
Where do you buy Italian sausage in Cleveland?
The West Side Market butchers and the Murray Hill shops in Little Italy. Both grind their own.
Is there a sausage and peppers festival in Cleveland?
The Feast of the Assumption in Little Italy each August is the big one, with street grills running all weekend.
Make it at home instead
You do not need a plane ticket. Larry’s own version takes about forty minutes in a cast-iron pan.
Sausage and peppers in other cities
Elsewhere in USA
Further afield
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