Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

Now serving lunch and dinner (it was lunch-only at the time of this review), Artemisia shares space with the Erin Devine Gallery, a serious gallery with quality modern art.

Its off-white walls feature well-displayed art illuminated by track lighting. High ceilings, glass blocks and shiny birch floors set off an open, airy space with simple, charcoal-gray booths and tables, hard-edged and arty, with an industrial-style galvanized-iron bar that vaguely evokes a 1930s-era Ford Trimotor parked on the tarmac. Suave servers glide about, clad all in black like Kabuki stagehands in a Japanese play. It all fits in nicely with the increasing buzz of the art-and-antiques community that's gaining force in the gentrifying East Market and Main corridor.

An eclectic, inventive lunch menu featured soups, a half-dozen salads (from $4.50 for a house salad with field greens to $9.95 for a Caesar topped with grilled tuna); 10 sandwiches (all in the neighborhood of $6.95-$7.95); and a half-dozen more filling "café specialties" from $7.95 to $9.95.

Chicken tarragon soup ($2.95 for a bowl) was steaming and tasty if not as herbal as the name implies.

A grilled veggie sandwich ($7.50) was fine, featuring grilled eggplant and portabello mushroom and roast bell peppers on baguette with a slice of not-overly-spicy hot-pepper cheese and a mayonaissey "vegenaise" spread that tasted mostly of dill.

Barbecue chicken ($7.95) was closer to downtown than down-home (and that was OK with me). A good portion of savory shredded chicken in a tangy tart-sweet tomato sauce was served over slabs of toasted white-corn polenta with crunch cole slaw.

Desserts, catered off the premises, are fine. Coconut cream cake ($4.75), more than enough for two (and served with two forks, bless 'em), was moist and rich, good coconut flavor with a creamy, calorific sugar icing.

With an intriguing iced-tea blend of green and black tea and "tropical fruit flavor," lunch for two came to $23.21, plus a $4.79 tip. $$