Le Moo just celebrated its third anniversary – its grand opening happened on Sept. 19, 2015 – and if it’s not your favorite steakhouse by now, it surely makes that grade with a lot of people. Ask for the best steak in town, and Le Moo will certainly be in the conversation along with a handful of other popular local and high-end corporate eateries.
What’s more, within six months of its opening, Food Network declared this Lexington Road landmark not merely Louisville’s best, but one of the 28 best spots for steak all across the nation. You could look it up.
Today let us consider the noble biscuit. An all-American delicacy with its roots in the South, this flaky, layered treat may be made with milk, buttermilk, or even cream. Some are made with lard, some with butter, but it’s always elevated with some form of fat worked gently into flour and leavened with baking powder.
Biscuits may be flaky or crumbly, feathery or light, but softness always defines a good biscuit. Tough, gummy texture does not. A biscuit is almost always delicious.
I still mourn the 2010 departure of Red Pepper, Louisville’s best Chinese restaurant ever. As good as it was, Red Pepper owner Yuan Hua told me when it closed, the combination of a $5,000 monthly lease payment and a respected Sichuan chef who required fair payment for his skills, sent it on to restaurant Nirvana after a short, bright two-year tenure.
It seems as if Porcini just got here. It seems as if Porcini has been here forever. The truth, as usual, lies between these extremes, but one thing is certain: The years have flown since I first sat down to a fine Italian dinner at this comfortable Frankfort Avenue landmark. Continue reading Porcini’s landmark status is well and fully earned→
Fresh from delicious brunch experiences at LouVino and Con Huevos, I must ask a simple question: Who doesn’t love brunch? I certainly do!
Some folks love brunch buffets, and there’s a lot to like about a sumptuous feeding trough of pans loaded with breakfast and lunch goodies. But I like a set menu of brunch dishes even better. Sure, I’m down for unleashing my inner glutton at a massive buffet, but my inner foodie recognizes the value of chef-created individual dishes.
Both Con Huevos and LouVino offer thoughtful, inviting selections of brunch dishes that consistently show the delicate, complex but balanced nuances of flavor that reveal serious creative spirit and dogged attention to detail in the kitchen. Continue reading LouVino and Con Huevos win at brunch→
Whatever might prompt two members of an indie rock band with a 17-year record and three songs on the Billboard 200 to leap from the world of music to the hard work of opening Lupo, an Italian restaurant that features pizza and pasta?
That’s just what vocalist and guitar player Adam Turla and cellist-keyboardist Sarah Balliet of the band Murder by Death have done, though. In August they joined Sarah’s brother Max Balliet, owner of the popular Holy Molé taco truck, to open Lupo, a fine, casual eatery in a nicely restored 19th century red-brick house on the far inner end of Frankfort Avenue where Clifton meets Butchertown. Continue reading Lupo’s pizza and pasta sing a fine Italian song→
I hate to be a whiner, so before I get to my one complaint, let me tell you all the things that I love about freshly renovated Volare.
• It looks classier than ever, thanks to a light but effective makeover.
• Chef Joshua Moore’s menu is better than ever.
• Its impressive selection of pasta dishes has been kicked up by a fancy new Italian-made pasta machine.
• The bar’s comfortable vibe is not diminished by sophisticated live music Wednesdays through Saturdays. Volare scores as both a neighborhood hangout and a city-wide destination.
After many years standing vacant at the top of the hill in Clifton, prompting strollers on the Avenue to muse, “Boy, that would make a great restaurant,” the historic white-brick Hilltop Theater has taken its place on the city’s dining scene as Red Herring Cocktail Lounge & Kitchen. Continue reading Fine drinks meet fun plates at Red Herring→
I’m afraid LEO Weekly’s Taste Bud writer, Kevin Gibson, who wrote fondly of Sam’s Hot Dog stand on Lower Brownsboro in 2015, is going to be sorry to learn that Sam’s has gone away. I expect his regret will be tempered, though, as it is for us all, by the recent arrival of Ngon Appétit, successor to the late and lamented Four Sisters, serving up Vietnamese-French crêpes, banh mi, and a worthy pho. Continue reading Ngon Appétit — worlds of delicious II→
There’s something lovably gritty about the stretch of urban Louisville along Lower Brownsboro Road in Clifton that some call “LowBrow,” and we’re okay with that. Take that well-worn restaurant building that sits up on the bank across from Kroger. Home to a dozen short-lived spots over the past couple of decades, it started life as a Pizza Hut sometime back in the ‘70s. You know the place: It’s one of the city’s most storied “restaurant graveyards.”
