Say hello to the new Equus, sort of like the old Equus

“Beef tenderloin “sliders” at Equus and Jack’s”

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years …

Yeah, right. Now that I’ve successfully planted that earworm, let me say I can’t believe it’s been so long since I first reviewed Equus, a then-new restaurant in St. Matthews that was buzzing under a new owner and chef, Dean Corbett, for the old Louisville Times in 1985.

I didn’t have any gray in my hair then, and quite a few of the other favorites of the time — Casa Grisanti, say, or Sixth Avenue, both way stations in Corbett’s career — are long gone.

But Equus just keeps on keeping on, changing pace to stay au courant while continuing to satisfy its core audience.
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Rivue brunch goes round and round

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes

If you haven’t been up to the revolving top of the Galt House for a while, you may be surprised to see how much things have changed. Gone is the faux sailing ship look, with its blocks and tackles and green, purple and gold running lights.

Exit the elevators on the hotel’s 23rd floor now, and you step into a series of sleek rooms decorated in stark black and white. Light fixtures made from stacks of clear globes look like bubbles rising in champagne. But the real eye-catcher, as it has always been, is the lofty view of the Ohio River and the city all around.

When Rivue replaced The Flagship Room two years ago, the top-floor dining room highlighted a $60 million renovation of the entire hotel. (more…)

Bistro Le Relais: Still classy, a little less pricey

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes
(LEO photo by Ron Jasin)

The economy is still pretty much in the tank, local unemployment is soaring, and gasoline prices are crawling upward again. Who can afford fine dining?

Faced with this fiscal reality, a number of Louisville’s more upscale establishments have undertaken menu resets, seeking to meet a shaky market with quality cuisine that doesn’t take quite such a bite out of consumers’ flattened wallets.

Over at classy Equus, for instance, the fine-dining restaurant and its adjacent partner, Jack’s Lounge, now share a single menu, including a good choice of small bites under $10 and a main-course list that ranges from the teens into the high $20s. It’s hardly diner-style pricing, but it moves Equus from the special-occasion category into a fair choice for the impulsive diner.

We’ve seen a similar trajectory at Le Relais, which I’ve always rated among the city’s five top restaurants, and, on any given day, its best. Over the past year, without sacrificing a bit of its first-class service or art-deco look, it has subtly shifted from high-end modern French grand dining to something more in the bistro style.
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Classy Equus drops prices and tablecloths but keeps high style

LouisvilleHotBytes.com in The Voice-Tribune

Okay, who wants organ meat? Internal organs, that is, livers, kidneys, hearts and even more unmentionable selections.

All together now: “Eeeeuuuuwwww!”

But wait! People around the world have been enjoying organ meats for millennia, and those who shun them on the basis of the “eeuuww” factor are missing something good.

This is one of the many reasons I love dining with my wife, Mary, and our good friend Lucinda. They’re adventurous foodies, and showed it the other night when we spotted sweetbreads on the menu at Equus.

“I’m having that,” Lucinda said with a happy smile. “Can we share?” asked Mary. Me, too.

What’s a sweetbread? It isn’t bread, and it’s not a dessert. It’s a calf’s thymus gland, or perhaps a bit of his pancreas. Vegetarians please look away.
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Corbett’s joins the region’s top tables

Housed in the 150-year-old farmhouse that was originally home to the Von Allmen dairy operation, Corbett’s “An American Place” opened in the winter, joining the ranks of the region’s top tables. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com

Chef Dean Corbett, who made his mark on the Louisville food scene with his excellent restaurant Equus in St. Matthews, has created one of the most outstanding restaurants in the region with this latest venture. Corbett’s “An American Place” opened in the winter in the far-east end of Jefferson County, in the growing Brownsboro Crossing shopping center east of the Snyder Freeway. It has already joined the ranks of the region’s top tables.

Housed in the 150-year-old farmhouse that was originally home to the Von Allmen dairy operation, Corbett’s has been renovated from cellar to ceiling, the gracious lines of a prosperous country estate now girded with every high-tech restaurant bell and whistle imaginable, from special air-conditioning for the comfort of chefs on the hot stations to a 21st century television system that allows, among other things, guests in the private “chef’s room” to interact with kitchen staff while their dinner is being prepared ($150 per person) and later receive a souvenir DVD recording of the experience.
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French Flying: Le Relais soars

If you’re in the mood for a more casual experience, the rear patio at Le Relais is more laid-back and offers a bonus: It overlooks the runway and hangars, so you can watch small planes come and go. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com, with Guest Critic Paige Moore-Heavin

Le Relais consistently ranks among my top five restaurants in Louisville, and on any given night, it can make the top one. Yet a lot of people are wary of experiencing this great dining room. Some fear it will be too expensive. Others sweat the potential embarrassment of being unable to read a fancy French menu.

There’s no need for concern, says LouisvilleHotBytes correspondent Paige Moore-Heavin, who recently checked out Le Relais and found the price doable (especially if you go for the special-deal prix fixe menu) and the friendly attitude entirely bilingual. Here’s her report:
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We put on that ole Southern drawl at Limestone

Limestone Restaurant chef and co-owner Michael Cunha dresses up Southern fare in a city suit. The suburban restaurant remains up there with the top spots in town. LEO photo by Nicole Pullen.

LEO’s Eats with Louisville HotBytes

Louisville, it is said, is the only Northern city that chose to declare itself “Southern” only after the South had lost the Civil War. This odd decision, some say, led directly to 100 years of stagnation, no major-league sports teams and a slow decline that eventually took us to the bottom of the nation’s top 50 media markets.

It was a hefty price to pay for the privilege of adopting an affected drawl and adding fatback, grits and greens to our culinary tradition.

I don’t know about you, but our family never ate that stuff at home. Ours was a steak-and-potatoes, spaghetti-and-meatballs, braunschweiger-and-kuchen urban household, and we liked it like that.

Nevertheless, Southern, aka “country,” fare dressed up in a city suit has become a staple in some of Louisville’s finest upscale eateries, and chefs Jim Gerhardt and Michael Cunha have been among the leaders in making it so.
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A man, a plan, a great meal at 610 Magnolia

Chef Edward Lee at 610 Magnolia. LEO photo by Nicole Pullen

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

What happens when one becomes so jaded that even the regular dinner at a culinary shrine seems routine? “Ho, hum, dinner at 610 Magnolia again!” Here’s my advice: Kick it up with a special dinner at 610.

Frankly, I don’t think I could ever attain such a level of ennui about the restaurant that’s arguably the region’s best. Chef Edward Lee’s regular menu is a never-ending series of surprises, with exciting new dishes every weekend. But every now and then, Lee pulls off something special. And these events – best tracked by signing up for the e-mail list on the restaurant Web site at www.610magnolia.com – are memorable indeed.

Take last week’s Palindrome dinner.

Say what?
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Getcher red hots … with truffle aioli and fennel kraut?

Park Place chef Jay Denham is taking over for Anoosh Shariat, and he has implemented a new “ball park menu” that may be a preview of changes to come. LEO photo by Nicole Pullen

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

We went to the Bats game the other night and enjoyed the best ballpark repast I’ve ever had: A succulent hot dog, a classy fish taco and an order of sizzling fries with a little special something.

This may seem high praise, considering my frequent rants about the mostly lackluster, overpriced fare served up at Slugger Field.

But that may be because this ballpark dinner didn’t come from the ballpark’s concession stands. We dined before the game at Park Place on Main, which with its sibling Browning’s occupies the renovated 19th century industrial building that houses the city’s lovable Slugger Field.

Browning’s, with its brewpub ambience, affordable menu and casual style, has always been a good place to grab a beer and a burger (or even something a little more fancy) before or after the game, although it boggles credulity that its excellent beers aren’t sold inside the stadium.

Park Place, on the other hand, is upscale and elegant, a place that I associate more with an indulgent dinner that extends over a leisurely evening than a quick pre-game bite.
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We take Rivue for a spin

On the 25th floor of the Galt House, the hotel’s former idiosyncrasies have yielded to the elegant furnishings of Rivue, a brand new upscale restaurant with an amazing 360-degree view of the city. LEO Photo by Nicole Pullen

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Rivue; Caffe Classico’s new pizza)

The late developer Al J. Schneider, never a man to pay much attention to negative counsel, pretty much went it alone when he built the Galt House on Louisville’s then-moribund waterfront in 1973.

Schneider lived long enough to enjoy vindication as a vibrant redeveloped downtown scene rose around his venture, which bore the name of a historic 19th century hostelry where Charles Dickens once stayed.

But if the truth be told, a lot of people are still chuckling at the combination of hard-headedness and wacky design sense that inspired him to create the place in a style that can only be described as “idiosyncratic.”

Shocking pink met pukey green, and plaid introduced itself to paisley in an odd high-rise that used to boast the simple letters “H-O-T-E-L” running vertically down its river facade, surmounted by a pair of oversize, revolving view restaurants that from the outside resembled nothing so much as bulging bullfrog eyes.
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Oakroom foams over the top

“Culinary foam”: A mound of glistening orange white chocolate froth drooling off your Oakroom dessert is airy and succulent, but it’s not so easy to look at on the plate. Photos by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes

“Culinary foam” – trendy for decades in the upper reaches of dining-as-theater – is one of the more striking “molecular gastronomy” inventions of Spanish Chef Ferran Adrià of El Bulli near Barcelona. The flavored foams – aerosol squirted onto food – add subtle tastes, and they signal that the chef is “with it.”

Adrià has been foaming since 1995, and now foams have made it to Louisville, where Chefs Todd Richards and Duane Nutter and Pastry Chef Ethan Ray are making their mark with foams, smears and sauces, dispensed from martini shakers or spread in thin, colorful layers across your plate.

The Oakroom crew does molecular gastronomy very well: The white-chocolate-orange foam on a succulent chocolate trio dessert plate the other night was intensely flavored yet light as air. But much like a raw oyster (and I choose the analogy advisedly), a mound of glistening froth drooling off your food isn’t easy to look at on the plate.
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Has Vincenzo’s lost a step?

Chef Agostino Gabriele presides over Vincenzo’s table at last summer’s WorldFeast. Photo by Robin Garr.

Service gaffes mar dinner for our anonymous critic

One of the toughest challenges that faces the long-term food critic is that, eventually, most of the players in the local restaurant business figure out who you are. Even when you keep a very low profile, it doesn’t take the sharper cookies long to figure out who’s covering the eats beat.

There are plenty of ways for a savvy critic to minimize the damage, but sooner or later you’ll know the game is up, usually when you sneak into a white-tablecloth eatery and find the proprietor greeting you on bended knee, offering to shine your shoes to a high polish. Let’s be frank: You may still be able to carry off a competent review if you’re recognized, but there’s no way a proud restaurateur isn’t going to ramp things up for your delectation. A little extra service, a single server assigned exclusively to your table; extra attention to preparation, a bit more care in selecting the best cut or adding a little extra “bam!” to the presentation … all just for you.

For this reason, while I’ve enjoyed many a meal at Vincenzo’s since this posh Italian spot opened downtown in 1986, I have never been able to enjoy an anonymous meal there. On my first visit, a server recognized me and outed me to the man himself, Vincenzo Gabriele. Now whenever I dine at Vincenzo’s, I know I’m going to have a four-star experience. No extra charge for the shine.

But how about an anonymous civilian? Would Vincenzo’s deliver the same level of suave, sophisticated service and top-tier Italian fare to a truly anonymous customer as it does for a recognized dining critic? Just to make the test more interesting, how about a pair of young, unaccompanied women?
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