Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

*** Dillon's Steakhouse
2101 S. Hurstbourne Parkway
(502) 499-7106
Website: www.dillonssteakhouse.com/

A strong flurry of support for Dillon's in our informal "Favorite Steakhouse" survey - only some of it due to ballot-stuffing by loyalists - prompted me to head for this local favorite to check it out ... and, of course, to enjoy a good steak dinner.

Dillon's has a distinctly different atmosphere than most of the city's steakhouses. It's not at all upscale like Z's, Morton's or Ruth's Chris, and it's a different style of down-home comfort than the more urban mood at Pat's. My wife thought it might be a franchise chain - it's not - but it does almost look that way, with logo T-shirts for sale in the lobby, slick laminated menus and a snow-capped Rocky Mountain theme that seems a long way from the Ohio Valley.

It's a comfortable steak house, though. The food is excellent and the service good; and best of all, it's probably the most affordable quality steak dinner that the city has to offer.

It's built around a historic building called the Cherry Springs house, an elegant structure (pictured below) that goes back to the days when Hurstbourne was a lightly traveled two-lane country road past dairy farms. The house isn't used for daily restaurant service, though, which is confined to a one-story, L-shaped addition on the north side of the old building.

With a noisy bar in the center, a visible kitchen and butcher-shop display of the day's beef cuts, and smoking and non-smoking sections in opposite legs, the overall atmosphere and decor evokes a Rocky Mountain hunting lodge. That tone is set by rough knotty-pine plank walls, wood floors and a big fieldstone wall that looks like a fireplace without a fire (it's actually a side wall of the kitchen), complete with a mantel and mounted deer head and trophy fish. Fly rods, wicker creels and canoe paddles carry out the outdoorsy theme, and a lighted "window" offers a view of heavy snow on mountain pines, an odd thing to look up and see on a simmering July evening in Louisville.

The tables are unadorned wood, too, undraped, polyurethaned and shiny, with big square wooden booths with comfy red leatherette cushions, and sturdy wood office-type chairs around the four-top tables. Industrial-style light fixtures dangle from a high, black ceiling, and the tables are set with standard flatware and hunting-knife style steak knives rolled in large but unfortunately unabsorbent white polyester napkins.

The three-fold menu has steaks, the specialty of the house, enshrined in the middle panel, with all that other stuff like poultry and fish relegated to the sides. Five appetizers are $5.95 (for cheese fries, buffalo wings or potato peels) to $8.95 (for a shrimp cocktail). Five soups and salads range from $3.95 (for a bowl of the soup of the day or a dinner salad) to $7.95 (for a Spring house salad topped with sirloin steak or chicken).

Non-steak entrees include a quartet of chicken and seafood dinners (from $10.95 to $14.95), a trio pastas ($9.95 to $11.45), ribs "with an old secret Mississippi seasoning recipe" ($11.95 for a half slab, $14.95 for the whole hog, so to speak), and pork chops ($10.95 for a bacon-wrapped pair). Sandwiches are $7.95 (for a veggie burger) to $9.95 (for a ribeye steak sandwich), and a lunch menu is served Mondays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

We came for the steaks, though, and there are plenty of those, all advertised as being the Certified Angus Beef brand, a commercial product that bills itself as "more highly selected than USDA choice or prime." (Details, and a list of the restaurants and grocers that sell it, including a couple of dozen in Louisville, are at http://www.cabprogram.com/.)

You'll find about a dozen appetizing steaks listed, ranging in price from $11.99 for a 12-ounce chopped steak or 7-ounce top sirloin (a 10-ouncer is $13.95) to $24.99 for the 22-ounce "Montana" porterhouse. Among others, a 6-ounce filet mignon is $16.99 (make it $19.99 for a 9-ouncer); a New York 14-ounce strip steak is $19.99, and an 18-ounce "chile-rubbed" bone-in ribeye is $20.99. Dillon's Aspen Club Steak is $14.95 for a 10-ounce special, marinated in pineapple and soy sauce "to give you a taste you'll never forget." Left unanswered is the question why anybody would want to soak a good steak in all that fruit and flavoring.

Steak dinners, by the way, are served with fresh bread and your choice of two sides from a lengthy list (some items surcharged) that includes a baked sweet potato with a cinnamon and brown sugar sauce, a regular baked potato, plain or with "the works," broccoli with cheese, fried apples, a long-grain and wild rice mix, a dinner salad or Caesar salad, small cheese fries, breaded golden fries, sauteed mushrooms and green beans.

Although the bar is large and busy, Dillon's wine list is surprisingly short for a steak house, limited to just 16 modest wines, most of them available by the glass, from $12.95 (for Beringer "blush") to $36.95 (for Sterling Napa Merlot or Cabernet). Glass prices are $3.95 (for the forgettable house wine, Copper Ridge) to $6.95. Good bets with steak? Try Chateau Ste. Michelle Washington State Merlot, $6.95 a glass or $28.95 a bottle, or Raymond Estates Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, $6.50 and $24.95. Samuel Adams and local Bluegrass Brewing Co. offerings save the draught-beer list from mass-market boredom, and a few popular import beers are available by the bottle. Iced tea ($1.65) and water come in large, heavy glasses with lots of ice. The water has lemon wedges and the tea is fresh, clean and strong, a fine alternative to red wine when you're not in the mood for vino.

The complimentary mashed potato bread is a light yeast roll, soft and warm and slightly sweet, with a delicate pale-gold crust. It's frankly addictive, and you get enough of it, with tubs of whipped butter, that it would be all too easy to fill up before dinner arrives. You have been warned.

Feeling hungry, we started with a shared order of Buffalo chicken wings. A generous portion of eight large wings were sizzling hot and grease-free, tender chicken coated in a crunchy breading that was thick but surprisingly light. Even the mildest option ("medium") was warm enough to leave a simmering tingle at the back of your mouth. Oddly, just one seemed undercooked, with an unappetizing juicy pink streak at the bone; the others were fine. They were served in a large white pasta bowl atop a ration of crispy red tortilla chips, with plastic tubs of mild ranch dressing and zingy hot sauce.

Salads came on clear glass plates in reasonable portions, well-made if not exceptional, fresh, cold and tasty. The house Spring salad featured crisp and fresh romaine and iceberg lettuce with a few bits of red-leaf and other "field" lettuces, plus cucumber slices, shredded carrot and red cabbage, a ripe cherry tomato, and a ration of grated yellow process cheese that looked an awful lot like Taco Bell's. The Caesar was similar in size, a middle-of-the-road rendition (no anchovies), with crisp romaine squares topped with a generous ration of grated Parmesan, coated in a lightly tangy, creamy Caesar dressing and tossed with crisp herb-toast croutons.

Service was generally polite and attentive but seemed to falter slightly as the room filled up; it took a while to get plates cleared and glasses refilled, and I ended up skipping wine because no one came by to ask if I wanted a glass.

The menu bills my wife's steak choice, the 12-ounce ribeye ($17.99), as "the one for you if you want the most flavorful steak we serve." They're not kidding about that. It was beefy and deep in flavor; the sizable, inch-thick steak was tender, too, thanks to gentle marbling in every bite. It came a bit on the rare side of medium-rare, actually cold-pink at the center, but it was so good that this really didn't matter. If you have to choose, it's better to undercook the steak, which can be redeemed with a quick trip back to the kitchen, than to overcook it, from which there is no salvation.

Her side order, green beans, were prepared country-style, long-simmered and salty, flavored with bits of bacon and chopped onion. No complaints there.

My steak, the 16-ounce T-bone ($18.99), arrived sizzling and criss-crossed with appetizing grill marks, a good-size steak served medium-rare, with a hot-pink center, exactly as ordered. A fair amount of fat and gristle had to be removed from the edges, but what remained was fine, tender and flavorful beef, particularly on the tenderloin side, where it was literally as soft as butter, and just about as packed with calories. Who cares, when the steak is as good as this.

My side-order baked potato arrived unadorned, as I requested, with no butter or sour cream. It was a little short of steaming hot, but it was oversize, baked to perfection and tender, with no aluminum foil in sight, so I was satisfied.

We were so satisfied, in fact, that we took a big box of leftovers home and still had no room for dessert. And the tab for all this bounty? A surprisingly affordable $49, to which we added a $10 tip. $$$

(July 2001)