Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

81	Café Emilie 3939 Shelbyville Road (502) 719-9717 Website: http://www.cafeemilie.com (under construction)

Tucked into a corner of the tasteful environs of Burdorf Center Home & Office (the former Bacon's department store in St. Matthews), it would be easy for the casual passer-by to miss Café Emilie. It's worth making a special effort to stop in, though, as this French-accented St. Matthews eatery is a recent and welcome addition to the neighborhood's casual-lunching (and even dining) options.

The cafés professional-looking slick paper menu rather breathlessly informs us that the eponymous Emilie Morris founded the establishment at the age of 21, presumably with a bit of support from her Dad, Allan Morris, who owns Burdorf's. "Café Emilie Gourmet Coffee & Tea is just that," she writes, "an internationally themed store that has the most inviting environment and menu available."

It's certainly a tasteful environment, I would say, apparently furnished right out of the adjacent Burdorf shop. The walls are painted bright and bold wine-like colors that might represent a Pinot Noir, a Riesling and maybe an inky-purple Shiraz. Murals in a poster style depict diners at Parisian restaurants, with realistic faces that I suspect portray friends of the artists (who signed themselves as R. L. Baldwin and Jennifer Spalding). To add a French accent, the restrooms bear directions for "Monsieurs" and "Madames," and to ensure that no one is confused, the words "Men" and "Women" are carefully lettered beneath. A large, high-tech flat-screen televison was tuned to CNN, with the sound turned down.

The tables and chairs are comfortable (and four leather-look chairs crammed around a probably non-functional fireplace on one side of the room look even more so). A glass-front serving counter displays the day's selection of homemade pastries. Fine coffees (and espresso drinks) and teas are always available, as are fresh baked cookies, muffins and pastries.

The lunch menu offers a fair selection of mostly lighter fare, including about a dozen sandwiches (from $5.25 for herb-cheese "legume wrap" rolled in a green tortilla, or Caesar wrap with chicken in a garlic-herb tortilla) to $6.95 (for Crabe Fondre, a crab-and-cheese sandwich on flatbread with a side salad). Lunch salads are $5.45 (for a mixed-greens Cafe Salade or Caesar) to $6.45 (for Poire Pecan, with a fresh pear with pecans and feta cheese on mixed greens).

You order from the serving counter, then take a seat and wait to be called. Turkey and wild rice soup was warming and pleasant, although the rice component was almost entirely white, with only a few grains of wild rice to ensure truth in menu labeling. Bits of sliced deli turkey and chunks of carrot and chopped celery swam in a savory if rather thin broth that lost a point or two for a sheen of grease on top. It was OK, but lacked the warming, simmered-all-day character of a properly comforting winter soup.

Tomato-basil soup, another soup of the day, was chunky and red, more like a thick Italian tomato sauce than a soup, salty and sweet with hints of basil and butter.

A Pecan Poulet sandwich ($5.95) was quite good, hefty chunks of chicken meat with red onions and chopped pecans bound in a mayo-style dressing held in proper restraint, just enough to hold things together, layered with a leaf of lettuce on "cafe bread," a flavorful thick slice that appeared to be multi-grain.

The artichaut sandwich ($6.25) was flavorful but difficult to eat, a "wet" concoction what soaked its way through a serviceable foccacia-style flatbread and fell out onto the plate. It was filled with a savory mix of chopped artichoke hearts and black-olive pesto and, taking the menu's word for it (it was hard to parse out the ingrients at the table), roma tomatoes, fontina cheese and marinated mushrooms.

A "grande" (large) skim latte ($3.25) was passable; my wife somewhat regretted her choice of Island Rose brand Organic Ceylon Rose tea ($1.65), which came with a pot of tepid water and was dominated by a heady but almost overwhelming floral aroma reminiscent of hand soap. Not the restaurant's fault, but she won't be choosing that particular tea again!

A decent if not quite awe-inspring lunch for two came to just under $20, plus tip. $

(December 2002)