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This archived review dates from 2007 or before. Use SEARCH above to find all recent reviews. CLOSED. Judge Roy Bean's closed suddenly in January 2004, ending a decade-long run for the popular Southwestern-style eatery in the Bardstiwn Road venue that had formerly housed Fat Cats tavern and later Baja Bay. Owner Neil Wellinghurst said he made the decision in order to focus attention and energy on his two restaurants at Louisville Slugger Field, Wellinghurst's Steakhouse and Browning's brewpub. He said some of Bean's signature dishes will continue at Browning's (including the white chili), and that the restaurant's popular First Friday wine tastings will move to Wellinghurst's.
That was good advice to would-be felons in West Texas in the 1880s, where the original judge (a native Kentuckian, by the way) declared, "West of the Pecos, I am the law," and occasionally added, "Hang 'em first, try 'em later." It's equally sage counsel to diners in Louisville, where this Highlands saloon and eatery is a real sleeper, offering far more interesting fare than its neighborhood-tavern appearance might suggest ... not to mention an intelligently chosen, fairly priced wine list that ranks among the city's best. Bean's doesn't go in for white tablecloths or, thankfully, the cowboy shtick, at least not beyond an occasional mounted game head on the wall. Sturdy wooden tables and chairs are chosen more for durability than style, and place settings are serviceable, with good earthenware in colorful Southwestern designs. The menu is long and eclectic, with an accent that's more Southwestern than Mexican, with some emphasis on game and other exotic meats. Appetizers range from $3.25 for a cup of white chili or ostrich chili to $6.95 for Nachos, steamed mussels or a vegetable platter featuring portabellos, chayote squash and grilled vegetables with an order of tortillas and salsa. You'll also find "designer" pizzas (a $6.95 grilled vegetarian model with zucchini and chayote squash sets the tone), quesadillas, salads and sandwiches (including a meatless portabello on a toasted bun for $6.50 or a half-pound ground-ostrich burger for $7.25). A solid 18 entrees include burritos, pasta, beef, seafood, chicken and pork and "wild things," and range in price from $9.95 (for a garden pasta dish of grilled veggies on bowtie pasta with cheesy Alfredo sauce) to $14.95 for "Mile High" grilled lamb or $15.50 for a grilled 12-ounce Yankee strip steak. For a wine lover who's increasingly cranky about the recent local trend toward generally boring and overpriced lists, Bean's wine list is a relative joy to behold. About 100 items are categorized by type (including my favorite sections, the catchall "Interesting Whites" and "Interesting Reds"), and appear intelligently chosen and mostly out of the ordinary. Better still, many are marked up only 1 1/2 times retail, an unusually fair policy when many of the restaurant's competitors are taking a price-gouging 200 percent or more. Prices range from under $15 and, except for a few Champagnes, are almost all under $40, with a fair number available by the glass. I was so delighted to spot a 1993 Alion Ribera del Duero for only $29.50 -- actually below the retail price for the current vintage of this full and hearty Spanish red -- that I made the wine decision first and then planned our dinner to match. (Bad news, oenophiles: The server mentioned that we copped the last bottle of this beauty.) We started with a shared appetizer of black-bean cakes ($5.50) and were treated to an ample portion, two savory cakes the size of hockey pucks, pleasantly piquant without being fiery, served atop a salad-size portion of field greens and topped with an interesting corn and black-bean relish. A small JRB house salad ($2.25) was also first-rate, with fresh, crisp greens tossed with toasted pine nuts and served with a delicious sweet-pungent pepper-Parmesan dressing on the side. A complimentary bread offering, something like a white cornmeal biscuit, was heavy and moist and disappeared with surprising speed as we pitched in. A daily special caught my wife's eye: A medium-rare venison burger ($7.25) was appropriately gamey and full-flavored, so low on fat as to be a bit chewy, but a pleasure all the same and a particularly good match with the Spanish wine. It was topped with crispy fried-onion bits (which Bean's calls "tobacco onions") on a standard-issue toasted white bun with a mild chipotle mayonnaise. I go quackers over duck and couldn't resist the Denver Duck entree ($12.95), resisting the impulse to cough up another $7.50 for an additional five-ounce breast. It was prepared well, cooked still pink (as I ordered), with the skin fairly crisp and most of its fat rendered; the duck meat was flavorful and tender and also complemented the wine. It was painted with a warmly spicy ancho-chile reduction, crowned by a half-dozen perfect grilled asparagus spears, and accompanied by a very hearty portion of "herbed new potatoes," a pleasantly coarse almost-puree of potatoes mashed with their skins in what tasted like ample amounts of butter and cream. Desserts were tempting, but the three choices available were all so sinful and rich that even my chocolate-loving bride chose to pass; we lingered, instead, over the last of the wine as we watched a late-summer sunset fall on busy Bardstown Road. Dinner for two came to a reasonable $60.90, half of that going for the wine. This raised a delicate issue regarding the tip, as the conventional wisdom suggests tipping on food, not alcohol, an arrangement that would have worked out to the disadvantage of our friendly but unobtrusive server; I split the difference and forked over $10, which felt about right. It's been a while since we last dropped on the Judge. Based on this visit, it won't be so long before he "summons" us back again. $$
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