Category Archives: White tablecloth, deluxe

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), A RESTAURANT LISTING..., Commentary, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, White tablecloth, deluxe

Classy Equus drops prices and tablecloths but keeps high style

Warm sparagus salad at Equus

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.
Continue reading Classy Equus drops prices and tablecloths but keeps high style →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Commentary, St. Matthews, Westport Village, and environs, White tablecloth, deluxe

Corbett’s joins the region’s top tables

Corbett's
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.
Continue reading Corbett’s joins the region’s top tables →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Baxter, Bardstown, Highlands, White tablecloth, deluxe

French Flying: Le Relais soars

Le Relais
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:
Continue reading French Flying: Le Relais soars →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Hurstbourne, Middletown, Jeffersontown, White tablecloth, deluxe

We put on that ole Southern drawl at Limestone

Michael Cunha
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.
Continue reading We put on that ole Southern drawl at Limestone →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, White tablecloth, deluxe

A man, a plan, a great meal at 610 Magnolia

Edward Lee
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?
Continue reading A man, a plan, a great meal at 610 Magnolia →

Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, White tablecloth, deluxe

Getcher red hots … with truffle aioli and fennel kraut?

Jay Denham
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.
Continue reading Getcher red hots … with truffle aioli and fennel kraut? →

$$$ Upscale ( $50 - $80), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, White tablecloth, deluxe

We take Rivue for a spin

Rivue
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.
Continue reading We take Rivue for a spin →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, White tablecloth, deluxe

Oakroom foams over the top

Culinary foam
“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.
Continue reading Oakroom foams over the top →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Commentary, Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, White tablecloth, deluxe

Has Vincenzo’s lost a step?

Chef Agostino Gabriele presides over Vincenzo's table at last summer's WorldFeast. Photo by Robin Garr.
Chef Agostino Gabriele presides over Vincenzo’s table at last summer’s WorldFeast. Photo by Robin Garr.
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.
Continue reading Has Vincenzo’s lost a step? →

$$$$ Luxury ($80 and up), Downtown, NuLu and Butchertown, White tablecloth, deluxe

Nothing succeeds like excess

Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse
Jeff Ruby’s: Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse at Fourth and Main is one of several upscale restaurants that opened here this year. Photo by Robin Garr.

LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(2006 wrapup and Jeff Ruby’s review)

History may record 2006 as the year that the Louisville restaurant industry finally shucked the post-9/11 attitude that eschewed upscale, pricey dining.

Two of the year’s biggest downtown restaurant success stories are the arty, glitzy Proof on Main, and the very pricey Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse. It’s easy for a diner to blow past the $100 mark for an evening meal at either of these fine spots. Said diner will go home stuffed and happy.

Nor did these two stand alone in the year’s march back toward more conspicuous consumption: From the upscale RAW sushi bar downtown and the classy Danielle’s in Clifton, Nio’s on Baxter and Stratto’s in Clarksville to the lovable Bistro New Albany, the upscale (if not necessarily expensive) restaurant hits just kept on coming. And we’re glad.
Continue reading Nothing succeeds like excess →