Continue reading Has Vincenzo’s lost a step?
Category Archives: Commentary
Robin Garr’s musings about food and restaurant matters that don’t fit neatly into the “review” category.
“Coupledom” at Jenicca’s Café and Wine Bar
(Republished with permission from G3 Illustrated)
Benifer. Brangelina. We’re becoming accustomed to the shorthand of celebrity coupledom. The very fact that one is assigned a “couplename” denotes a glamour and comportment to which we mere mortals can only aspire.
It was with that simple expectation that Jim and I set out this month to have A Great Bite at Jenicca’s Café and Wine Bar on Market. The café is named for sisters Jennifer and Rebecca – a pair whose effortless style and charisma is reflected in every aspect of their namesake establishment.
Continue reading “Coupledom” at Jenicca’s Café and Wine Bar
The Fixe is in: English Grill on a budget
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| English Grill: The Brown Hotel’s English Grill is worth a trip, but try the regular menu. Photo by Ben Schneider. |
LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(English Grill’s pre-theater menu)
If you want to create an impression of class in your restaurant, just drop in a little French.
Unfortunately, some French words aren’t easy for English-speakers to handle. Take “prix fixe,” which means “fixed price” – a full meal of several courses offered for a set tab. Neat concept. Not easy to spell and pronounce. I’ve seen it rendered as “prefix” and pronounced as “pricks fix,” but nooooo: Make it “pree feese,” and you’ll hear no snobby Frenchmen snickering at you.
Whatever you want to call it, we invited Eat ‘N’ Blog correspondent ANDREA M. ESSENPREIS to try it, sampling the pre, er, pri, um, fixed-price dinner at the Brown Hotel’s English Grill on the company tab. Her conclusion: You get what you pay for. Continue reading The Fixe is in: English Grill on a budget
Danielle’s: Still sweet, and better than ever
CLOSED. We very much regret to learn of the abrupt closing of Danielle’s just before New Years. The owners, attributing the closure largely to intractible issues surrounding city liquor licensure, say they hope to find a way to return to business eventually.
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| Danielle’s has earned its place as one of Frankfort Avenue’s stars. Photo by Robin Garr. |
LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
“Dammit,” grumbled my wife, squinting crossly as she studied the new menu at Danielle’s. “Look at this! It’s just like before! Everything has sweet flavors and fruit in it.”
I leaned out of whacking range and snickered: “This is a bad thing?”
It wasn’t bad at all, as it turned out, and even my wife eventually agreed, after she scraped the sweet tomato jam off a hearty portion of lamb shank.
Continue reading Danielle’s: Still sweet, and better than ever
Eating our way through the holidays
LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
OK, you’re going to shop till you drop – taking care to drop someplace where you can get something tasty and restorative so you can bounce back to shop again.
Or maybe you hate shopping as much as I do and would rather just forget the whole thing, buy your Christmas presents on the Internet, and eat your way through the holidays instead.
No matter which way you want to play it, we’ve got plenty of holiday-season dining advice for you. Tuck this column into your purse or your car. If you find yourself feeling a little peckish during a shopping venture, browse these quirky mini-reviews to find the places just right for you.
Continue reading Eating our way through the holidays
We chow down (and pig out) at WorldFeast
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| Hungry festival-goers congregated in the Kentucky Center lobby last Thursday for WorldFeast. Photos by Robin Garr |
LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Walking-around bites from 30 Louisville Originals)
It’s not every weekend that you can enjoy the fine fare of a few dozen of the city’s most interesting eateries and wash it all down with an enticing selection of beverages from around the world, for not much more than the price of dinner at a random Bardstown Road bistro.
But this past week, thanks to the one-two combination of WorldFeast in the Kentucky Center Thursday evening and WorldFest on the Belvedere on Friday and Saturday, it was possible to do just that thing, with a world of ethnic music and dancing as a bonus attraction.
WorldFeast, a new venture this year, filled the Main Street performing-arts center’s lofty lobby with tables occupied by more than two dozen restaurant members of the Louisville Originals group, an association of independent, locally owned restaurants, along with a dozen drink companies ranging from microbreweries to coffee companies to importers of fine wines and liquors. Proceeds of the $50 admission tickets went to benefit Louisville Originals, the Kentucky Center’s international programs and the metro Office for International Affairs, which organizes the two-day WorldFest outdoor carnival that followed.
I assume it goes without saying that with this much good food from local restaurants, Eat’N’Blog was THERE. Continue reading We chow down (and pig out) at WorldFeast
Oakroom’s Richards vs. Iron Chef!
 Photo by Food & Dining Magazine |
Chef Todd Richards, executive chef of the Seelbach Hotel’s Oakroom, has been invited to compete on Food Network’s Iron Chef America.
Richards, with his chef de cuisine Duane Nutter (left in the photo) and a third Oakroom chef to be selected, will travel to New York City for the taping on Oct. 17. The episode will be broadcast on FoodTV in January.
“We will be doing some intense training,” Richards said, adding that the chefs plan practice sessions every Sunday and Monday from now until show time.
The January broadcast will give the Oakroom a double-barreled blast of national publicity, Richards said, as they also have an invitation to James Beard House in January or February.
With its enduring American Automobile Association five-diamond rating, the Oakroom under Richards and Nutter is said to be the nation’s only “five-star” restaurant operated by a team of African-American chefs.
“This is great for the city also,” Richards said. “Most of the chefs they pick are in New York, California or Chicago. So to be in Louisville and on the show is great.”
LouisvilleHotBytes congratulates these honored chefs. We can hardly wait to see which of the Iron Chefs they take on. Allez Cuisiner!
Italian dining in our city’s Bermuda Triangle
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| Amici aims to break the jinx associated with the property at 316 W. Ormsby in Old Louisville. The restaurant has a cool neighborhood vibe and a large menu that leans toward Italy. Photos by Robin Garr |
LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Amici, Windy City Pizza and more)
Wits in the restaurant business often evoke the mysterious waters off of Eastern North America as a mean metaphor for a restaurant property that can’t seem to hold an eatery in business very long.
In Louisville, the classic “Bermuda Triangle” location has to be the big brick house at Bardstown and Bonnycastle that began as Parisian Pantry and has housed a succession of at least a dozen short-lived successors (although the funky and downscale Cafe 360 seems to be beating the curse). After the Fountain Room of yore closed in the ’60s, the old Mayflower Hotel went through a similar series of restaurant shipwrecks before Buck’s came to stay; and a small house on Bardstown near Longest boasted a similarly eerie restaurant-killing reputation before Kashmir broke the spell.
Now comes the amiable Amici in what may be the strongest effort yet to banish the Bermuda Triangle moniker from the fine, historic Old Louisville building that had briefly been home to Central Park Cafe and 316 Ormsby, both of which sputtered out within a year of opening their doors.
Continue reading Italian dining in our city’s Bermuda Triangle
All’s fare at the Fair
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| Ever seen a more artistic corn dog? Photos by Robin Garr |
LEO’s Eat ‘n’ Blog with Louisville HotBytes
(Food at the State Fair, Benedict’s Garden Café)
Ahh, the State Fair. Marking the fullness of summer and the golden harvest to come, this annual celebration of nature’s bounty opens a virtual cornucopia. Kentucky’s farmers all but bust their galluses in pride as they show off the Commonwealth’s finest farm animals and agricultural produce, and of course it’s all good, healthy and natural.
And then there’s the food. What could be more healthy or natural than corndogs, elephant ears and funnel cakes? Um. Well, at least it’s good. Up and down the Midway, around the exhibition halls, hundreds of vendor booths offer a bewildering variety of tempting fare, much of it breaded, sweetened, sugared and, best of all, sizzling hot from the deep-fat fryer. One of my favorite Midway food booths, somewhere down near the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Headless Woman (“Still Alive!“) puts it right out front in big red letters: “Ryan’s FRIED DOUGH.”
Continue reading All’s fare at the Fair
Kayrouz family tradition, Part III
(Kayrouz Cafe, Voice-Tribune, Aug. 16, 2006)
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As far back as most of us can remember, the name “Kayrouz” has been synonymous with quality family dining in Louisville. J.P. Kayrouz Restaurant on St. Matthews Avenue, operated by Joseph Paul Kayrouz and his wife Norma, was one of the city’s most popular family restaurants for more than a quarter of a century, and J.P.’s father ran Kayrouz Cafe at Preston and Fehr streets downtown as far back as the 1920s.
So there was great wailing and hungry gnashing of teeth when J.P. Kayrouz closed in June 2003 and its building was demolished, giving way to the new Wilson & Muir Bank & Trust Co. building.
But everyone who misses the Kayrouz commitment to quality cooking and attentive service may now rejoice: J.P.’s son, Christopher, has brought the family name back to the local dining scene in a small but charming little spot in St. Matthews, just a few blocks from his father’s longtime dining destination.
The little building had housed a series of “concept” restaurants, tested here before moving out to new locations, including the original Tony Boombozz, Thatsa Wrapp, the first Bazo’s and the short-lived Benny B’s sandwich shop. Now thoroughly and attractively renovated by Mr. Kayrouz, it appears the latest occupant is here to stay.
Continue reading Kayrouz family tradition, Part III