For many decades before the first pizza came to Louisville in the 1950s or the first real taquerias arrived in the 1990s, this town has had a love affair with seafood and fish.
It wasn’t long after the Civil War when Mazzoni’s started shipping fresh oysters up from the Gulf in railroad cars filled with ice; fried fish couldn’t have taken much longer in a city with a large Catholic population expected to consume fish on Fridays. Mike Linnig and his family were selling fish sandwiches out of their produce stand on Cane Run Road as early as the late 1920s; the first Kingfish restaurant greeted the dawn of the Baby Boom in 1948.
Nowadays there’s a source of fried fish just about everywhere you look, and the latest entry is a good one, too: Please say hello to Hooked on Frankfort. Continue reading We are Hooked on Frankfort→
I found myself nurturing a fierce craving for barbecue the other day, and a quick trip out to Holy Smokes Bar-B-Que in Okolona set that right. This friendly neighborhood eatery gets smoked meat right. Continue reading Holy Smokes fills us up with good barbecue→
Let me tell you why I love El Mariachi so hard: Even the chips and salsa that drop on your table the moment you take a seat are exceptional. These thick, deeply corn-flavored treats, fashioned on the premises from fresh-made tortillas, are positively addictive. They’re so crunchy that I had to look twice to persuade myself that they weren’t lightly breaded before they were fried.
Yes, the salsa is first-rate, too, a finely mashed reddish-brown puree of red chiles, tomatoes, and herbs, just spicy enough. But those chips? Perhaps the best I ever ate, I really could make a meal of them, if that didn’t involve missing out on the rest of the menu. But I can’t do that. It’s too good to skip. Continue reading El Mariachi is so good that even the chips excel→
I must have passed by Sal’s Pizza & Sports Pub in Lyndon a hundred times without ever being motivated to stop in. This was a mistake. In retrospect I really miss all the good meals that I might have enjoyed there.
I think Grassa Gramma is more than ready for prime time. Every single thing I’ve had to eat there in two visits (so far) has been really good, and the service was fine in that not-quite obsequious hovering style that’s been a hallmark of fine Italian dining in Louisville since Casa Grisanti went upscale in the 1970s.
If you woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, ready to get to work, you probably did not celebrate Mardi Gras in the traditional way last night. Lent starts today, and for those who observe the penitential season, there’ll be no more joyful excess until Easter arrives on April 21.
But we’ve got you covered! Even if you missed Mardi Gras, J. Gumbo’s is still good and affordable. Even after Fat Tuesday has come and gone, it stands ready to meet your Cajun dining needs. Continue reading J. Gumbo’s feeds our Mardi Gras faces.→
Even if you’re not a vegetarian or vegan, the folks who make the Impossible Burger want to get their meat-free, gluten-free, hormone-free and ridiculously delicious burger into your mouth. No, they’re not pushy vegan evangelizers. They just want to save the earth by replacing resource-gobbling beef with eco-friendly plants. Continue reading The Impossible Burger gets even more impossible→
The first sign that Joe’s Older Than Dirt had returned from its two-year absence was the reappearance of its fabled moose statue out front, overlooking the busy traffic on New La Grange Road.
Thoughts upon an evening of snacking and sipping rye whiskey in Down One Bourbon Bar: Bourbon has been around for well over 200 years, and its history has been tied to Kentucky for all that time.
What’s more, bourbon is booming, with the state’s distillery roster almost quadrupling from 18 to 78 properties in the past 10 years..
So riddle me this: Why do you suppose that Louisville, stuck with a shabby downtown that closed up at night since white flight, expressways and suburban malls shelled it out during the ‘60s, took until now to figure out that bourbon makes a great fuel for tourism and urban development? Continue reading Down One Bourbon Bar, two thumbs up→
I love pasta in all its forms. Heck, I love it that there are so many forms. From skinny angel hair to broad pappardelle; long, short, or in-between, gimme. Pasta is my comfort food, and I’m delighted to report having achieved maximum pasta comfort at Amici Café in Old Louisville the other day. Continue reading Amici satisfies with fine pasta and more→
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