Category Archives: BY LOCATION

Quality and attention kick Butchertown Pizza Hall up a notch

Haters gotta hate, but the pizza just keeps on coming. Some of my friends, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, go into a slow burn when another pizzeria opens in town. They sneer as they predict its imminent demise in an overloaded market. There are too many of them, they gripe. It just doesn’t make good business sense, they judge.

I have heard no such whining about Butchertown Pizza Hall. Continue reading Quality and attention kick Butchertown Pizza Hall up a notch

It’s all about the wine, and great food too, at Cuvée Wine Table

I’m a wine geek. Or you could call me a wine nerd. But please don’t call me a snob.

Look, I’ve enjoyed wine since I was a teenager, Chianti diluted with 7Up with Italian-American friends in Brooklyn. Later I found out about this cool place called Napa Valley, where you could get free wine, a long time before most of you had probably heard of the place. I’ve been writing professionally about wine since around 1980, and have been lucky enough to visit wineries and judge wine competitions around the world.

But you’ll never catch me taking this stuff too seriously, and you shouldn’t, either. Continue reading It’s all about the wine, and great food too, at Cuvée Wine Table

You’ll eat fake meat and like it at Morels Cafe

There’s this funny thing about plant-based meat analogues, a.k.a. fake meat: Hard-core carnivores and hard-core vegans all seem to get downright angry when they catch someone eating fake bacon, veggie burgers, or even amazing meat-free goodies like those on the menu at Morels Cafe. Continue reading You’ll eat fake meat and like it at Morels Cafe

Foodies may happily graze at hiko-A-mon

When I go to a Japanese restaurant, I generally love to pull right up to the sushi bar. I can hardly imagine a more immersive entry into the world of Japanese cuisine than sitting right across the tale from the sushi chefs, with the striking colors of beautiful fresh fish and other edible delights lined up in perfect rows between you. Continue reading Foodies may happily graze at hiko-A-mon

Wild Eggs maintains its eggy goodness

Can a great independent restaurant remain great when it evolves into a corporate chain? This favorite topic for foodie debate plays out time and again, just about any time a favorite eatery opens a second location, and then a third. Continue reading Wild Eggs maintains its eggy goodness

ROC rocks Italian food and drink

Some of Louisville’s favorite restaurants have their roots in other cities. Consider Selena’s, for instance, which came up from Tampa almost a decade ago. Or Jeff Ruby’s, which added Louisville to its thriving Cincinnati metro operation; or even Vincenzo’s, which can trace its roots to the Hill in St. Louis.

Now let’s put our hands together for ROC, an elegant eatery that owners Rocco and Stacy Cadolini pretty much loaded on a moving truck in Manhattan’s Tribeca and unpacked in Louisville’s Highlands last month. Continue reading ROC rocks Italian food and drink

Street food in the South End: Á-Châu

Who doesn’t love street food? I sure do! Give me a corn dog, or maybe a big slice of New York City pizza that I can fold over and carry down the street, and I’m a happy boy.

So naturally I was delighted to discover a recent South End arrival, Á-Châu, which bears the magical words “Vietnamese Street Food” in big letters over the front door. Continue reading Street food in the South End: Á-Châu

Las Gorditas adds a full restaurant, and we’re glad.

Is there any culture, anywhere, that does not delight in the joys of wrapping carbohydrates around protein or vegetables and eating it out of hand? From the humble sandwich to empanada, kreplach, pita and Asian bao, among many more, I can’t think of any cuisine that doesn’t boast some kind of portable meal like this. Continue reading Las Gorditas adds a full restaurant, and we’re glad.

Chik’n & Mi gives the noble bird an Asian spin

There’s something lovably gritty about the stretch of urban Louisville along Lower Brownsboro Road in Clifton that some call “LowBrow,” and we’re okay with that. Take that well-worn restaurant building that sits up on the bank across from Kroger. Home to a dozen short-lived spots over the past couple of decades, it started life as a Pizza Hut sometime back in the ‘70s. You know the place: It’s one of the city’s most storied “restaurant graveyards.”

But now a new arrival has upped the ante significantly … Continue reading Chik’n & Mi gives the noble bird an Asian spin