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      CONFERENCE & CONVENTION |
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WHERE TO DINE
The heritage districts of Louisville are filled with restaurants and coffee shops you can't find anywhere else. Don't miss the opportunity to try one of our truly unique dining experiences. LOCATION
KEYS
"A warm and welcoming
pub with an authentic Irish accent, it's a delightful place for a tall
glass of Guinness, a snack and a bit of Irish music, living up to its
Gaelic motto, "Òl, Ceol, Bia agus Craic," which I'm told
translates as "Drink, Music, Food and Fun." Robin
Garr's
"I find it helpful
to think of a meal at Greek Paradise as a visit to a Greek family's home,
where the mother is eager to welcome guests and make them feel comfortable,
but she's really too busy cooking to offer more than a quick smile and
hello. So you clear your own spot at the table, enjoy the television or
music on the radio, and wait for something really good to be placed before
you, knowing that you'll enjoy it whether it's exactly what you ordered
or not." Robin
Garr's
"Furlongs, a
Louisiana-style restaurant with a horse-racing theme that unites the spirits
of Kentucky's and Louisiana's racing industries. Enter through a long,
friendly bar room where zydeco music is usually heard pulsing in the background,
and you'll be ushered to large, white-draped tables scattered through
several rooms of the old house, done up in dark green colors and discreet
racing prints. The menu is long and diverse, offering an array of Cajun
and Creole dishes (which might be defined, respectively, as country-style
Louisiana fare and city-style New Orleans fare)." Robin
Garr's
The dining room is
actually two rooms of the old house connected through a broad arch. The
underlying architecture is classically attractive, with very high ceilings
and tall, narrow windows, although as you might expect in a very old houses
with this configuration, it can be a bit drafty on a winter day." Robin
Garr's
"Crowded and
emitting with a pleasant social buzz on an autumn week night, this local
favorite fully satisfied with friendly service and a series of consistently
fine dishes from Chef John R. Plymale. The menu is appetizingly
varied and reliably Northern Italian, with a good variety of seafood,
fish and veal dishes and a somewhat narrower selection of red-meat choices
to stand up to hearty Italian red wines." Robin
Garr's
Louisville's hottest new café and cabaret is now open on the lower level of Actor's Theatre. If there is another place like it in Louisville, we don't know about it. The atmosphere and the food are fabulous. (Read a review.) Dinner is served from 5-10 PM, Tuesday thru Sunday. If you are planning on dinner before a performance at Actors Theatre, reservations are a must! Allow about 1 1/2 hours. The cabaret show begins about 10:30 on Friday and Saturday evening. Saturday evening’s performance was excellent. My only complaint was that the night was over before I wanted to go home! This place promises to be packed as soon as the word gets around. This should also be a hot place to finish up a First Friday Gallery Hop! (Just a word of caution. If you stay past 11, the Gallery Hop Trolley may not be running. Take that into consideration when you park.)
Louisville Magazine
If you are greeted by Mr. Ghavami, make sure to ask about his daughter, and ask that he play one of her CDs while you are dining. It is hard to believe that the voice belongs to such a young person.
"It would be
easy to overlook Melillo's. If you blink as you drive by, you'll miss
it. So slow down. The deli might be small, but the dishes it serves up
are very big on flavor." Read
Robin Garr's
"When Rosendo and Laura Ucàn used to drive their big blue van around Louisville's East End suburban developments, selling tacos to Spanish-speaking roofing workers at construction sites, it didn't take long for the word to get out that this food was GOOD. Before long, lots of locals were following the blue truck - The Mayan Gypsy - and lining up for a share of the goodies wherever it stopped. Don't expect familiar Mexican fare. This is high-style Yucatan and Guatemalan cooking that shows Ucàn's creative genius in the kitchen: Everything on the menu is amazing - subtle and complex, sometimes spicy but never fiery - and it is fully competitive in quality with the city's best restaurants." from: Robin Garr's
LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews (read
more)
Robin Garr's
Too new for a restaurant review. Primo bills itself as "the most eclectic blend of traditional and contemporary Italian fare available in the city. Inspired by the tratorrias and osterias of Italy." Upscale in both decor and presentation. I am not a restaurant critic, but I am a lover of Italian food, and now a regular at Primo.
Coffee, tea, sandwiches,
pastries, gifts, artwork
Many fine-dining establishments seem to spend as much money on hiring decorators as they do on getting a chef. On the other hand, Buck's, located in the 1920s-era Mayflower Hotel, has an authentic charm that no modern decorator could ever replicate. Women in flapper dresses accompanied by men in tails would not be out of place. SUSAN REIGLER
"For close to a quarter-of-a-century under the domain of its innovative, idiosyncratic owner-chef Ed Garber, this stylish spot in Old Louisville has rated among the finest restaurants in the United States - not just Louisville - known not just for the creative genius of its cuisine but its take-no-prisoners approach to getting everything exactly right, from expensive china and luxurious crystal glassware to fish flown in from England and flowers from France. Since the beginning, an evening at 610 has always been memorable." from: Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews (read more) Don't be put-off by the quiet location in a residential district of Historic Old Louisville across from Central Park, or the unassuming gray building, or the unkept, vine-covered garden wall. You are in the right location. This is a true hide-a-way. Do Make Reservations!
The Café is located inside the Speed Art Museum, off the Sculpture Court, near the Visitor Welcome Center. The Café' serves a typical lunch fare of classic appetizers, salads, soups, sandwiches, and deserts. A child's menu is available. The Café is open Tuesdays-Saturdays from 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM.
Welcome to Third Avenue Cafe, an exceptionally pleasant neighborhood eatery - complete with Trivial Pursuit cards on every table to help you pass the time - that fits in to its Old Louisville setting as snugly as if it had been there forever. Robin Garr's
Great Place for a quick lunch, but you need to get there before the lunch crowd. The line may be out the door! Half a dozen tables and a few counter seats.
Not open for lunch.
The Garden Room Cafe serves a garden-fresh menu of soups, sandwiches, daily specials, and the Salad Bar. Delicious desserts are made daily to end your meal on a sweet note. Drive to the rear of the Spectrum Building to enter through the double glass doors. Sit outside on sunshiny days! Hours are:
Daily Buffet All You Can Eat! Including free drink refills. Monday through Friday
(11:00 am - 2:00pm) Sunday Brunch (11:00
am - 4:00 pm)
The original bistro on Bardstown Road gave Louisvillians casual cafe dining with international flare more than 25 years ago. What was once cutting edge is now familiar and reliable. There are three locations in all, but the original is the real gem, with outdoor dining surrounded by a walled garden. Citysearch Editorial
Review
Continental Cuisine. A restaurant that has been around for a while and continues to impress.
Robin Garr's
"Lilly's has
been a favorite since it opened in the '80s, and it has consistently ranked
among Kentucky's best and most creative restaurants. Its high art-deco
style sets an upscale bistro feeling in its three dining rooms, with high
walls in muted dark green, fitted out with modern art, a huge mirror,
and, in the middle room, an odd, whimsical primitive-style mural of nudes
at play. " Robin Garr's
"The original
namesake and owner, Jack Fry, started a neighborhood tavern with the repeal
of Prohibition in 1933 and ran it as a local institution until the late
'70s, whereupon - gentrifying in step with the neighborhood it's in -
it went upscale under new management, shedding its stale-beer-and-peanuts
ambience in favor of something just as comfy if a bit more dressy. It's
still casual, crowded and noisy - especially after the jazz trio arrives
around 7 p.m. - but that's all part of the Fry's formula, which blends
decidedly upscale prices into a cleaned-up saloon setting." Robin Garr's
"Small, funky and fun, this favorite spot of the Highlands' Generation X crowd attracts foodies of all ages with its friendly setting, reasonable prices and well-prepared international cuisine that ranges from Mexico to China to Italy to Jamaica and sometimes mixes them together." Robin Garr's
Louisville's hottest new café and cabaret is now open on the lower level of Actor's Theatre. If there is another place like it in Louisville, we don't know about it. The atmosphere and the food are fabulous. (Read a review.) Dinner is served from 5-10 PM, Tuesday thru Sunday. If you are planning on dinner before a performance at Actors Theatre, reservations are a must! Allow about 1 1/2 hours. The cabaret show begins about 10:30 on Friday and Saturday evening. Saturday evening’s performance was excellent. My only complaint was that the night was over before I wanted to go home! This place promises to be packed as soon as the word gets around. This should also be a hot place to finish up a First Friday Gallery Hop! (Just a word of caution. If you stay past 11, the Gallery Hop Trolley may not be running. Take that into consideration when you park.)
Louisville Magazine
If you are greeted by Mr. Ghavami, make sure to ask about his daughter, and ask that he play one of her CDs while you are dining. It is hard to believe that the voice belongs to such a young person.
The original bistro on Bardstown Road gave Louisvillians casual cafe dining with international flare more than 25 years ago. What was once cutting edge is now familiar and reliable. There are three locations in all, but the original is the real gem, with outdoor dining surrounded by a walled garden. Citysearch Editorial
Review
"The Seelbach
Hotel's Oakroom is not just one of the best restaurants in Louisville
but one of the best-publicized. It goes after, and wins, awards for its
menu, its wine list, and the fine original cuisine of Chef Jim Gerhardt." The author F. Scott
Fitzgerald, who spent time in Louisville as a soldier at Camp Taylor during
World War I, included a Seelbach reference in The Great Gatsby (1925),
writing, "In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more
pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He came down with
a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the
Seelbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of
pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
Robin Garr's
"Vincenzo's initially billed itself as a "Continental" restaurant; and if many of its dishes of the European continent featured pasta and other delicacies with vowels at the end of their names, why, nobody inquired too closely about that. As the years have rolled by, Vincenzo's has gradually become more clearly rooted in its native Italian soil, and it has effortlessly held on to its status as the city's finest restaurant, a place where you can go with absolute assurance that you'll have a first-rate meal and outstanding service, in a setting that's upscale but not stuffy, a luxurious experience that comes at a luxurious price. A recent revision of the menu and a bit of tinkering with the decor has finally eliminated any last doubts about the restaurant's "continental" status, moving Vincenzo's finally and firmly into the Italian camp. The high-ceilinged, square-pillared dining room in an old bank building attached to the rear of Louisville's Humana Building now boasts a large, colorful map of Italy and bright photos of Sicilian villages where more discreet and clublike portraits used to hang. But the same discreet colors of charcoal and copper remain, along with the large tables draped in fine damask and the comfortable wood and leather side chairs. The new menu is not
entirely changed - many of the popular standards remain - but Vincenzo's
brother and chef Agostino Gabriele has added a dozen new Italian-accented
dishes that range from a seafood risotto appetizer to a crab cake salad
and on to new and appetizing entrees featuring duck, pheasant and Vincenzo's
signature veal. There's even a vegetarian choice, a bounty of fresh grilled
or steamed veggies." Robin
Garr's
"Walk into the English Grill, and take a trip backward in time: This is the same landmark dining room that our parents and grandparents enjoyed, and it doesn't seem like it's changed much over all these years. The English Grill's dark-oak paneling with carved columns, lofty white ceiling, antique brass lighting fixtures, tall, narrow recessed diamond-paned windows and simple, 19th century portraits of stylized posed Thoroughbreds all make for an elegant yet comfortable setting; and Chef Joe Castro continues to win raves for creative, inventive (and expensive) fare that makes the Brown a major player in the downtown-hotel dining sweepstakes. It't not hard to see how this dining room, like the nearby Loew's theater (now The Palace) with its exuberant "Moorish" decor, would have been the talk of our town during the Roaring '20s when the hotel was new. The large, heavy tables are double-draped in luxurious damask, with napkins to match; comfortable arm chairs are upholstered in brocade. Tables are set with simple, old-fashioned off-white china with a discreet design, heavy sterling flatware and attractive glassware. A silver candle lamp with a raw-silk shade graces each table, but there were no flowers on the tables the night of our visit, a slightly disappointing omission for a high-end establishment. The menu is presented
in a folder with a Renoir-style restaurant scene on the cover, a painting
that depicts a crowd of 19th century Parisians having a blast at a bistro
that might be just a bit more downscale than the English Grill. The bill
of fare changes periodically (but is generally not promptly updated on
the hotel Website, which also discreetly omits prices), but it usually
maintains a consistent pattern: at least one game dish (changed from quail
to venison in the most recent update) and one vegetarian dish (from a
grilled portabella to a tofu-stuffed roasted pepper this go-round), along
with a short list of red meat, poultry and seafood dishes." Robin
Garr's
This cozy little place is hardly a secret ... its reputation has spread far and wide among the city's knowledgeable food lovers. But on first glance, a first-time visitor to Come Back Inn could certainly be excused for failing to anticipate its surprisingly tasty and affordable Italian-American fare and friendly environs.
Come Back
Inn This cozy little place is hardly a secret ... its reputation has spread far and wide among the city's knowledgeable food lovers. But on first glance, a first-time visitor to Come Back Inn could certainly be excused for failing to anticipate its surprisingly tasty and affordable Italian-American fare and friendly environs. Located in one of Louisville's more interesting urban neighborhoods, the northern tip of Germantown-Paristown - a mix of light industry and well-kept shotgun houses in a few compact blocks that look a lot like blue-collar Chicago - it looks pretty much like any other urban neighborhood saloon. But unlike most Louisville neighborhood saloons, this one houses a family Italian spot that wouldn't be out of place in Chicago or Brooklyn ... and that's a compliment. Robin
Garr's
Check's
Cafe "The late Louisville Mayor Bill Stansbury used to hang out at this quintessential Germantown saloon, and that pretty much tells the tale. You can scent a whiff of Louisville history coming off the old walls, along with years of frying grease. The bar food here is about as good as bar food gets, and that's not bad." Robin Garr's If you want to experience a real neighborhood watering hole, this fits the bill.
Robin Garr's
Lynn's
Paradise Cafe "One of the most popular places in town for Sunday brunch (not to mention brunch every other day of the week and lunch and dinner too), Lynn's Paradise Cafe lures happy, hungry crowds with its hearty fare and funky decor. It's no coincidence that Lynn's sponsors the State Fair's tongue-in-cheek "Ugliest Lamp" contest, but there's nothing ugly about the delicious and filling fare." Robin Garr's Another interesting take on Lynns comes from Mary Gallagher of Gallagher's Travels. The comments on Lynn's are in the middle of the article.
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Copyright © 2006 - Circa 1900 | |||
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Louisville
is blessed with this fine Persian restaurant and with Majid Ghavami, the
warm and gracious proprietor. Meals begin with a traditional Persian starter
called Sabzi. Don't pass it up! Main course dishes are stews, salmon,
kabobs of chicken, flank steak, ground beef or vegetables over rice, and
a rack of lamb that has been voted the best in Louisville.
