Where To Eat in Louisville

By Michelle on January 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Food , narrative

When I explain Consuming Louisville to people the most frequent question I get asked is “where should I eat?” This comes both from Louisville newcomers and from those who have been here a while (and sometimes even forever). Food, it seems, is the great uniter. We all love to eat. Lucky for us there is an incredible amount of good food to be had here in Louisville.

Perhaps it’s because I eat out on a very regular basis and have several favorite restaurants I sometimes forget that every one of my (and your) favorite haunts is still an undiscovered gem for someone else. Columbus "discovered" the continent we're living on and the people who were already living here. You get to discover The Irish Rover or Come Back Inn or Mayan Cafe or Impellizeri's or Twig and Leaf or Le Gallo Ross or any of countless other restaurants you haven't tried or maybe haven't even heard of yet. So I'm going to be writing about restaurants more.

I really do love food and dining out so writing about my experiences with the great restaurant scene in Louisville is something I'm excited about. Anything I write about specific restaurants and dining experiences are my opinions and the opinions of my dining companions. I'll be open and honest with those opinions and try to be as fair and respectful as I can with those opinions. You're free to agree or disagree with me as you see fit and I do hope you'll share what you agree with and what you don't. Leave a comment to say you too love a particular spot or that you crave a particular dish or find the chef innovative or hate the place because their hummus always has way too much tahini in it. Whatever. Share your thoughts, please.

One area I'll probably mention a lot is service. Service is a big part of the experience for me when dining out so I pay a lot of attention to it. I'll tell you about both good and bad service particularly if I get the same kind of service more than once at a restaurant. Service has to be pretty bad to keep me away from a restaurant whose food I really enjoy but I find it useful to know what kind of service I can generally expect from a restaurant before I go. That's why I'll be sharing that information with you, just in case you find it useful as well.

All of this is to say that Consuming Louisville's restaurant reviews and where to eat advice may not look or feel like traditional restaurant reviews. If I love someplace without inhibition I might just fawn over it and tell you to run, don't walk, to go eat there today. Or I might say that the service really sucks at restaurant X but the food is so good I eat there anyway. Or I might say I had the nicest waitress ever at restaurant Y but the food wasn't so great. Remember these things are all just my opinions. You may have had very different experiences and very different opinions. When I review someplace you're familiar with (or you go someplace after I've reviewed it) you'll be able to see how my tastes and sensibilities align (or not) with your taste and sensibilities. That's a very important thing to know when you're reading reviews. If we have totally different tastes then you'll probably love a place I don't like very much and vice versa. If we have similar tastes then you'll probably like places that I like.

I have two goals for writing more about food and restaurants in Louisville. The first goal is to provide answers to that "where should I eat in Louisville" question that I get asked a lot (seriously, it's a lot). The second goal is to publicize and promote great independent establishments in this city. I won't be writing about chain restaurants (save some rare exception that I can't imagine right now but theoretically could come up) because I don't go to many chain restaurants. On occasion I'll have lunch at Subway or I'll go to a meeting or social event at a chain restaurant but by and large my eating out dollars go to independent restaurants so that's what I'll be writing about.