I love a restaurant with a great atmosphere. Yes, the food must be excellent, as well, but that’s understood. I think about the first time I visited TGI Friday’s. It was in Lexington on a school trip in the early ’80s. All that crap on the walls? I loved it.
Darryl’s Restaurant
Then came my discovery of Darryl’s Restaurant. Remember when it was open on Green River Road before the building became The Acropolis. I’m sure the food was good, but the ambiance was unique. I’m pretty sure I had dinner in a makeshift Ferris wheel car, unless I’m remembering it wrong. And even if I do have that wrong, a Ferris wheel dining table would have fit in nicely here.
Again, though, the menu had better be top-notch; The Rainforest Cafe in Nashville’s Opry Mills is all sizzle and very little steak, figuratively speaking. (There’s steak on the menu.)
Dinner in a Bourbon Barrel
In 2024, the New York Times named North of Bourbon, in Louisville’s Germantown, among the top 50 restaurants in the United States. Since food critics couldn’t care less about how many old bicycles or vintage photos hang on the wall, I’ll gather that the food is spectacular. I already know the seating arrangements are hype. Yes, I will happily dine in a bourbon barrel. In Kentucky, that only makes sense, doesn’t it?
North of Bourbon
After you’re seated at North of Bourbon, you’ll notice not one but six different menus. There are lunch, dinner, and happy hour menus to accompany the bourbon, cocktail, and beer-and-wine menus. The fried chicken gumbo and peppered catfish nuggets on the dinner menu sound like a target for me, as do the Hatch chile cheeseburger and Black Hawk pastrami sandwich on the lunch menu. (I dearly love pastrami.)
But whatever delectable delights you choose, you’ll consume them in a bourbon barrel, and I can’t think of a more “Kentucky” way to have dinner. Or lunch. Or a cocktail.
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