by John LaFollette
‘Ville Voice Eats Correspondent

We know the “who” and the “what;” what about the “where?”

Tuesday’s bombshell news about Cards coach Rick Pitino’s after-hours extra-curricula at Porcini has whatever part of the city that didn’t know about it buzzing.  But what of the restaurant where it all went down?

Pitino told police he had sex with Karen Sypher at a table near the bar at Porcini after Tim Coury, the restaurant’s owner and a courtside regular at Louisville games, gave Pitino the keys to the place.

The high-end Frankfort Avenue ristorante has been mentioned by name in such publications as the New York Daily News (shocking that they picked this story up, right?), and is shown six times in a video report on ESPN.com.  It certainly seems possible that Porcini could enjoy a certain celebrity/notoriety not unlike Umberto’s Clam House in New York, which became a pilgrimage of sorts after mobster “Crazy Joe” Gallo was famously gunned down while supping on clam sauce in 1972.

But national restaurant critic and Louisvillian Steve Coomes thinks that’s unlikely.

“I can’t imagine it will reflect positively on the restaurant,” he said.  “Pitino has a lot of fans who might feel a bit heartbroken, who might drag some of those negative feelings onto Porcini.”

Coomes also said there are plenty of “celebrity chasers” who will go to Porcini precisely because of the Pitino connection, though he doesn’t count himself among them.  “If I’m going out to eat it’s for the food,” he said.

But over the years, Porcini has developed a reputation as being somewhat of a boy’s club for the 50-and-over crowd, and the members of that club weren’t going there just for the food.  One former regular described the atmosphere at Porcini on Thursday nights as a “hunting ground” somewhere on the border between upscale and seedy, with older gentlemen cruising and younger ladies waiting to be picked up.

While it may be true that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, there is such a thing as a bad reputation, and it seems hard to believe that Pitino’s antics will add anything positive to Porcini’s.