Its doors have been shuttered for nearly a year, and La Bodega, the tapas bar adjacent to De La Torre’s on Bardstown Road, is finally ready to celebrate its grand re-opening in style.

Damaged in a fire in November 2008, La Bodega will re-open with a month-long celebration starting October 2nd that will feature a new tapas menu and nightly drink specials.

The new La Bodega has been designed in Spanish style, with a large wood bar, tile imported from Spain, and new mosaic lighting.  The restaurant has also grown to accommodate private parties.

“We are so relieved to finally put that behind us and concentrate fully on what we love. . . sharing the taste of Spain,” said Maggie de la Torre, who co-owns both restaurants with her husband, Chef Miguel de la Torre.  “Miguel has delicious new tapas on the menu and we’ll be offering our hand-crafted cocktails, Spanish wines, and house-made Sangria,” she said.

The fire started in the second floor of the building that houses the restaurants.  La Bodega suffered extensive water damage from the efforts to contain the fire, which lasted for several hours.  De La Torre’s next door had its bathroom and storage areas damaged by smoke and water as well, but to a much lesser extent.

Both restaurants were initially closed after the fire, but De La Torre’s, which needed only minor repairs, re-opened in mid-December of 2008.

Beer No Matter Where It’s From: Fans of football and good beer have a great day ahead  Saturday.  Flanagan’s Ale House will host an event dubbed East Coast, West Coast, No Coast, in which brewing giants Dogfish Head (from Rehoboth Beach, Del.) and Stone (San Diego, Calif.) meet brewmasters from the Bluegrass Brewing Company (the Ville!) in a celebration of some of their finest beers.  For a list of all beers present, check here and here.  The event, which starts at 5 p.m., carries a $5 cover (and presumably something for every beer you order), with all the proceeds benefitting Henry’s Ark in Prospect.

Meet a Master Brewer — Delivering the Stone cold brew to the East Coast, West Coast, No Coast event will be Greg Koch, the owner and founder of Stone Brewing Co.  Before heading over to Flanagan’s he’ll be at Ray’s Monkey House Café hanging out with his pal (and mayoral candidate) Dr. Nimbus Couzin.  Starting at 2:30 he’ll be giving away Stone pint glasses, chatting with customers, and maybe even drinking some of that 13th Anniversary Ale.

And a Master Distiller — To celebrate National Bourbon Heritage Month, Jack’s Lounge will be hosting the first in its Master Distiller Dinner Series on Sept. 29.  The guest at the dinner will be Wild Turkey master distiller Jimmy Russell, who will join mixology queen Joy Perrine to create Wild Turkey cocktails to go with each of the dinner’s three courses.  A spot can be reserved for $60, plus tax and tip.

And a Master Cause — Morton’s Steakhouse is partnering with Feeding America to raise money for local and national food banks.  The Louisville Morton’s is hosting a cookbook signing event on October 13 to promote its new “Morton’s: The Cookbook,” with $5 from the $59 ticket being donated to Feeding America.  The steakhouse will also auction off a dinner for six at the Chef’s Table, featuring dishes from the book as well as wine pairings.  Morton’s also plans to auction a 3-litre bottle of Chateau St. Michelle and an autographed copy of the movie “Scream,” which stars David Arquette and Courtney Cox.

Louisville’s venerated Café Metro is closing this weekend. For good.

The restaurant’s last day of operation will be Saturday, Sept. 19th.  Despite such heroic rescue efforts like Chef Gary Byler, Jr.’s new small plates menu, a more casual atmosphere in its new piano bar, and specially themed events such as the recent Glenlivet Scotch dinner, the 25-year-old restaurant is succumbing to the nationwide decline of fine dining in general.

Given the closure of other fine dining establishments in the area, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s a tragedy nonetheless.  Café Metro added white cloth respectability to Bardstown Road long before it became a trendy restaurant row, and helped to revitalize what was once a fairly seedy neighborhood corner into a thriving destination for foodies all over town.

The good news is, the Café’s sister restaurant, the Uptown Café, is still a thriving entity.  A bustling lunch crowd, a solid business-oriented clientele and an iconic shrine of “ladies who lunch,” its smaller portions, casual bar and patio dining options continue to serve with style in the current economic climate.

Also in the good news department, owner Nancy Shepherd is apparently already entertaining proposals from other culinary-oriented lessees for the soon to be vacated Café Metro space, and will be able to transfer at least some of her Café Metro employees across the street to the Uptown.

Bottom line, though – if you want to dine at Café Metro one last time, you’d better make reservations for this weekend.

The issue is not so great if you’re looking for reliable information about the food and its pricing.  High points: It’s huge, and devotes 17 of 68 pages to ethnic cuisine.  Low points: Joe Huber’s Family Farm and Restaurant is not in Louisville; chains should get their own section.
(While you can track Velocity’s Twittering on its website, don’t even try to find the dining guide.)

Awesome feature on cocktails located in the front of the magazine, though.  The Ernest Hemingway and Basil Ginger Julep, from Proof on Main and Bourbon’s Bistro, respectively, sound pretty refreshing.

Tomato Time: Chef John Castro will be featuring the heirloom tomato at a dinner at Winston’s on August 7 and 8.  The locally grown fruit will be incorporated into each of the meal’s seven courses, including a tomato soup with grilled cheese and a tomato melba on French toast for dessert.  Tickets to the annual event are $55 for dinner or $75 for dinner with four wine pairings. [Winston's]

Mimosa Returns! Café Mimosa is re-opening in the old Lentini’s building at the corner of Bardstown and Stevens.  Closed since a fire destroyed its Bardstown Road location in January, Mimosa is aiming for a mid-September re-open date.  We’re looking forward to the return of a Louisville dining icon.

Timing. . . Timing: How relevant is this.  A story highlighting Louisville’s status as a great restaurant city gets national prominence just two days after Marty Rosen’s pros and cons story about Louisville’s restaurant scene hits news stands.  John Mariani’s Forbes Traveler piece says, essentially, that the ‘Ville will never quite stack up against places like New York, Chicago, or New Orleans.  Still, though, the story notes there is plenty of excellent dining “in cities as small as Greenville, SC, Naples, FL, and Louisville.”  Whew.  [MSNBC]

Another fun Louisville fact: Louisville is (possibly) home to the country’s largest Cruvinet.  Come again? A Cruvinet is a giant Jaeger machine for wine, chilling wines, dispensing wines, and making it possible for wine bars to exist.  The ‘Ville’s own L&N Wine Bar and Bistro, at Story and Mellwood, has the largest Cruvinet in the state, and maybe the country, depending on where you get your info.  Neat. [Unusual Kentucky]

Gerstle’s set to grow; Vikings set to still suck: Having cleared its final re-zoning hurdle last week, Gerstle’s is poised to begin an expansion project that will allow the St. Matthews/Crescent Hill bar to accommodate a great deal many more Vikings fans this football season.  The plan is to use the property next door, vacated by a Christian bookstore, for indoor-outdoor seating, while adding angled parking and a new side door.  [Courier]

Shiraz has got us surrounded: From Poplar Level Road, good news for lovers of Mediterranean food.  Shiraz, the sprawling Louisville micro-chain (I mean that in a good way), is opening a new location in the Quarry Center, about a mile south of Audobon Hospital.  Besides the Frankfort Avenue location, there are locations on English Station Road (near the Gene Snyder), on Hurstbourne Parkway near Shelbyville Road, and in Holiday Manor.   The fifth store’s grand opening is in the about-a-week range, but it looks like there’s still plenty of work to do.

Monkeys can do tofu?  Who knew?: Ray’s Monkey House (Bardstown Road) will begin serving hot breakfast food from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on the weekends, starting this Saturday, July 25.  The quirky, family-extra-friendly café (they have kids open mic night every Friday!) will sell made-to-order omelettes and tofu dishes in the neighborhood of $5, according to owner Nimbus Couzin.  If business booms on the weekends, they may start serving breakfast during the week as well.

Raising glasses, funds at O’Shea’s pub family: Highlands block brothers O’Shea’s and Flanagan’s, along with their St. Matthews cousin Brendan’s, have raised more than $202,000 in their three-year history of community fundraising.  The most recent Monday “FUND Day” garnered about $4,300 for Louisville Habitat.  The next one is on Monday, August 3, and will benefit the Volunteers of America Emergency Shelter.

There’s a reason it’s called a ‘secret recipe, Yankee: Another signature Kentucky industry is in danger of being overrun by New York-based entrepreneurs!  Ron Douglas, of Long Island, claims he’s cracked the secret recipe for KFC’s 11 herbs and spices and is about to publish his findings, as well as other imitations of famous recipes, in a new book.  Apparently, he only needed six tries to figure it out.  The Colonel must be pissed, right?  Wrong.  “Plenty of people have tried to duplicate the recipe over the years,” says KFC spokesman Rick Maynard.  “There is still only one place to get authentic Original Recipe Chicken.”  Maynard didn’t bother to point out (but I will) that one of Douglas’s ingredients, monosodium glutamate, couldn’t be purchased in the U.S. until 1947, a full seven years after Harland David Sanders developed his original recipe. [MSNBC]

Cure for a Case of the Mondays. This week’s LEO review of North End Café omitted that the Tuesday-Sunday restaurant is now open for limited hours on Mondays, from 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Those breakfast tapas sound pretty tasty. [LEO]

John LaFollette is a Louisville writer.

Because of that, if you’re really trying to get somewhere, you have to avoid Bardstown Road. Not because the main drag is somewhere you wouldn’t want to hang out, because you would. But everyone else is hanging out, too, and no one seems to be in much of a hurry. I suppose that’s the point of cruising. Check out and be checked out are the marching orders of the day unless you’re trying to get somewhere.

Against that backdrop yesterday, I had some places to take my sons. We were more interested in the destination than the trip on that day so we drove down Newburg Road, making a left at Speed Avenue and we nearly jumped for joy. There was some activity going on at Kaelin’s.

If you’re a reader of this site, you know that a couple of weeks ago, I felt moved to write a proper eulogy for the “birthplace of the cheeseburger.” We had heard of the closing of this culinary treasure a while ago with those involved fully intending to reopen. When that reopening didn’t happen, I wanted to commemorate this historic landmark since no one else had.

We went about our journey, but on the return home, I wanted to make sure I passed by again. Perhaps I’d see something on the door that would tell us when they were going to serve those sandwiches from heaven. Maybe our days of waving were over and we could actually make the stop that the sign invites us to do.

The oldest son (technically stepson, but we did away with “steps” a long time ago) excitedly talked about wanting a cheeseburger because he hadn’t had one from Kaelin’s for a long time. My youngest son, who only recently graduated from asking for chicken nuggets from every restaurant we’ve ever visited, asked how good the cheeseburgers were. He’s a recent convert to the ultimate cow combination (both of the active ingredients come from animals of the bovine persuasion).

I gave him a brief history of the cheeseburger as created by Kaelin’s (or Rite Spot or Humpty Dumpty Barrel Inn – whoever) and he began making preparations for his return visit. No more chicken nuggets for him, not when the historic center of the cheeseburger universe was right here in Louisville, Kentucky.

We finished our business and headed back home. We talked comic books and pro wrestling until we made that turn on Speed Avenue again. I wouldn’t say the car fell deathly silent, but we were all curious. As we approached the corner, with the Kaelin’s sign in sight, though not lit, we pulled into the parking lot.

That’s when we saw the new awning.

It read “Mulligan’s Pub and Grill.”

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The first course is feta cheese and parsley strudel, served with Paul Dolan Sauvignon Blanc. Dolan is a 4th generation winemaker and the former president of Brown-Foreman-owned Fetzer Vineyards. He left Fetzer — itself a pioneer of large-scale sustainable winemaking — amicably a few years ago to open his own winery. This Sauvignon Blanc is one of the results.

The second course is fried eggplant caponata with cream sauce and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. The wine is Yalumba Viognier. Viognier, too long exclusively the grape of small and expensive French appellations, has really taken off in Australia. Yalumba, in the Barossa Valley, makes a vibrant, Technicolor expression of the grape.

Next comes a garlic and potato cake with mushroom ProvenÁal (featuring mushrooms from Sheltowee Farm in Lexington), served with Kunde Chardonnay. I never know exactly what to say about Chardonnay. It’s Chardonna, for heaven’s sake, the white wine 90% of Americans think of when they think of white wine. Kunde’s Sonoma interpretation is aged 60% in French oak and 40% in steel, and retains more character than generic, death-by-oak California Chardonnays. But still.

The next course is a black bean tostada with red pepper cheese, tomato, avocado, poblano pepper and basil verde sauce. I hear all that, Iím thinking margarita. Gemelli offers instead The Crossings Pinot Noir. This leads me to believe that the tostada isn’t as spicy in real life as it is in my imagination — though in my imagination I still eat two. The Crossings is a winery in Marlborough, New Zealand, a region that’s in the process of redefining Pinot Noir the same way it has already redefined Sauvignon Blanc. That is: big and fresh and subtle and refined all at the same time. This ought to be a really interesting match.

Finally, there’s dessert: dark chocolate cake with Bing cherry sauce. The wine is Carol Shelton Zinfandel. Shelton has been named California’s Winemaker of the Year four times. She dabbles in other grapes, but Zin is where her heart — and most of her winery’s production — lies.

The wine dinner will be held at Lilly’s on June 23 at 7 P.M. The price is $45.

Tom Johnson does not understand his friends who drink only Chardonnay. As a type of therapy, he operates the local wineblog LouisvilleJuice.com.

Here in the heart of bourbon country, even premium single malt scotch whisky can be a tough sell.  The natives – even those of us with Scots-Irish ancestry – have never really been brought up to fully appreciate the subtle nuances of heather and other such woodsy, grassy flavors that scotch embodies (the oak barrels in which the whisky is aged, of course, we understand pretty well).

Or maybe we just gave up on scotch with our first hideous taste of Usher’s Green Stripe, the absolute lowest common denominator blended version of scotch, which I remember upon first tasting surely being something akin to licking an ashtray.

Undaunted by such Bluegrass prejudice, Café Metro‘s Gary Byler, Jr., welcomed the opportunity of creating a scotch themed dinner with help from The Glenlivet Corp. and its delightful, kilted, knowledgeable and entertaining representative, Winston Evans.  I was privileged to be in attendance May 28 for this exclusive presentation, which consisted of a thoughtfully concocted, four-course meal designed to pair exquisitely with a variety of aged Glenlivet vintages.

We were greeted at the bar with a Rob Roy cocktail, which I never even finished, mostly because each successive course was accompanied by an even older, more distinguished pour.  Our caramelized onion and mushroom soup with bacon was served with a Glenlivet 12-year old scotch, which was a perfect match for the sweetness of the onion and the meaty taste and texture of the mushrooms.

An artful pork paté with dried fruit and green olives was served with a 15-year old French Oak Reserve, and our salad of roasted leeks in honey Dijon vinaigrette came with a 16-year old Nàdurra, which is unique even among single malts for its process.  The end result is a slightly more cloudy spirit than its more refined cousins, but it’s the closest one can really come to drinking the stuff straight from the barrel.

If they wanted a marketing slogan for it, it could be “Mother’s Milk for Those in Kilts.”  (You’re welcome; I’ll be sending the invoice soon).

There were four entrée choices – mine was the pan seared duck breast with red chile pear sauce, blue cheese potato cakes and Asian pear relish.  One of my dining companions opted for the orange glazed salmon with parsnips and gingered carrots, and the other two available choices were a scotch and cherry glazed smoked pork chop with creamed leeks and applesauce, and a seared filet of beef with a scotch thyme pan sauce over rice pilaf with cranberries and almonds.  All were presented with a Glenlivet 18-year old, and all of the ingredients and flavors were carefully considered.

Chef Gary’s menu was a masterpiece, even without dessert, for which I wouldn’t have had room, anyway.  As an impoverished student, I don’t really get out much these days, so I ended up spending more time drinking and talking than I did eating, and ended up taking most of my duck home with me.  Fortunately, I just live around the corner, so I could stumble home safely with my to-go box.  It’d been a rather long time since I’d indulged in any scotch . . . and yes, I felt it the next morning.

We were entertained in between each course by the aforementioned Mr. Evans, who has apparently never met a question about scotch he couldn’t answer.  If you have questions about scotch that you’d like answered, The Glenlivet website is packed with information including tasting notes, history, and a “society” for those who are already aficionados.

Given the enthusiastic response from Thursday night’s diners, I think you can look for more such adventurous pairing dinners at Café Metro in the not too distant future.

Coming Soon: Fans of Zaytun Mediterranean Grill will be happy to know that its owners are opening a second location in the Highlands at the old Diamante Bar and Grill location. The new location will specialize in small seafood dishes and will have a bar.

Support Our Farmers: The Food Literacy Project is hosting a Family Farm Day Saturday, June 6, at Oxmoor Farm. Visitors to the event will learn about cooking with fresh produce and making ice cream and bread. There will also be face painting and other activities for children.

Food Fighting the Recession: According to the National Restaurant Association, the outlook for the restaurant industry is very positive after four consecutive months of growth in 2009.

Trading Spaces: If you’re looking for Mark Heil at 60 West Bistro & Martini Bar, you’re in the wrong place. Heil took his new position as head chef of Westport General Store on May 23.

Things To Do This Weekend: Visit the opening of the Beechmont Open Air Market. Drink beer at the Feast of Ale Brew Bash on Saturday at St. Anthony of Padua Church, and then cure your hangover with more beer at Flanagan’s Beer Fest on Sunday.

Expansions: The Wine Rack is moving a couple of blocks down the street to a new, larger location with a courtyard planned for wine tastings. Westport Village’s Wild Eggs has expanded to include an outdoor patio they’re calling the “Chicken Coop” with seating for 28.

Read more from Jessica at her Louisville blog.

For a little place, La Gallo Rosso delivers big on food.

I love Italian cuisine and have a long-held belief:  if you can’t cook the simple stuff, leave the veal in the kitchen.  When I say simple stuff, I mean the staples like Spaghetti & Meatballs or Lasagna. I’m no novice, I cut my teeth on Italian cuisine in places from New York City to the Hill District in St. Louis.

So when me and three of my trusty friends visited La Gallo Rosso, we stuck with the staples….we all ordered Spaghetti & Meatballs.  You used to be able to bring your own libations into La Gallo Rosso and they would serve it to you with a small pouring charge.  Some asshole blew the whistle on them so now they have a wine and beer license so one of our group ordered an Italian beer and the other a glass of Pinot Grigio. I stuck with water as did my other compadre.

Our waiter, Joe, talked a mile a minute but was very enjoyable.  It seems he doubles as a DJ and has his own sound system.  He remembered me from an earlier visit and anyone who remembers me instantly wins points.

After a short wait, Joe brought out warm, fresh-baked bread and dipping plate with olive oil followed quickly by our salads.  The salad presentation is special.  They are shaped like a little crowns with the lettuce tied together with a paper-thin strip of cucumber.  So good, so far.  I went easy on the bread because I wanted to save room for the entree.

As soon as our salads were finished, the Spaghetti & Meatballs made their appearance and my dinner mates were blown away!  Two gigantic meatballs next to a pile of spaghetti noodles smothered in a piquant marinara topped melting shredded cheese. OMG, this is probably the first time in my life a meal intimidated me.

Listen, I did the best I could but I could only knock down one meatball and half my spaghetti.  This was agony!  My taste buds screamed: More!  My stomach said:  Stop!
I take pride in never using a “Doggy Bag” but this meal was more than I could handle and to my shame, I could only manage to eat half my meal.

There wasn’t even room for a cannoli or from what I hear is “The World’s Best Tiramisu”.

Now, back to the Spaghetti & Meatballs.  Like the bread, the pasta was made on premise and tasted like only fresh pasta can.  I would have preferred more kick to the marinara sauce but then again, I like a lot of heat.  Good, not great sauce and could been thicker.  The meatballs?  Absolutely the best I’ve ever had.  Big, perfectly cooked and a combination of pork and beef with a mozzarella center.  I’m guessing on the contents but I’m probably right. Teamed with the spaghetti and marinara sauce, it was better than great.

When the bill came, we all ate for around sixty bucks without the tip.  The meal was worth twice as much and I would have gladly paid it.

La Gallo Rosso is tucked away in the back at a building right next door to the Bristol on Bardstown Road.  The place is small so make sure you call for a reservation.  My wife and I stopped in a week after our initial visit and they were booked at 6:00 on a Thursday.

The address is 1325 Bardstown  Rd and the phone number is 473-0015.  La Gallo Rosso is open for breakfast and lunch and I can’t wait to try them both.

You can pay a lot more in Louisville but if you want the kind of meal your Italian Grandmother used to make you’ll find it at La Gallo Rosso.  Just bring a big appetite and not a whole lot of money.