Loving in the Lou

Welcome to The Enthusiast, a newsletter thats all yum, no yuck! Every weekend, I'm sharing five things I'm loving right now. The challenge for me is keeping it to just five...

This special Sunday edition is coming to you a little later than usual, but for good reason–we were in Louisville for a wedding this weekend and I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow morning!

I know a lot of folks love to visit Louisville, and while I haven't lived here in nearly 20 years and have no intention of returning, I absolutely agree it's a great place to visit. I always have to caveat my thoughts on the Ville with the fact that I grew up there, went to middle and high school there, made many bad teenage decisions there, and am in constant fear of running into someone I went to high school with anytime I'm there. Louisville has considered itself "weird" for a while (spoiler alert: it's not), but there are little pockets of cool and quirky sprinkled throughout the many neighborhoods and suburbs, so here are my favorite spots in and around the River City.

21C Louisville

They're all over the place now, including Cincinnati, Nashville, Chicago, and as far afield as Oklahoma City, but the first and original 21C Museum Hotel was founded in downtown Louisville, Kentucky in 2006, and it was a something of an oddity at the time. Was it a boutique hotel? A contemporary art museum? A fancy restaurant? Yes to all of the above. I saw my first Kara Walker exhibit at 21C Louisville and my first Kehinde Wiley painting at the Cincinnati location. And while I've only eaten at Proof on Main, the Louisville restaurant, a couple of times, it felt like the first place that really woke up the rest of the city to the reality of needing to modernize and be more than just "weird," more than just a segregated city built around an annual horse race and bourbon.

The downtown Louisville revitalization has taken an incredibly long time, it seems, primarily because Louisville has never really prized its downtown or taken care of it much in the past. There is definitely still extreme poverty, institutional racism, and carceral violence that the city must work on to make it a liveable, lovable place for everyone, not just tourists with money. 21C is absolutely an expensive place to stay, but they engage extensively with the community and art is always available to experience (its Text Rain interactive installation was 'grammable before Instagram was even a thing). Even if you don't stay at 21C Louisville, check out the museum and grab a bite at Proof to get a feel for the place that helped launch Louisville's modernization, spawned a boutique art hotel empire, and is still going strong to this day.

Monnik Brewing

Another thing to know about Louisville is that it's basically an entire county of loosely-connected neighborhoods, townships, and suburbs. Downtown is not the central hub of Louisville, by a long shot. The Highlands are the hipster stretch of close-set craftsman homes with head shops, coffee shops, and vintage shops (among many others). NuLu is the eastern side of downtown that feeds into the Highlands, and nestled somewhere there in the middle is Germantown, a mostly residential area with the largest collection of shotgun houses in the city and Monnik Brewing, my favorite craft brewery and pub in the entire city.

They have a European-inspired menu and tap list, with a variety of styles and flavors for n00bs and snobs alike. I've enjoyed their Belgian ales, Pilsner, and Märzen–the beers are crisp, clean, and super-fresh. The food is fairly simple but flavorful with a distinct German flair: schnitzel and pretzels, obviously, but they also have great vegetarian and vegan options, including a jackfruit rice bowl and a cauliflower banh mi. There are other, bigger breweries in the city, and there is far more focus on bourbon and spirits throughout the area, but if you want a great meal and delicious beer, Monnik is absolutely the place to go.

Carmichael's Bookstore

Carmichael's has been Louisville's independent bookstore since the late 1970s, and now with two locations, they show no signs of slowing down. A truly local, family-owned business, Carmichael's helped propel Highlands growth and expansion in the 80's and 90's, serving almost as the official marker to welcome you to the area with a local coffee shop and international restaurant on either side. They offer a consignment program for local authors, host events with local and national authors, and offer a smart, well-stocked selection of all kinds of books, from the latest best sellers to small and indie-press darlings. Their Staff Picks are my absolute favorite, selected by the booksellers with brief write-ups of why they chose them. It's so fun and interesting to see who recommends what, and makes the shop an even more inviting place to shop and find a new favorite. It's an absolute treat.

River Road

The common wisdom in Louisville is that it takes at least 30 minutes to get anywhere. When I was in high school, tooling around to meet up with my fellow miscreant misfits, I avoided expressways and drove the more scenic and sometimes roundabout routes to get from my sleepy suburban home on the east side to the Highlands and Old Louisville. My favorite route from downtown back to the 'burbs was along River Road, which originates downtown and winds alongside the Ohio River northeast to Harrod's Creek and the surrounding wooded areas.

The new Waterfront Botanical Gardens are there now at the start, east of Waterfront Lawn, but there have always been public parks and soccer fields as you drive eastward, along with the Louisville Water Tower park, the largest King Fish location, the Patriots Peace Memorial, and Captain's Quarters around the bend, ending in Prospect, one of the wealthiest areas in the state, right on the Oldham County border (Pizza Man Who Will Not Be Named lives there). I usually turned off on Wolf Pen Branch before then: a winding, narrow, and densely wooded road that spits you out suddenly at the borders of surburbia again.

I never got out and actually did much of anything on River Road, but I loved driving it, especially at night and in the summer, with the windows down and the cicadas singing. It's a little slice of the real Kentucky that Louisville tries to dissociate itself from as a liberal stronghold in a deep red state–more than a little wild and woody, sparsely populated with room to stretch and breathe, old money next to industrial areas next to traditional restaurants next to abandoned sprawl and expanses of soccer fields, an edge of danger when the river gets high, and yes, 30 minutes from everything else in the city.

St. James Court Art Show

Saint James Court is an enclave of historic Victorian-era homes in Old Louisville, between 3rd and 4th Streets, just north of the University of Louisville. And every year, on the first weekend of October, it hosts an art fair that spans several blocks and features more than 600 artists and craftspeople working in dozens of mediums and for every budget and taste. Painting, glassworks, ceramics, jewelry, photography, woodworking, fiber arts, and much more are highlighted the entire weekend, rain or shine, since 1957. Need a cute, handmade glazed mug for a friend's birthday? You got it. How about a 12-foot bronze sculpture of a horse or a wall-sized oil painting? If you've got a few thousand in cash on hand, it's yours. It's the perfect (and often packed) weekend of art and historical architecture to experience with 250,000+ annual attendees. It almost always falls on my birthday weekend, so it was a regular birthday treat for me and my mom. I haven't been in several years, and I miss it, so I'm planning a triumphant return in 2023.

Other Stuff to Love in the 502

🎨 Speed Art Museum - A truly wonderful museum right near the university, the Speed is the oldest and largest in the entire state of Kentucky. I haven't been since it expanded in 2016, but the collection includes classical and modern paintings and sculptures from the likes of Picasso, Monet, Rembrandt, and Matisse, along with Cassatt and Sargent, but they've also increased their inclusion of Black, women, and Kentucky artists along with rotating exhibits. I will absolutely be checking out their upcoming Mucha exhibit this winter.

🎭 Iroquois Amphitheater - Nestled into one of Louisville's largest parks on the South side, this venue has hosted everything from classic rock reunion tours to Werq the World drag performances. It was a originally WPA project in the late 1930's and it's cleverly tucked away from the road to showcase the gorgeousness of Louisville's public parks (designed by Frederick Law Olmstead) along with their integration and importance to the neighborhoods around them.

🍩 Honey Creme Donut Shop - This tiny slice of hole-y heaven is technically across the river in New Albany, Indiana, and you can pick up a huge array of donut types and flavors, hot and fresh out the kitchen starting a 4:00 am every day of the week. My lovely in-laws introduced me to them years ago, and they make a glazed yeast ring that is literally the size of your head with a light crusty glaze that cracks open with a satisfying blast of sweet steam if you can get there early enough to snag one. They're among the best donuts I've ever had in my entire life, and I'm a donut connoisseur with a demon sweet tooth.

So that's it for this Louisville-edition of The Enthusiast! Thank you for reading – if you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up here (it's free, and I'm planning on adding subscriber-only content in the near future). If you're enjoying this newsletter, send it to a friend!

Until next weekend, ignore all those other places that claim to be River City, learn the difference between bourbon and whiskey, and acquaint yourself with the history and real meaning behind our state song before you drunkenly belt it out on the first Saturday of next May.

Have a lovely week!
LKH