Blue Dog Bakery & Café
The Blue Dog Café is another restaurant that, amidst the current health crazed culture, devotes itself to serving the freshest food possible. Yet, even in the competitive food industry, they come out a cut above the rest. How is this possible? Partially because they are a small business and can funnel their expertise into one restaurant instead of a chain, and also because their food is brilliant. First, imagine going to a busy, yet personal location. Many customers drive down bustling Frankfort ave., on towards the Highlands. After attempting to parallel park, people walk past boutiques and bookstores and finally stop at a store front that is well decorated with potted plants and ferns. Inside the Blue Dog Café is a wooden counter where a smiling cashier takes orders. The sound of tinkling silverware and lunchtime chatter fills the air. Baskets of freshly baked bread sit on the counters and glass display windows let customers admire an assortment of baked treats. The café feels like a classier, more refined Panera Bread.
The co-owner, Kit Garret, agreed to talk some about the background of her restaurant. She said the café's been around for seventeen years. She and her husband ran a restaurant in Washington State, and when they moved to Louisville in 1995, they wanted to start another one. They spent a long time looking for a location, and finally found it in 1998. Now, they are a well established restaurant, and she said their signature items are their pizzas, turkey sandwich, and poached eggs levin. Their overall goal is to feature as many local products as they can and serve the local community. They accomplish this by baking fresh bread daily, Tuesday through Saturday. They also own a farm and use produce from the farm in as many dishes as possible.
The biggest development in the quest for fresh ingredients is taking place in a few months. The owners raise hogs, Red Wattle Hogs to be exact, and they are opening a butcher shop. This butcher shop, the Red Hog, will be about a block away from the Blue Dog Café. It will sell cuts of meat and small sample dishes called tapas. It will also supply the café with fresh meat. The pigs are actually fed with leftovers from the café, making a kind of humorous local food cycle. The Red Hog plans to open in January, so make sure to go to the Blue Dog Café to experience meat acquired just a little way down the road.
Before the butcher shop opens, however, the
food does not struggle to impress. I can vouch firsthand for the chicken salad sandwich. It came with a healthy side of wheat berries, walnuts, celery, green onions, lima beans, currants, and cherry vinaigrette. This side comes with every sandwich and is unique to this restaurant. It is wholesome and filling, and has a sweet aftertaste. The chicken salad croissant, a honey-drizzled concoction filled with chicken salad and lettuce held together with a bamboo skewer, had a rich, high quality flavor of ingredients that compliment each other rather than overpower. I also tried a pizza, made with chicken, potatoes, caramelized onions and rosemary oil. It tasted like the cheesy potatoes that a grandma would make, only on a pizza. For dessert I tried coconut macaroons that were so chewy they made it impossible to eat in one bite. Customers have no choice but to savor them, which is nothing to complain about.
Overall, the Blue Dog Café is a real gem for those who can find and appreciate it. It is the embodiment of a local, family run restaurant. The food is delicious and carefully prepared, the ingredients are fresh, and a customer feels like person instead of a number after eating there.
