Louisville Medicine Volume 63, Issue 2 | Página 18

M

esh, the recently
opened restaurant located at
3608 Brownsboro Road,
Louisville, Kentucky
40207 is our neighborhood eatery. We want it
to succeed. The owners of
the restaurant, Cunningham Restaurant Group,
are located in Indianapolis where the original
Mesh has been and remains a very successful
enterprise. Louisville was the choice for a second restaurant and the location is the site of
the original Bauer’s restaurant, located at the
corner of Mockingbird Gardens Drive and US
42 in Crescent Hill.

RESTAURANT
REVIEW

MESH

3608 Brownsboro Road
Louisville, KY 40207
502-632-4421
www.meshrestaurants.com

Reviewed by
Elizabeth A. Amin, MD

16

LOUISVILLE MEDICINE

The original Bauer’s restaurant closed its
doors many years ago and the building, owned
by the Bauer family, underwent modernization.
It housed initially La Paloma, a restaurant that
my mother loved to go to, and subsequently
Azalea, which our family also enjoyed. Azalea
closed its doors in 2007 and the empty building
remained a source of rumor and mystery for
the locals until it was razed in 2013. Finally
excavators moved in and we were able to see for
ourselves the brand new building taking shape.
For me, the custom design of the restaurant is
an important point in relation to the dining
experience. The exterior has been well done.
The main entrance and the entrance to the well
designed patio dining area are located on the
opposite side of the building from US 42 and
face away from Mockingbird Gardens Drive.
Parking is ample if you include the Sutherland
hardware store parking spaces, and we are always delighted to see the parking lot full even
on weekday nights. The downside to all this
activity has been the difficulty in making dinner
reservations with less than two weeks’ notice.

on the street side of the building but there is
no noise from the outside. To access the main
dining area one passes by the well lit bar area
which was full the night we were there. Our
table was close to the chef ’s finishing area and
our guests were seated so that they could watch
everything going on, something they really
seemed to enjoy. Our waiter appeared promptly
to fill our water glasses and welcome us to the
restaurant. We asked him to give us a little time
to decide on our drink orders. He returned
shortly thereafter to take those orders and run
through the evening’s specials with us. Our
guests’ first surprise was that no complementary bread, rolls or biscuits were offered. Our
drinks were satisfactorily delivered and our
questions concerning some of the menu items
were resolved. One of our guests’ concerns was
the addition of bacon or pork belly to many
of the items. In reality these are often added
in the finishing process and are not integral
to the dishes themselves. We had no problem
resolving this issue.
On the other hand we were not very adventurous in our choices. One of us had lobster
bisque which was delicious, one had the beet
salad which was very enjoyable. For entrees,
two of us each had braised lamb shank, one
of which was ordered without pork belly, and
the other two had the 8oz filet mignon which,
for that evening was dressed with crab in the
bordelaise sauce. Prices were $30 and $34 respectively. The lamb shank with white beans
and pistachio gremolata was a particularly
generous serving.

My husband and I were able to snag a table
for lunch, without a reservation, the week after
the restaurant opened in February this year, but
essentially gave up on dinner reservations until
May. Friends of ours were staying with us the
night of Saturday, May 23, on their way back
from Florida to Wisconsin. Since I always get
three to four weeks’ notice of their travel plans
I immediately took the opportunity of booking
a table for the four of us for dinner at 6:45 p.m.
the night of their stay.

All desserts are $7 and we shared the orange
- brown sugar cheesecake and the bread pudding; both very filling but to the taste of those
ordering them. Two of us finished off with
regular and decaf coffee which was served hot
but added nothing to the meal. On our previous
visit, my husband and I had ordered the mushroom and goat-cheese strudel and the Reuben
from the lunch menu. Each of these items was
outstanding and both of them are on the dinner
menu. Detailed descriptions of the menus for
brunch, lunch, dinner and desserts are available on the website www.meshrestaurants.com
(click on the Louisville restaurant icon.) Unfortunately for the vegetarians amongst us, the
current menus are not enticing.

The reception staff were welcoming, had no
difficulty finding our reservation and took us
directly to our table. The main dining area is

In general our service experience was satisfactory but not outstanding. Our final observation was that the noise level in the main