LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Amid all the recent angst about Louisville’s Whiskey Row on West Main Street and the arguments over whether these historic buildings are in danger of falling down, it’s instructive to step into Doc Crow’s impressive quarters. Just a door or two west of the fenced-off Whiskey Row buildings at the center of the controversy, Doc Crow’s is housed in an 1870s-era whiskey warehouse and distillery that looks sturdy enough to withstand a tornado, or even a repeat performance by the New Madrid fault. Its walls are thick, its floors heavy wood, and the high exposed ceilings in the back rooms built with massive joists intended to support row after row of oaken barrels filled with Kentucky nectar.
Dilapidated? Hardly. It would take more than a few years of neglect to weaken this sturdy old building’s bones. With its beautiful renovation as Doc Crow’s, it appears good to go for another century or two.
Doc Crow’s, subtitled “Southern Smokehouse and Raw Bar,” bills its culinary niche as “the freshest flavors of the American South.” This Southern shtick might have come as a surprise to the sturdy German and Irish immigrants from the Northeast who populated Louisville during Whiskey Row’s heyday, making it a booming commercial center of mid-19th century America and keeping it in the Union during the Civil War.
What’s more, says the Filson club, Whiskey Row — originally the title for the entire stretch of Main Street from around First to Eighth streets — is home to one of the finest assemblages of cast-iron architecture in the United States, second only to New York City.
Regardless of whether our accent is Southern or not, Doc Crow’s indisputably offers up tempting and well-prepared Southern-style fare.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/south ... ow-ordered
And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/southern-fa ... ow-ordered
Doc Crow’s Southern Smokehouse & Raw Bar
127 W. Main St.
587-1626
http://www.doccrows.com
Rating: 91
