A past French restaurant...remember?

I've moved away from Louisville many years ago but LOVE coming back to visit family and eat in all the "Louisville Original" restaurants. We were there last weekend and a friend and I got to talking about restaurants we loved that are no longer there.

One was a French place on (I think) 3th St just north of Broadway. You could see the YMCA across the street. This would have been (I think) in the late 70's or maybe early 80's. The owners were a young Louisville lady who'd met a handsome young French man from Montpellier on an exchange program with our sister city and brought him home with her. His father came along with him. The food was very good, as I recall, and we're thinking the father's name was Robert Taralba (or something like that).

Does anyone remember?

L'artist Sp? Michele was the young man's name.

[Robin Garr]

L'artist Sp? Michele was the young man's name.

L'Artiste. I think. A wonderful place! It was a real hangout for the Louisville Times reporters, and the first bar in the city to feature Armagnac. Sadly, by all accounts, the profits went up the owner's nose and then it was gone.

Was that formerly the Fig Tree?

[Robin Garr]

Was that formerly the Fig Tree?

Now things are getting fuzzy. Wasn't the Fig Tree on the southeast corner of Third and Broadway? L'Artiste was on the northwest corner, across Third from the YMCA.

I believe you're right, Café l'Artiste maybe? Or Café des Artistes? Definitely not the Fig Tree, which was on the diagonal corner from this place, and which was also a great place. I have a vintage menu from there, and am now amazed at their ambition: a different prix fixe menu every night of the month! Knowing what I know now about the food business, I can't imagine how they did it.

I had heard the same rumor about the reason they closed. And as we recalled, they practically just closed the doors and disappeared, leaving a lot of vendors hanging out to dry!

[Robin Garr]

I believe you're right, Café l'Artiste maybe? Or Café des Artistes? Definitely not the Fig Tree, which was on the diagonal corner from this place, and which was also a great place. I have a vintage menu from there, and am now amazed at their ambition: a different prix fixe menu every night of the month! Knowing what I know now about the food business, I can't imagine how they did it.

I had heard the same rumor about the reason they closed. And as we recalled, they practically just closed the doors and disappeared, leaving a lot of vendors hanging out to dry!

Maybe Cafe l'Artiste? I'm pretty sure it wasn't Cafe des Artistes, which would have been awfully hard for us Louisvillians of the '70s to pronounce correctly.

Without naming names, I had the reason for closing pretty much confirmed years later by a food-industry person who was present for the demise ...

[Robin Garr]

Oh, and by the way, Alyce, welcome to the forum! Glad you found your way here.

It was on Third just off the North West corner. They had outside tables on Third st. Which was a first for the city too. I was at Walden Theatre then, which was in the Y building. We went there a lot to have wine after rehearsal. Oh the good old days of underage drinking. I can not confirm the reason for the closing, but it was after all the early 80's.