LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Want to go someplace classy for dinner and you don't mind dressing up a bit to enjoy it? Consider Henry's Place, which arrived last month with a "business casual" dress code in tow.
"We hope the ladies will want to dress up a bit and that the gentlemen will occasionally throw on that blue blazer that's always handy," advises its website. Shorts, T-shirts, ball caps, torn blue jeans and flip-flops are on the no-no list: "We would really like it if you saved your blue jeans for the more casual dining spots," the dress code rules state, warning would-be style offenders, "Patrons who are not suitably attired will be offered space in the bar area, if available."
Fair enough! I slipped on my made-in-Italy blue blazer and added a silk Ferragamo power tie to bolster my case. Mary and our friend Lucinda and I made reservations, dressed up and arrived on time, and damned if they didn't send us straight to the bar.
This was kind of a downer, and the smallish round bar table wasn't really made for elegant dinner service, either. But the bar chairs were exceptionally comfortable, and at least we could see the swells in the main room enjoying their view of the partially open kitchen, where a coordinated team of five chefs did their best to emulate the 21 formal kitchen stations of Chef Auguste Escoffier's formal Brigade de Cuisine, albeit in a streamlined form that Henry's Chef Charles Reed calls "American Brigade."
The venue, the former Mike Best Meats, is now an attractive dining room with understated decor, with white draped tables placed rather close along banquettes that run the length of the room. Attractive flatware comes rolled in brown cloth napkins, not formally set, a practice that seems a bit at variance with the otherwise upscale mood.
The restaurant, by the way, is named after "Marse" Henry Watterson, namesake of the Watterson Expressway, who was editor of The Courier-Journal from Reconstruction through World War I. There is (or at least used to be) a great painting of Marse Henry in a Sixth and Broadway conference room, rising from his roll-top desk while angrily grasping a sheet of news copy as if to yell, "Who wrote this crap?"
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/dress ... nrys-place
And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/dress-and-d ... %99s-place
Henry's Place
4864 Brownsboro Center
690-6585
henrysplacelouisville.com
Rating: 90