LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
It's hard to believe Varanese has been around for five years now, particularly when we consider that Azalea, the popular Brownsboro Road eatery that was Chef John Varanese's culinary home before he moved into these quarters in 2007, still remains vacant and, frankly, is looking more than a little shabby. (I'm told that new tenants may finally be on the way.)
Meanwhile, Varanese, who settled into his eponymous new establishment (a former service station, later Red Lounge) without missing a beat, is going strong on Frankfort Avenue.
What did you like about Azalea? The pretty dining room? The outstanding al fresco option? The appealing bill of fare that was always creative but never over-the-top? The attractive bar and decent beverage program? The music that accentuated the mood without overwhelming it? Or just the plain and simple reality that it was a comfortable place to hang out, drink or dine, or best of all, to do all three of those good things?
Happily, even with the shift from the inner suburbs to an urban "restaurant row," Varanese has assimilated all those concepts in ways that make fans of Azalea happy while accomplishing something completely different.
The space is small. We are, after all, talking about a former service station. But a remarkable "water wall" tinkling down one side of the dining room somehow expands the space. So does the addition of a small, cozy bar and more private dining room connected to the main dining room.
Even more striking than the water wall, perhaps, is the serpentine glass wall that turns the dining area into a roughly triangular space, a transparent curtain that -- even on relatively warm evenings during the recent heat wave -- can be rolled back, opening the entire dining room into a patio where the distinction between indoors and out almost disappears, except insofar as blissful air conditioning still seems to work in the portion under roof.
John Varanese, who this year joined the growing crowd of local chefs who've made the trek to New York's James Beard House, continues to please with an eclectic bill of fare, consistent in style although changing frequently to take advantage of fresh seasonal produce.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/varan ... -tradition
And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/varanese-ke ... -tradition
Varanese
2106 Frankfort Ave.
899-9904
http://varanese.com
Rating: 86