LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Toast on Market's spicy chipotle grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
I should have known that Toast on Market's spicy chipotle grilled cheese sandwich was going to be hot, because spicy chipotle.
But I didn't quite expect flames to come shooting out my mouth while my endorphins took off in a wild and crazy rush around my brain. Wooee! That sandwich is HOT! In fact, even the accompanying bowl of roasted tomato soup boasted a distinct kick of cayenne. Let me tell you, that was one feisty lunch.
I've followed Toast on Market since the very start, when the Louisville branch opened in its first location on Louisville's East Market Street in the summer of 2006, before "that artsy gentrifying district on East Market" was widely known as NuLu. (I still kind of like TAGDOEM better, but that's probably just me.)
Its arrival delighted a lot of people, apparently, and Toast was quickly anointed as a prime brunch alternative to Lynn's Paradise Cafe, which even then was looking a little shaky. Toast has remained popular, and the lovely patio that it inherited when it moved a block west to the former Artemisia space in 2011 apparently just made a good thing even better.
Three years later, in a move so brilliant that it seemed obvious - after the fact - the same owners landed on East Market Street in New Albany, allowing use of the same name and the same menu in another renovated old building in another gentrifying zone that was also just starting to heat up.
One of the owners, Amy Wepf, I think, or possibly her sister Lisa - my apologies to them both for my uncertainty - wandered out during our visit and, in casual conversation, mentioned that they were thinking about opening a third location on Market in Jeffersonville. This turned out to be a joke, perhaps a standing joke, but she had me going for a minute there.
She was more serious, though, when she spoke of a fascinating study of Toast's sales figures that led to a less-than-surprising conclusion: Taken on average, people in New Albany - or, at least, New Albanians who dine at Toast - have significantly different menu preferences than Toast's NuLu regulars.
Accordingly, they're thinking seriously about setting up separate menus for each location one day soon, bringing an end to nearly six years of menu mirroring. New Albanians are perhaps a bit more meat-and-potatoes than their hip NuLu neighbors. Pot roast is an easy sell on the north side of the river. Pan bagnat, not so much.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/toast ... s-our-fire
And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/toast-new-a ... s-our-fire
Toast on Market
141 E. Market St.
New Albany, Indiana
(812) 941-8582
toastonmarket.com