by Robin Garr » Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:46 pm
I really like the quartet that Justin has given you. You might also consider checking out the NuLu neighborhood in general, since it seems to incorporate a lot of the newer energy around town; perhaps Decca or Rye, where you'll find bourbon and Kentucky traditions incorporated into a wider sensibility.
Please don't buy too carelessly into the notion that we're "Southern." Visiting writers tend to go there, perhaps in part because some of our industry thinks it might be beneficial to latch on to that trend rather than celebrate who we are, a distinctly urban place with an industrial edge, fed by a combination of migrant streams down the Ohio from the Northeast, up the Mississippi and Ohio from New Orleans, and across the Appalachians and up from the farm. It's a creative blend, but not entirely Southern; Kentucky did not secede from the Union during the Civil War and Louisville in particular, with its large German, Irish and Italian Catholic population, had little interest in all that.