LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Butchertown Grocery's grilled cheese with tomato soup
Hey! Let’s go out and get some gnocchi for dinner!
These are words one rarely hears, unless one grew up in a family or with friends who had an old-country Italian Nonna around. Hell, there aren’t many people around here who know what a gnocchi is (or, to be pedantic, what gnocchi are); and fewer still who know how to pronounce it.
Perhaps this is why gnocchi have rarely been a thing on the Louisville restaurant scene: Where’s the value in putting an item on the menu that people don’t recognize and find profoundly difficult to pronounce?
So how do you say it? Is it Gonkey? Gee-nockey? Or maybe Gee-notchey? Well, no. Italians say something like “N’yoh-key,” but that’s hard. Wrap your American tongue around “Nockey,” if you prefer, and chances are you’ll get your dish without further recriminations.
But what the heck are they? Check your Italian-American dictionary: “Gnocchi” means “dumplings.” But these Italian nibbles are not the dumplings that your grandmother used to make. Not unless she was an Italian Nonna. Served with your choice of sauce and accompaniments, they’re a comforting alternative to more familiar short pasta.
Or they are if you can find any around here, anyway.
Which brings us to the lunch that my friend Laura and I enjoyed at Butchertown Grocery the other day. They’ve got gnocchi!
This hot new spot in the historic Butchertown building long vacated by the much-missed Blind Pig has generated quite a buzz, perhaps amplified by the presence of Chef Bobby Benjamin (late of Le Coop and, before that, the Seelbach’s Oakroom. A noisy publicity chorus ensued with the big reveal that local music celeb Patrick Hallahan, drummer of My Morning Jacket, is among Benjamin’s financial backers.
It wasn’t immediately clear to me how this related to food, mood or service, although the MMJ connection may have contributed to a vibe that has landed this spot among the city’s latest places to see and be seen. ...
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/?p=5503
See this column also in LEO Weekly:
http://www.leoweekly.com/2016/02/honest ... n-grocery/
Butchertown Grocery
1076 E. Washington St.
742-8315
http://butchertowngrocery.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/butchertowngrocery
Robin Garr's rating: 88 points