Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/300717
8 4 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.14 food drink THE SPREAD The burgoo ($7), which the menu describes as "Rabbit, Mutton, This is Kentucky so You Defnitely Know the Rest," comes with butter-soaked cornbread. "Food around here, for the most part, is contemporary American: Jack Fry's, Marketplace. I love those and have mad respect for those," head chef Dustin Staggers says. "People are cooking local food, but not food that locals grew up eating." He's quick to credit some of his favorite burgers from around town but isn't humble about his own creation, the Monkey Wrench Burger ($9, top right), made of ground sirloin, skirt steak and brisket, house-cured black-pepper bacon, fried spicy pickles, pickled red onions and Creole mustard aioli on a Nord's Bakery bun, served with house-cut French fries. The mutton ($15, left) comes soaking in barbecue sauce, and the fried chicken ($14, top left) is butter- and four-basted in an iron skillet. Both go well with collard greens ($4) and grits ($4). Each "side" is more than enough to share. Staggers owns a tax-lien business that his brother now handles, allowing Staggers to cook without pay — his conditions being that the other chefs get paid well and that he has full control of the menu. Humphrey and Staggers were recently inspired by a Nashville spot called Monell's. "A bunch of men in hockey jerseys sat next to a family at the same table," Humphrey says. "One of the men asked a 10-year-old kid if he could pass the potatoes." The owner- chef duo has started hosting "down-home Sundays" with family- style dinners at a communal table and no menu. Their catch phrase is "reinventing the art of Southern hospitality." Left to right: burgoo, collard greens and grits. 80-112 BACK.indd 84 4/18/14 11:31 AM