The Dish: Harvest menu takes a Mardi Gras turn

Chef Coby Lee Ming of Harvest, 624 E. Market St., will call on her Louisiana upbringing this Mardi Gras season, with a limited-time, a la carte menu that brings Bourbon Street to Louisville.

Running through Feb. 21, the Mardi Gras menu includes crispy boudin croquette with sunny-side egg, mustard glaze and spicy greens; BBQ prawns with French bread; smoked vegetable etouffee with crispy grit cakes and arugula salad; beer-braised Creole chicken with roasted garlic chive grits; and gumbo ya-ya with Louisiana rice as well as desserts by pastry chef Patty Knight: mini King Cake, bread pudding with whiskey sauce and an Abita beer float.

Ming recollects living in a “teeny little college town north of New Orleans. We would take weekend trips quite often to New Orleans. … It was always one of my favorite things to do, and the food was the huge thing that brought us there.”

“Just recently we got our first vacation,” Ming says. “It had been a long time since I had gone back and tried some food ... 10 years. My mom still lives down South. We spent four days or so (in New Orleans) and I let my mom pick because she had a nice itinerary. … It was really inspirational.”

Ming says she really wanted good gumbo. “It’s so hard to find. From that first night at Mr. B’s Bistro, I said, ‘We have got to do our version.’” Her favorite gumbo is “so perfectly balanced … velvety and layered, satisfying and rich.”

More information: www.harvestlouisville.com or call (502) 384-9090.

Benjamin leaves Oakroom for new bistro

Bistro Voliere is scheduled to open at 732 E. Market St. in April with Bobby Benjamin, most recently chef de cuisine of The Oakroom, as executive chef. “This is what I love doing, is French cuisine,” says Benjamin. “It’s very, very exciting. I’ve pretty much been working around the clock.”

The bistro, which will offer French comfort food with entrees priced at $20 or less, is being opened by the restaurant development and management team behind Doc Crow’s: Basa owners Steven and Michael Ton, along with master sommelier Brett Davis and attorney Chip Hamm.

“It’s something that I wanted to do ... rustic French, good food, affordable pricing with a Southern twist,” says Benjamin. “Oh my gosh, it’s working out phenomenally. I’m really excited about working with these guys. They have a lot of knowledge.”

The restaurant, in the former 732 Social location, will seat 48. Lunch and dinner will be served Tuesday through Saturday in addition to Saturday brunch and a late-night menu.

Feast BBQ to open in New Albany

Chef Ryan Rogers plans to open Feast BBQ this spring at 116 W. Main St. in downtown New Albany, Ind. In addition to barbecue, the restaurant will feature bourbon (New Albany’s largest selection with more than 50) and locally brewed craft beer.

Rogers graduated from the French Culinary Institute and has worked at Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York and locally at The Oakroom, Zanzabar and the Anchorage Cafe.

“When I was chef at Zbar, we had a smoker out back, and nobody used it,” he says. “We had a big pile of hickory, and I just started using it, and I caught the bug. By the time summer rolled around, I decided barbecue was what I wanted to do. … I’m going to do my own thing.”

Rogers’ inspiration stems from both Momofuku, where he says they did “technically correct food … people loved it. It was food that was approachable, but it was also really, really good,” and from The Oakroom, which he says “was some of the best food I’ve had in Louisville, but it was more of a destination restaurant as opposed to something you go to every week.” With Feast, he will employ “a proper cooking technique while still being really approachable.”

He hopes to open by Derby.

More information: facebook.com/FeastBBQ.

News bites

BoomBozz is holding a contest on its Facebook page, with a year of free pizza going to the person who can guess the winner and exact score of the Super Bowl by 5 p.m. Sunday. www.facebook.com/boombozzfamouspizza.

Corbett’s “An American Place,” 5050 Norton Healthcare Blvd., is offering a new selection of Manhattan cocktails — Upper East Side, A Lucid Dream and Ginger Island.

Garage Bar, 700 E. Market St., has added beignets to the brunch menu.

RYE, 900 E. Market St., is offering a family-style Valentine’s dinner for $40 a person with seatings at 6 and 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 14.

Mozz, 445 E. Market St., has introduced a new entree menu priced at $12 to $28 (except the signature Bistecca, $37.50 with a four-person minimum). Among the new dishes are the Amatriciana, scallops pesto and lemon sole.

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