Review: Blue Lagoon

Saffron shimp scampi. (Credit: Michael Hayman)

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2280 Bardstown Road

Small plates have rapidly become a big deal in Louisville. No wonder. Chefs relish the challenge of bundling intense fusions of flavor and texture in tightly edited packages. Diners love the stimulating pleasure of grazing on a half dozen distinctive dishes at a single meal. Restaurateurs understand that it’s easy to keep food costs down in little dishes where culinary imagination is the main ingredient. And budget-minded customers love to look at a menu and see a slew of alluring dishes priced under $10.

Blue Lagoon is the latest case in point. It opened a month or so ago on Bardstown Road in the former home of the late, lamented Diamante. The owner, Remy Pouranfar, comes from a family that’s also connected to Zaytun Mediterranean Grill and Sharom’s. The space remains one of the best restaurant make-overs in the city. The white-tiled façade of an old Diamond Gas Station has been maintained pretty much intact. A dapper bar sits in what was once a service bay. And the main dining area is a long, lofty space where the pumps once sat. When the mood is right, and the lights are low, the place has the feel of an Italian piazza at dusk – a feel that can vary from placid calm to frenzied energy, when the crowds pour in.

The Blue Lagoon menu brings a Persian touch to the pan-Arabic meze tradition (or mezze or mazza, or, as Blue Lagoon’s menu has it, mazze), where small plates aren’t simply precursors to something else -- they aren’t “appetizers,” tapas, or “bar food.” Rather, they’re the building blocks of a meal that can veer in whichever direction fancy leads. And at Blue Lagoon, fancy leads in surprisingly delicate directions.

I have yet to see a vegetable or garnish that wasn’t carved or julienned with the sort of precision you’d expect to find in the inner workings of a Swiss watch. Decorative sauces are brushed across plates like washes of watercolor paint. Fried, seared, grilled, and stewed dishes arrive at the table looking like hand-crafted works of the moment (an approach that could lead to some delays on a busy night).

Much of the menu is given over to seafood. Three translucent slices of cool, house-cured salmon are curled around warm, toasted triangles of pita to make salmonsicles ($7) that have a faint undercurrent of saffron. Medallions of cod are lightly breaded, lightly fried, dressed with a creamy, zesty tartar sauce, and served on a darkly colored pretzel bun that adds heft and texture to the petite fish sandwiches that here are called Sliders ($5.50, for two). Eight or so tiger shrimp are sautéed in garlic, herbs, and olive oil that trumpets a saffron infusion ($7). And a recent scallop special – a creamy, pan-seared gem of a scallop perched on a spicy dollop of white beans and kale, with a few gleaming pearl onions in the mix – was an earthy, ethereal study in surf and turf cuisine.

Meat dishes focus on lamb. A spicy lamb chili is garnished with a meltingly tender lamb chop ($5). A visually arresting dish called The Olive Tree is based around a gently charred cob of grilled corn that’s rinsed in salt water and brushed with olive oil, then pierced with skewers that hold house-marinated olives, squares of red and green bell peppers, and a skewer of fiery hot lamb meatballs spiced up with crushed red peppers and smoky chipotle, tempered by a smear of tangy tzatziki. Vegetarians will find a handful of small plates as well – grilled bruschetta, sweet potato fries, grilled marinated vegetables, and a vegetarian take on Berenje Daryaii (described on the menu as a Persian version of paella; it’s also available with seafood and sausage, in portions for 2-4, at $16.50 per person).

And yes, desserts are delicate, too – at least a scoop of vanilla ice cream was, garnished with buttery, cinnamon-sprinkled toasted flatbread and a dose of saffron honey.

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