Review: Cafe Lou Lou Highlands

Linguine with Meatballs at Cafe Lou Lou Highlands. (Credit: Chris Hall)

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I hope Café Lou Lou never grows up. When Chef Clay Wallace first opened shop on Frankfort Avenue, in 2004, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the concept. The atmosphere was as colorful, noisy, and exuberant as a county fair – or an elementary school cafeteria. The walls were so bright that lighting seemed redundant. The artworks on the wall were loopy riffs on pop culture.

I had trouble penetrating the zany spirit of the place and recognizing that the same spirit of childlike fun was also what distinguishes Wallace’s cooking.

"Ah, but I was so much older then …"

By the time Wallace relocated to St Matthews (106 Sears Ave.), I had grown quite a bit younger. And now that he’s opened a second location in the Highlands, I’m ready to spend quite a bit of my second childhood in his culinary playground.

The new space is as vivid as its predecessors – a hyper-stimulating mix of blues, greens, reds and oranges. On busy nights, the noise level is still high enough confound soft-spoken conversation.

And though the Highlands menu is ever-so-slightly smaller than that in St. Matthews, it’s all in an excellent cause: The Highlands location offers delivery services. For those who live in the loosely defined (and flexible) delivery – within some three to four miles – this is momentous news, since very few delivery options match the quality of scope of Café Lou Lou’s menu.

One night, for instance, we started with luscious blue cheese polenta ($7.50), Finely ground yellow corn meal had been shaped into a thick, moist slab, draped with needle-thin spears of crisp-tender grilled asparagus and slivers of red onion, and sauced with a pungent red puree of roasted red peppers. Another night, a velvety cup of crawfish-corn chowder was just the thing to brighten a cold rainy night – a bright , chunky soup studded with succulent bits of crawfish, firm kernels of corn, and enough chunks of mellow, tender sausage to fill every spoonful.

The restaurant’s name reflects connections between Louisville and Louisiana that are reflected in items like shrimp and grits with Cajun spices ($8.50) and a jambalaya-style pasta dish constructed with crawfish, shrimp, and smoked sausage ($8.75 for a reasonable portion; $14.75 for an extravagant amount of food. And there are plenty of Mediterranean dishes, including gyros ($9.25) and a superb flatbread appetizer made by topping crisp lavash with spinach and tomatoes, cheese, and a deft touch of smoked salt $6.25).

But the heart of the menu is given over to very fine takes on Italian-American comfort food. Golf ball-sized meatballs are finely-ground studies in taste and texture, boldly flavored with fresh Italian herbs, and served with thick, flavorful marinara and linguini that’s been cooked just enough ($8.75/$14.75). Those meatballs show up as well in a generously sized calzone ($10.50 and in a man—sized meatball sandwich ($9.25).

Speaking of sandwiches, house-made focaccia is sturdy enough – and big enough – to frame a massive sandwich made from tender smoked pork tenderloin, abundantly dressed with enough roasted red peppers, spinach, and sweet-spicy Russian dressing that any lesser bread wouldn’t be up to the task ($8.95).

Sadly, I live outside the delivery area – but given that Café Lou Lou offers an outstanding collection of draft and bottled beers, I don’t mind dropping by to find out what the season has brought from BBC, Schlafly, or Ommegang. And on wintry nights, a bottle of beer goes perfectly with a hearty gourmet pizza, especially a remarkable Potato Pizza influenced by the simple purity of French country cooking: thin slices of roasted rosemary potatoes are attractively baked in a bed of mozzarella and smoked provolone, sauced with marinara, decorated with Roma tomatoes, studded with a few chunks of sausage, and bedded down on a sturdy, well-engineered crust with a puffy golden edge ($11.95, $17.50).

Fortunately, Café Lou Lou has all the tools necessary to carry the extras home – otherwise most diners might not feel inclined to sample Pastry Chef Marsha Lynch’s closing courses – and based on a supremely light tiramisu (shared by four of us) with just the right ticklish bite of alcohol, that would be altogether too grown up ($6.50).

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