Westport General Store

Westport General's bison rib-eye was cooked to order and fork tender. It came with collard greens and Weisenberg grits. (Credit: Michael Hayman, The Courier-Journal)

Technically, you could zip from Louisville to the Westport General Store at Interstate speeds, seeing the countryside as nothing but a blurred series of green exit signs. But that would be a waste of perfectly good gasoline and even better scenery. Better to make it a slow trip, taking in the details on a lazy off-to-dinner road trip. Thoroughbreds canter and bison herds rumble alongside U.S. 42. A belted kingfisher swoops down to scoop a meal from 18 Mile Creek.

Stick to a slow pace and by the time you get to Westport, you'll be in just the right frame of mind to sit on the long shaded porch, or maybe to step inside, where the walls are bedecked with old photos of folks gathered around churches and soup pots. Tables are decorated with bright paper flowers poking up from old-timey soup cans. Glass refrigerator cases and a few shelves of grocery items are reminders of the days when the Westport General Store was, indeed, a general store.

These days, it's a fine, friendly regional restaurant that cooks up Southern-style cuisine with a rigorous eye for detail. And summer -- when chef Harold Baker and owner Will Crawford have access to all the riches of local gardens -- is a superb time to visit.

We started a recent meal with selections from a list of "Southern Tapas" that run the gamut from childlike whimsy (fried bologna and white cheddar on white bread with fresh tomatoes, $5) to classic cuisine -- a pair of pan-seared crab cakes ($9) that were as fine as you'd find along any Southern beach. Chunky, but light as a feather, they were infused with the delicate flavors of finely minced onion, red bell peppers and celery, amped up with a seasoning mix fragrant enough that, strictly speaking, the accompanying pink-tinged aioli seemed a bit superfluous.

Equally fine was a baby Hot Brown ($8) that draped smoky bacon, freshly roasted turkey and crisp toast points under an ultra-light Mornay and juicy slices of tomato.

The summer menu includes 15 entree options, including a handful of vegetarian choices like vegan black-eyed pea stew with collard greens ($11) and eggplant Napoleon ($14).

Pasta pomodoro ($11) was a fresh-from-the-garden assembly of tender, bow-tie pasta, fresh tomatoes, whole cloves of garlic, slews of fresh basil and a generous amount of peppery olive oil. In a crowning touch, the whole thing is given a light sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, then popped in a hot oven to form a faintly crisp surface

Other entrees include a shrimp and grits ($17), a Southern-fried pork chop ($16) and a fine regional riff on saltimbocca ($17) -- they replace the classic prosciutto with Finchville country ham, but the result is still a dish that, in the spirit of the Italian original, "jumps in the mouth."

A bison rib-eye ($25), from local, range-raised stock, was full-flavored, but tender enough to cut with a fork, and perfectly cooked to order -- its only flaw a streak of dried-up béarnaise that had, it seems, been grilled along with the steak. But there was no flaw to be found in the sides -- mellow leaves of collard greens and a rich, creamy scoop of Weisenberger grits.

The night we visited, strawberry pie ($5) was on the menu -- made with strawberries picked from Will Crawford's garden. The crust was soft and stained with juice -- but it was fine juice indeed. Fresh and fragrant enough to tempt me with another slow trip out to taste more of summer's garden glory.

Freelance restaurant critic Marty Rosen's review appears on Saturdays. You can e-mail him at cjdining@gmail.com.

Add a comment