Restaurant: AP Crafters Kitchen and Bar, Louisville, Kentucky
Hello world of gastropubbing.
It’s such a foodie vs. food world and the gastropub is what has emerged to incorporate a high quality dining menu with the feel of a public house. It’s an amazing concept and one that I’ve witnessed through the wonderful world of Travel Channel shows as well as Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare makeovers where some shady joint becomes a happening gastropub.
The word itself fascinated me and I really, really wanted to go to one.
So, one afternoon following a large 5K race through the streets of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, my roommate and I decided to give AP Crafters Kitchen and Bar a try. Billed as a gastropub, I was quite thrilled with the idea of dining there for lunch and getting a feel for their food and service.
We walked in around lunch time and were greeted after a moment of waiting at the front. The hostess had been ducked under the front bar and didn’t hear us enter. We were shown to a table in the restaurant, which has high ceilings and hardwood floors. Televisions dotted some of the walls with whatever games or sports shows were going on at the time. I am not a sports person unless it’s soccer, and I know it wasn’t soccer. We were given a moment to look over the menu. Our waiter came over to take our drink order…which we stuck with water…and when he returned with that we were ready to order.
Naturally, as is usual if it is on the menu, my roommate ordered their Fish and Fries ($12.50) for her meal, especially intrigued by the fact that the cod was done in a cornmeal crust instead of a heavy batter.
As for me, as I’m a gluten-intolerant vegetarian, it took me a moment longer to find something for me to eat. I finally decided on a bowl of their Simple Tomato Soup ($4.00), which the menu says is made fresh daily, the Spinach Salad ($7.50), without the blue cheese on it, and their Fresh Fruit and Berries side ($3.00). It had been a cold morning for a run, so the hot soup would taste awesome. The salad was chosen because, as far as menu options went, there was really nothing else for a vegetarian, save for a grilled cheese sandwich, and that wouldn’t be gluten-free. So, stuck with the salad again. I had thought about getting a side of their fries, but I didn’t feel like asking if they shared a frier with anything breaded…and as it turns out, they were seasoned anyway with some unknown seasoning, so it was a good call just to skip them in the end.
We had a little bit of a wait before our food arrived. I appreciated that as it meant that things were cooked to order. And just at first glance, the food looked amazing. My roommate’s fish and chips looked really great and my soup and salad were…well…soup and salad. But I was hungry…and ready to dig in.
I tried the soup first, because it’s soup and I didn’t want it to get cold. Unfortunately, it was already lukewarm. Not what this runner who endured 30 degree weather that morning in a race wanted. Soup should be served hot. If it’s too hot for patrons, they can let it cool. But serving lukewarm soup is not good. I wanted to be warmed from the inside out, and this just sort of…didn’t do that. It did, however, have amazing flavor to it. The texture was awesome. It wasn’t runny, but you could really taste the fresh ingredients in it. So, heat-wise…fail. Flavor-wise…win. The fruit and berries side was a bowl with a mix of pineapple (my favorite part of it), honeydew melon, cantaloupe, strawberries and blueberries. All of the berries and melons were ripe and delicious. And I was shocked when the pineapple was my favorite thing in there. Usually strawberries always win.
As for the salad, they did kindly leave the blue cheese off and thankfully didn’t find the need to add something to it instead, as some establishments do. It looked really delicious, a delicious bed of green spinach with granny smith apple slices, blueberries, strawberries, red onions, toasted almonds, and (what really made the salad awesome and different) golden raisins. It was served with their house vinaigrette (on the side, not drowning the salad), which tasted like it was a raspberry vinaigrette…which was the perfect pairing for that salad. It was good. I mean, it’s a salad, but I always love the incorporation of fruits with greens in a salad. It just wakes up the taste buds with the mix of savory and sweet.
My roommate felt that her fish and fries came out lukewarm, like they were left on the pass while the rest of the meal was assembled. While she liked the lightness of the cornmeal batter, she found that it got soggy pretty quickly and after awhile, all you tasted was the seasoning. The longer it sat, the mushier it got.
While the food at AP Crafters is cutting edge, riding that fine line of traditional comfort food and upscale cuisine, this gastropub did little to really entice me back. The food was full of flavor, but not served hot when it should be. And that was the major disappointment for both my roommate and I. Additionally, with my dietary restrictions, there was little for me to really order on the menu, which makes my order at this establishment…the same every time. And as we head into summer, soup isn’t going to sound as delicious to me on a hot day. The general consensus was…it was okay, but we’d probably never eat there again.
Too bad. Because they are right on the edge of being fantastic. The cutting-edge cuisine could have been so amazing, had it been served hot. Live and learn.
I guess I’ll seek out another gastropub sometime and try again. But as for AP Crafters Kitchen and Bar, it just fell short of impressing me with its food. Such a shame.
The Celiathlete 