Interview by Jason Schreurs
Young Widows vocalist/guitarist Evan Patterson leads us through Louisville, Kentucky’s southern and ethnic food scene.
Evan: Louisville is funny because it’s all about pulled pork and ribs and this whole expensive Southern food thing. I love that kind of food. I was vegan and vegetarian for 13 years and I feel like my pallet is very open to unique food, but definitely in town it’s kind of a fancy Southern food style thing that’s hit really heavy. There’s this place called Hammerheads, just down the street from where I live and work, that does this smoked meat thing and they’re killing it. They’re making great food and it’s not overpriced, then all of sudden six months after that there’s three or four other places doing exactly the same thing.
Smoked meat bandwagon jumpers?
Exactly, yeah. But it’s great. It’s this little whole in the wall place in the basement of a house.
Are there lots of places that pop up like that in Louisville?
Not really. There’s some guys in town who have done some high-end restaurants, so they’ve opened up this new Mexican fusion place. I’m not really a big fan of yuppy Mexican food. I think it’s kind of hypocritical.
Almost counterintuitive…
Yeah. They also opened a place that’s supposed to be like a honky tonk bar and that place is pretty good, but again it’s like a Southwestern, Southern American style. There’s lot a lot of really small restaurants popping up in town. The guys that opened up this Hammerheads place have already opened up two other restaurants. One’s like a high-end burger restaurant and the other one’s more based on the rotisserie thing. They all know what they’re doing though and they make great food.
What’s something that people eat in Louisville that’s specific to your area?
Hmm, that’s tough. Well, you know about the Hot Brown?
Nope.
The Hot Brown is a dish that was created in Louisville and it’s basically a piece of Texas toast, turkey and gravy on top, and often bacon bits or bacon is put on top of it as well. And that’s something that started at the Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville. And now it’s a tradition and it’s offered by a lot of places now and just adapted to how different places want to make it. But the original place that created it is still there and you can still go and get it.
What’s your favorite thing to eat in Louisville?
There’s this classic Vietnamese place here called Vietnam Kitchen and I went there a lot when I was vegan and vegetarian. They have really unique satés and noodle dishes and nowhere else in town, or anywhere else in the world, offers similar dishes to what they offer there.
The owners are from Vietnam?
Yeah. I can’t remember what year they came over, but they’re great people and they have this successful restaurant in the south end of Louisville. They’ve always talked about moving to a better location but it doesn’t really matter because people will travel from wherever they live just to go there to eat.
Any other local places that come to mind?
There’s this place called Dak Shin. It’s this Indo-Chinese restaurant and that place is great as well. They have tons of different fusion dishes combining Chinese and Indian food together. That’s also in a really strange strip mall location, like Vietnam Kitchen.
Isn’t it funny that we’ll be in our hometown but we’ll go and get Vietnamese food because it’s something different than our local cooking?
Yeah. I guess the idea of both of those restaurants is it’s something you could cook, but it’s such a bizarre idea of the combinations, and obviously they are masters at it and that’s why their restaurants are so successful.
Don’t try this at home?
Yeah [laughs].
Young Widows‘ Easy Pain is out now on Temporary Residence.
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