Restaurants in Louisville

At Sol Aztecas Mexican Restaurant, culinary craftsmen forge authentic Mexican feasts from homemade ingredients, marinated meats, and fresh seafood. Specialties range from the extra meaty chicken-and-chorizo burrito to the seafood fajitas with shrimp, crab, and scallops. The full bar lubricates esophagi with Mexican beers, daiquiris, and five fruity flavors of margarita, including classic lime and tropical mango. Monthly mariachi-band performances invigorate the venue, and karaoke Sundays allow diners to share heavy-metal anthems that evoke their favorite periodic-table entries.

Patticakes' menu features sweet and savory flavors and more than 30 different panini sandwiches. The egg-, ham-, onion-, and pepper-stuffed Western Scrambler panini ($4.95) and the sweeter apple-pie panini ($4.50) satisfy bready cravings, and fast-breaking specialties, such as the vanilla-infused cinnamon-bread Sunnyside french toast ($4.49) with a side order of Patticakes' fresh-baked cinnamon rolls ($1.99), make traditional meal lovers smile. Herbivores and herbivoyeurs can dive fork-first into various salads, such as the corn and avocado salad, which is rich with spinach, turkey, bacon, and veggies and is drizzled with a honey-gorgonzola vinaigrette ($5.99, whole). If a full meal isn't on your to-do list, the cozy café—with its candy-colored pastel walls and dog-friendly atmosphere—is a welcoming place to pop in for an impromptu slice of Patticakes’ homemade pie, whose selection rotates daily.

Though Ahoy!! caters to a fish-loving crowd, you can kick off the feast with an order of fried green tomatoes ($4.50), sliced, cornmeal-flecked, fried until golden, and served year round. Seameat fans will squeal with delight for the cod priced according to size and number of sides. Try a medium order with your choice of one side, such as green beans or crinkle-cut fries ($6.99). Other aquatic eats include fried clams, tilapia, and grilled salmon. Specials include a bluegill sandwich ($6.50) and special tacos ($6.99). Stop in for live serenades, and support local artists who may or may not only play music about local weather, local hairstyles, and local underground cities.

Joe’s OK Bayou claims to be “da best Cajun,” but there’s also a humility to the enterprise—starting with the playful name and extending to decor that alludes to a low-country shack with a sheet-metal awning and rough wooden walls. Home-style cooking comes naturally to owner Joe Wheatley, whose father farmed grain and raised hogs before opening similarly rustic restaurant The Feed Mill with other members of the family in a former feed-storage building.

Since 1995, Joe and his team have striven to introduce Louisiana flavors to a northern audience, seasoning crawfish étouffée and chicken-and-sausage gumbo with spices that are bold but not painfully hot. Visiting in 2008, the Courier-Journal’s Marty Rosen found that this mission succeeded, with “bold, accessible flavors, friendly, quick service and extremely affordable prices.” He also found oysters “big and glossy with fine, firm textures—as fresh-tasting as any I've eaten along the Louisiana or Alabama coasts” on the menu’s wide selection of simply prepared coastal creatures—fried gator tails, catfish filets, and frog legs among them. Abita beers, the star of the drinks menu, hail appropriately from Louisiana, and join wines and other domestic and imported brews at the full bar.

Chefs in tall blue toques command Mikato Steak and Sushi's ten tabletop grills, where they combine culinary derring-do with entertaining showmanship while frying rice with steak, seafood, and vegetables. The main kitchen bustles with activity, as well; chicken katsu joins other Japanese cuisine such as broiled eel and shrimp teriyaki, and sushi chefs slice sashimi and coil specialty rolls. In addition to sating hunger of all stripes, Mikato Steak and Sushi welcomes families with a children's menu and kids' birthday special, which includes ice cream, a Japanese rendition of happy birthday, and a senryu about the transitory nature of life.