Club Grotto: Reviewed March 31, 2007

Club Grotto sparkles

By Marty Rosen
Special to The Courier-Journal

As the name hints, Club Grotto feels like a well-appointed cavern.

It's a deftly lighted dining sanctuary with a cream and burgundy color scheme, creek stones and aquariums at the edges, looming black and white photos, and a series of dining chambers seemingly nestled around every corner. Then there's that flying frog poised near the entrance, and the usual television glare shining down on the bar.

The cioppino, an Italian-influenced stew from San Francisco, did not disappoint with mussels, shrimp, scallops and tomato. By Pam Spaulding, The Courier-Journal

Since the death of founding chef/owner Jim McKinney six years ago, Club Grotto, now owned and operated by McKinney's parents, has become a way station for a series of talented chefs. Most recently, Chris Howerton (formerly of Equus and Bourbons Bistro), took over the kitchen about six months ago, bringing both a strong respect for the restaurant's core dishes and a distinctive stamp all his own.

My wife, Mary, ordered one of those core menu items, fried walleye pike ($19).

It was unquestionably the best fried fish I had ever eaten. Ever. Anywhere. There was nothing mysterious about the preparation: just the usual cornmeal batter, salt and pepper, and immersion in a deep-fryer. The perfectly trimmed fish was moist, flaky and fresh as could be, and the crust — as firm as a plank, until it shattered under a fork — adhered like a second skin. A distinctive watercress tartar sauce and a generous assortment of carrot disks, haricots verts, creamy whipped potatoes and a scoop of corn pudding rounded out the plate.

A recently introduced appetizer, curried beef tenderloin ($10), was a sparkling fusion of Asian and Caribbean themes: Rare slices of beef were drizzled with a luxurious coconut-lime cream sauce that rested like foam, releasing its sweet citrus into the curried meat. Completing the dish was a well-suited garnish of diced cucumbers steeped in hot, spicy, salty spices.

Apart from a few quibbles — a nicely, but overly dressed Caesar salad (these are almost as common as those televisions), and an amusing, very lengthy, highly audible telephone negotiation about reservations for Derby weekend — the rest of our meal was just as fine.

I wanted far more than I could eat. Offerings included calves liver ($17); veal marsala ($29); filet mignon ($40); lamb chops ($33); pork chops ($28) — all with sauces and sides that sounded fascinating.

But once my eye rested on the word "cioppino," I was done. I'm a sucker for seafood stews and soups, and this Italian-influenced stew from San Francisco is one of the great regional versions, a classic rarely seen hereabouts.

The Club Grotto version ($26), recently added to the menu, was all it should have been: a generous flat bowl packed tight with mussels, shrimp, scallops and juicy chunks of tomato, all in a lively flavored tomato-basil broth so good I nearly drank it from the bowl.

Service was well matched to the standard of the food. A platoon of servers tended to our glasses, ensured we had the proper tools (including a bowl for spent mussel shells and appropriate glasses for our half bottle of Chehalem pinot noir ($28) — though the wine itself was served at an unpleasantly warm temperature.

And when our server presented the dessert tray — no cavern was ever so well stocked with impressive sweets — we settled on a pecan bundt-shaped cake that had the rugged feel of an artisanal pastry and was nicely set off by a drizzle of toffee sauce and a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream.

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

Club Grotto

2116 Bardstown Road, Louisville KY

502-459-5275

Rating: 3.5 stars