Artemisia

I was not thoroughly impressed with the place, although I will likely try it again.  A couple that I am friends with and I went because we had some gift certificates from <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Frestaurant.com&s=c5fe485af4df376130bee54f875814d79c4d7913e1258123b1206d2bdbf4873b" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://restaurant.com</a>.  That's actually the site we picked it from, but I digress.

We went on a Saturday night at 8 o'clock, and much to our surprise, we were one of 4 parties in the place.  Perhaps for this reason, the street parking was easy to come by.  Perhaps also for this reason, the service was very attentive and polite, but I like to think that would have been the case no matter what.

We brought our own bottle of wine, which I do not believe resulted in any sort of corking fee.  A chilled wine cooler and glasses were promptly brought out, and the waitress even politely asked if she could see what we brought, and commented on it.  There was a full bar, of which we did not partake.

The soup, a turkey and bean concoction, was quite good, and the bowl of soup was HUGE.  I frequently have eyes bigger then my stomach, and this almost ruined me for my dinner.  One member of my party also had the soup and a salad, and he seemed pleased with both.  We also opened with the white bean hummus, which was fine.  All dishes were priced reasonably.

I had the KY bison with port wine sauce, fresh asparagus, and roasted new potatoes.  Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought bison was supposed to be quite lean, which this was not.  The sauce was good, if not a bit too plentiful.  The asparagus was really good, but the potatoes seemed as if they had been on a buffet all day.

My accompanying diners had the filet of sirloin marsala and the grouper (I think), and neither raved nor complained.

I set the price range in the $31-$60 per person range, but only because we did get the 3 most expensive entrees.  You could get out for far less.

The atmosphere was nice.  Art all over the wall throughout the entire space, which a trip to the men's room revealed to me to be quite large.  There was a 3 person jazz combo playing, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and again, the service was friendly and quite nice.  They even went out of the way to split the check in such a fashion as to allow us to use both gift certificates, which is in no way an obligation of theirs.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Upon my return, the stars may increase.  The food was good, and great in concept if only poorly executed (says the guy who cooks almost exclusively out of boxes).  Reviews seem to be split on this place, so maybe it's a bit hit and miss.  I will go back during nicer weather so I that I might enjoy the outdoor seating, and they are open for lunch most days, so I might try that as well.

I was hot/cold on this place.  I went with a friend during a huge ice storm and they had to bring out heaters to keep us warm.  

The food quality was slightly below par when I compare it to some of the other Louisville places I've been to (Mayan Cafe, Seviche, Sapporo etc).  I feel you can get much better value at other places.  The space is pretty cool, but I don't think I'll give it another try.

Dunno if Rick still owns this place (he used to own Twice Told Coffeshop when it was good and Tom cooked there)  But I LOVE Artemesia. I liked it so much I convinced my folks to have their company holiday party there one year.

   I've never had a bad thing to eat or a bad thing to say about Artemesia. And if you know me you know i have something bad to say about everyone and everything!