Bobby Flay eyes Louisville for new restaurant

With eight restaurants, 18 burger joints, and nearly as many cookbooks and cooking shows, celebrity Bobby Flay is best known for entertaining Food Network viewers with the likes of "Throwdown with Bobby Flay," and "Boy Meets Grill."

Now his next hack is Louisville's restaurant scene.

Inspired by Kentucky, Flay said he will scout possible Louisville restaurant locations this weekend before his annual visit to Keeneland's thoroughbred yearlings sale.

And that scares him a little bit.

"It is a very daunting prospect, a town like Louisville," Flay said in an interview Wednesday. "Louisville is a place that has its own food culture."

"I feel like I'll be up against it."

Flay said he'll look at "five or six" locations around Louisville, including spots on the thriving restaurant corridor on Bardstown Road in the Highlands, the Main Street downtown or NuLu on East Market.

"One of the things I love about Louisville is the original architecture," Flay said. "Some of those buildings are fantastic."

Asked what cuisine he'll plate up, Flay mused aloud about some of his signature restaurant concepts — past and present.

His "big, sprawling" Bar Americain brasserie now in midtown Manhattan and at a Connecticut casino serves up American favorites in cozy continental style. His New York City version has served an "incredibly popular" Hot Brown on the lunch menu for a decade, he said.

"The food is all American but plated in the style of Europe," Flay said of Bar Americain.

Louisville could be home to a second version of Gato, he said, referring to a restaurant he opened this year in New York City.

Gato is where a New York Times review last June said diners "get the full Flay," and where he "rides herd on pastas and pizzas and romesco sauces with a go-for-broke intensity that's 100 percent American. Mr. Flay brushes flavor on his ingredients in thick impasto strokes, making each plate a three-dimensional aggregation of char, smoke, capsicum, sugar, acid and fat."

Diners are eschewing meat more and more for healthier vegetables, and Gato plays with Mediterranean flavors, Flay said.

"Louisville might be a place to experiment with that," Flay said. "…light dishes, and a lot more flavors."

Flay, 49, said he also yearns to reinvent his Mesa Grill. That southwestern style Manhattan restaurant recently closed, having lost its lease. But it lives on in Las Vegas and the Bahamas. In his heart, Flay said, Mesa endures as the place where he began decades ago, and deserves to be reinvented, perhaps in Louisville, to showcase "Southwestern food, but 20 years later."

"That is my flagship. It was always my headquarters," Flay said. "It's like an old friend that needs to be redone. I am either going to open it in New York or in Louisville."

Louisville's thriving restaurant scene welcomes the Food Network star, known for broadcasts including "Iron Chef America," said Sarah Fritschner, coordinator of the Louisville Farm To Table program.

"He throws down. Obviously, Bobby Flay has figured out what a cool food city Louisville is," Fritschner said. "He is the hardest working man in food television."

As he searches for a Louisville location, Flay is looking to be swayed by the space.

"I will know when I walk into a place. It's one of those things you can just feel," he said. "I will know what it should be."

A longtime thoroughbred owner, Flay said he's been spending "more and more time in Kentucky."

While here, he said he'll fuel up with some fried chicken — his answer when asked to name his go-to comfort food in Louisville. He said he had some good fried chicken in NuLu but couldn't remember the name of the spot.

So, you might see him around East Market, where he said he is looking to discover the Garage Bar for himself or revisit Rye.

"The long and short of it is I spend a lot of time here," Flay said, adding that a location will be crucial to success, despite the lure of his fame.

"There are certainly restaurants that can pull people no matter where they are. I would never want to rely on that."

Then Flay showed some of that fierceness that's made the blunt redhead a straight-talking draw.

"I want to have every advantage I can possibly get," Flay said. "I will find a location I think can work."

Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669, Jere Downs on Facebook or @Jeredowns on Twitter.