I never made it to Cafe Lou Lou when it was in its old location on Frankfort Avenue. I suspect that location had a bit more charm than the present one but that sentiment is just my anti-strip mall bias coming out and should probably be ignored. It should be ignored because the new location on Sears Avenue is a perfectly nice one. It’s a bit whimsical in terms of decor and atmosphere with lots of Louisiana influenced touches. And obviously the strip mall has one serious advantage over the old Frankfort Avenue location: a parking lot.

In my visits to Cafe Lou Lou I’ve been rather negligent in terms of
gathering information for this review. By that I mean I’ve eaten the
same thing every single time. Oh I’ve had variety: the veggie calzione,
the four cheese calzone, the build your own calzone, and so on. Notice
a trend? Yep, I’m in love with their calzone dough and sauce. Each time
I visit Cafe Lou Lou I say “hmm let me try a pasta dish, my aunt Ellen
says they have really great pastas” or “let me try a sandwich, that
sandwich B had last time looked delicious.” And each time the server
steps to my table an order for a calzone comes out of my mouth. The
calzone dough is chewy but not tough, not overly sweet, and…the best
way I can think to describe it is as having perfect mouth feel. You
just enjoying the actual act of eating it. The sauce is equally tasty
and they don’t shortchange you on fillings. You can be confident that
there is going to plenty of whatever you’ve ordered inside your
calzone. I cannot highly recommend enough getting goat cheese in your
calzone. Go on, do it, you’ll thank me for it later.

My sister turned 18 years old earlier this month. She came up from our
family’s farm last weekend to celebrate this momentous change in her
years and I took her to Cafe Lou Lou for lunch. My sister is a
very picky eater. She knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like
(the items in the former are fare fewer than in the latter). She likes
more plain and common foods that she’s familiar with. So I chose Cafe
Lou Lou for my her birthday lunch because I knew there would be plenty
of choices for her on the menu as well as plenty of choices for more
adventurous eaters in our party as well. Cafe Lou Lou has a very
diverse menu that has plenty of familiar, comfortable foods that my
sister would like but also many creative and different dishes that are
either wholly unique or updated takes on familiar items several of
which have Louisiana roots (like pasta jambalaya and the muffuletta).
I’m only slightly embarrassed to tell you that both my sister and I
ordered calzones.

I’m a bad food reviewer for having ordered variations on the same theme
at every visit but before I can write I must eat and I can’t help
always wanting to eat their calzones. However, I’m a pretty good
nibbler, meaning that I’ve sampled bites of various dining companions’
dishes (doesn’t that sentence just make you want to invite me out to
dinner?). Things I’ve sampled include the smoked pork tenderloin
sandwich (massive and interesting, described by the person who actually
ordered it as the best pork sandwich she could recall having), the
muffuletta (I don’t think it was a bad muffuletta, I just think
muffulettas are not for me) and the gyro roll (described by its
recipient as having the absolute perfect amount of sauce and really
tender meat. The flat bread it came wrapped in was a big hit as well).
Deliciousness abounded with all the items I sampled (even the
muffuletta which we’ve just discussed as not being for me at a yummy
olive component).

My only complaint with Cafe Lou Lou, and it’s a slight one, is with the
service. Each time I’ve been to Cafe Lou Lou I’ve been almost bowled
over by the friendliness of the hostess (it has always been a woman)
while being greeted and seated almost instantly. In my own personal
experience, either the level of attentiveness or friendliness goes down
after being seated. That is to say that I’ve had servers that were
incredibly friendly but not particularly attentive and I’ve had servers
that are quite attentive but not particularly friendly. No one else
I’ve spoken to about Cafe Lou Lou has this complaint so really it must
just be my bad luck instead of a service issue at Cafe Lou Lou. The last time I dined there, for my sister’s
birthday, we were seated at a table in the bar area. The bartender, an
incredibly friendly young man, took care of us. I should say he did his
best to take care of us. Either because of understaffing or unexpected
rush or something he was apparently in charge of all the tables in the
bar area as well as people eating at the actual bar. This was too much
for one person to try and handle.  A couple tables that ordered after
us received their food before us and I literally had to go to the bar
to get drink refills because the poor guy just didn’t have time to do
everything. Did this negatively color my experience? A
little bit but I was enjoying hanging out with my sister so much I was
much more ok with the situation than I would have been under other
circumstances. It doesn’t matter because I really like the food and
atmosphere at Cafe Lou Lou so I have no plans to stop going. I’ll just
try to not sit in the bar next time.

Cafe Lou Lou
106 Sears Avenue
Louisville, KY 40206
893-7776

I know I seem to complain about service a lot but I’m really not as
surly about it as I might come across and I’m a better than average
tipper. Boy, that sounds a lot like rationalization doesn’t it?