Kentucky Steakhouses | SteakMap

The Best Steakhouses in Kentucky

Kentucky has 30 steakhouses across 11 towns — Louisville holds 13 and Lexington 7, with the rest in Bowling Green, Bardstown, Covington and the northern Kentucky river towns opposite Cincinnati.

And you can read the state’s other industry straight off the restaurant signs.

The Kentucky Ten

1. Jeff Ruby’s (Louisville) — the Cincinnati family’s Louisville room, and the city’s big-night-out default. A second in Lexington.
2. Repeal Oak-Fired Steakhouse (Louisville) — named for the end of Prohibition, everything cooked over oak, in a converted downtown space on Whiskey Row. The most purely Kentucky room on this list.
3. Le Moo (Louisville) — maximalist, velvet-and-chandeliers, drag brunch at the weekend, and a genuinely serious steak underneath all of it.
4. Malone’s (Lexington) — the local institution, with three Lexington rooms — Hamburg and Palomar — and one in Louisville.
5. Steak & Bourbon (Louisville) — a name that is really a thesis statement.
6. Lisse Steakhuis (Covington) — Dutch-influenced, across the river from Cincinnati, and the most unusual steakhouse in the state.
7. Walt’s Hitching Post (Fort Wright) — a northern Kentucky institution for generations, better known for ribs but the steaks hold up.
8. The Blue Heron (Lexington) — in a restored warehouse in the Distillery District, which tells you everything about what that neighbourhood used to make.
9. BJ’s Steakhouse (Bardstown) — in the self-declared Bourbon Capital of the World, and the steak dinner on the distillery trail.
10. Monk’s Road Boiler House (Louisville) — named for the road to the Abbey of Gethsemani, and the newest serious cooking in the city.

Bourbon is on the menu because it is on the map

Kentucky produces the overwhelming majority of the world’s bourbon. That is not background colour here — it is written into the restaurants themselves.

Look at the names on the roster. Steak & Bourbon. Repeal, named for the Twenty-first Amendment and sitting on Louisville’s Whiskey Row, the block where the barrel trade was run. The Blue Heron in Lexington’s Distillery District. BJ’s in Bardstown, which calls itself the Bourbon Capital of the World and has a reasonable claim.

The practical effect is that a Kentucky steakhouse is judged on its back bar as much as its broiler. Bourbon lists here run to a hundred or more expressions, allocated bottles get poured by the ounce, and the pairing is treated as seriously as a wine programme would be in California.

It also explains the oak. Repeal cooks over oak fire — the same wood that every bourbon barrel in the state is made from, charred on the inside. Whether or not you can taste the connection, it is a coherent idea, and it is the kind of thing only this state would build a steakhouse around.

The rest of the state

Louisville also has Bob’s Steak & Chop House, Brendon’s Catch 23 and Derby City Gaming. Lexington adds Carson’s and Tony’s, with a sibling Tony’s in Bowling Green alongside Montana Grille. Elsewhere: MRBL in Bellevue, Cap & Cork in Henderson, Lure in Owensboro and The Aldenberg in Versailles, out in horse country.

The national chains

Five, four of them in Louisville: Ruth’s Chris, Morton’s, Connors and Stoney River, plus Del Frisco’s out at Hurstbourne.

Browse by city: Louisville and Lexington.