French-born frequent customer Marcel Cabrera and his Saturday Blue Dog baguette haul.
I love the bakeries of France. I enjoy watching the bakers pluck a crisp baguette from a full basket or taste a flaky croissant fresh from the ovens. I marvel at the care even tiny village shops take when wrapping a tart. To me, bakeries are where many of my best French meals have started, from mountainside picnics to posh Michelin-starred dinners. But you might be surprised how often I tear into a loaf, take a bite and mutter, “Good, but it doesn’t quite live up to Blue Dog.”
The loaves Bob Hancock pulls from his wood-fired oven can compare with the legendary Poilane bakery. But Hancock’s Blue Dog Bakery & Cafe goes the famous Parisian family one better by pushing the perfectionism into breakfast, brunch and lunch dishes.
Adding a cafe to Louisville’s best bakery hasn’t been the easiest of tasks. According to Hancock’s wife, Kit Garrett, the initial cafe expansion in 2002 took so much energy that “we just fried.” The couple closed shop and escaped to France, where they revitalized. Blue Dog reopened in November 2002 and is now a family operation; Hancock and Garrett are joined by their son Todd Hancock and his wife Kara, along with Kelly Lehman, who started at Blue Dog and then traveled through kitchens in Atlanta, Chicago and New York. Lehman returned to the bakery-cafe early this year to take the role of kitchen manager, turning Hancock’s menu ideas into delicious reality.
“Bob likes food that’s simple and straightforward, with a focus on good ingredients and uncomplicated flavor combinations,” says Garrett. “But, really, everything is about the bread. Like for our sandwich combos — the first thing we decide is what kind of bread we’d like to showcase.”
So, spicy tuna, anchovy and egg ($8.50) are paired with a bubbly, delicate pugliese roll. A pastrami Reuben ($9) arrives on heartier levain. The breads, of course, work well with Blue Dog’s soups and salads (even when you have to beg your server for a basket, as I did). On a recent visit, I enjoyed an excellent bowl of mushroom and barley soup. This simple, slightly peppery broth of mushrooms was thickened with chewy barley to a consistency just below stew — hearty yet not overly filling.
All of this flair with flour and food comes with one extra cost, however. Service is a bit of an obstacle that must be overlooked to enjoy Blue Dog’s excellent fare. It’s not that servers are rude or inattentive — in fact, they’re uniformly nice, pleasant people who seem happy to have you there. But minutes-long engaging conversations about wine, bread or food can leave other tables or customers waiting, and the chaotic entryway (where three “lines” merge into one confused entity, especially during crowded periods) at times can frustrate customers. My advice? Be prepared for a little confusion, perhaps a bit of tardiness, and (most important of all) add your own name to the waitlist for tables.
Blue Dog’s decor tends toward the spare and simple. Pale wood tables, white plates and sturdy silverware serve as quiet accompaniments to flavors in a combination like piperade, soft-poached eggs and manchego cheese ($8.50). Delicately poached yolks soften a piece of fresh levain, assisted by a brightly flavored ragout of tomatoes and peppers, capers, oregano and the sweet nuttiness of melted cheese. Another excellent brunch choice is brioche French toast ($8.50) — lightly orange-flavored, moist and tender, waiting to soak up some warm maple syrup.
One of my current Blue Dog favorites is, quite possibly, the best salad in the city. Now that the spinach fears have subsided, the cafe is again offering barbecued quail on baby spinach ($10). Pushing the boundaries of Hancock’s keep-it-simple strategy, this exceptional salad combines goat cheese, cherries and pecans with barbecued semi-boneless quail and a slab of Benton Farms bacon. The grilled quail, zesty with ground chiles and sweet with honey, is bone-gnawingly good, and only enhanced by the addition of bacon, nuts and dried fruit on its bed of greens delicately kissed with an orange-balsamic vinaigrette.
A sweet finish isn’t a problem when your cafe cohabits with a thriving bakery. Blue Dog offers an assortment, from thick chocolate macadamia nut cookies ($1.50) to exotic tarts such as frangipani and pine nut ($4.50 each), all baked with expertise, naturally. It’s also well worth it on the way out to add to the entryway confusion by grabbing a couple of loaves to go.
Blue Dog Bakery & Cafe is a true treasure of Louisville, combining the neighborhood feel of Frankfort Avenue with world-class cuisine. Hancock brings an almost monk-like focus to the baking, while his wife provides hospitality and helps manage the cafe. Together, this couple has not only raised the level of bread in the city, but they’ve also provided us with an example of how simple combinations can reach the sublime. Be it flour, water and yeast, or quail, bacon and spinach, Blue Dog holds keys to excellence that would be the envy of many in France.
If You Go
Blue Dog Bakery & Cafe, 2868 Frankfort Ave., 899-9800. Bakery open Tuesday-Saturday 7 a.m-4 p.m. The cafe serves Tuesday-Saturday from 8 a.m.-2 p.m., with brunch available until 10:30 (1:30 on Saturdays) and lunch beginning at 11 a.m.
