Posted by Michael Stern on December 05, 2007
We cannot tell you much about the menu in the restaurants of the Brown Hotel in Louisville because, frankly, we’ve paid little attention to it when we visited. We don’t go to the restaurants; we call room service and have our meal delivered. Being historical-minded types, that meal is always a single food – a Kentucky hot brown. This is one of America’s most distinctive sandwiches, invented by the hotel some time in the 1920s. Supposedly, it began as a late-night snack for revelers who wanted something hot, hearty, and fun. A hot brown is a fork-and-knife job for certain: toast topped with white turkey meat under a sizzling spill of cheesy cream sauce, slices of tomato, and strips of bacon.
Although it was invented in Louisville, the Hot Brown is now found in restaurants throughout Kentucky. Its variations are nearly endless. We’ve had “Cajun hot browns” with hunks of shrimp and crawfish or lengths of andouille sausage instead of turkey; we’ve seen Italian hot browns in which proscuitto and mozzarella take the place of bacon and American cheese. We’ve even heard tell of a vegetarian hot brown, made with asparagus, mushrooms, and zucchini!
At its original home in Louisville, the hot brown comes in a ceramic dish that contains so much of the luscious goopy sauce that it looks more like a bowl of thick cheese and bacon soup. They call it a sandwich, but it is a knife-and-fork challenge!
Overall: Worth planning a day around
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Hot brown sandwich
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"The Kentucky hot brown is formally known as a sandwich, but there is no way you can pick it up with your hands: utensils are essential!"
Michael Stern
"The hot brown I was served in November 2007 had thick rectangular blocks of turkey meat and the tomatoes were cut in sections rather than sliced. "
buffetbuster
"The Brown Hotel has been Louisville's downtown luxury hotel since 1923. Shortly after, the first hot brown sandwich was created here. "
buffetbuster
