Asian Food: Louisville Originals By Robert Annis For Custom Publications When you want an authentic Louisville dining experience, don’t head to the nearest chain for the same-everywhere pizza shooters, shrimp poppers or extreme fajitas. To find great local food at independent restaurants, the Louisville Originals can help. More than 50 locally owned eateries belong to the Louisville Originals, one of the largest such restaurant networks in the Midwest, if not the nation. On the local menus Louisville has an excellent independent restaurant scene where you can find almost any type of food your taste buds crave. Dozens of restaurants are members of the Originals, and all of them practically are guaranteed to have your mouth watering within moments of entering the front door. Fans of jazz and contemporary continental cuisine will love Artemisia, while Palermo Viejo’s Argentinean menu has won over thousands of Louisville restaurant goers including veteran food critic Robin Garr who wrote, “It is already earning a secure place on the city’s short list of four-star spots.” Porcini’s northern Italian fare has earned the eatery 3.5 stars from Louisville’s The Courier-Journal, and Asiatique’s exciting Pacific Rim cuisine once garnered a Best Asian Food nod from the readers of CitySearch.com. So good you have to share Organization president and Baxter Station owner Andrew Hutto said he thinks it’s much more interesting to go to a locally owned restaurant where the townies eat. “The food is unique,” Hutto said. “The atmosphere is more comfortable. The service is more personable; we know a lot of our regular customers by name. And 72 cents of every dollar you spend stays in the local community as opposed to 42 cents if you eat at one of the chains.” Last year, the group launched www.louisvilleoriginals.com, and the results have been impressive. Hutto estimated as much as a third of his business now comes from people discovering the eatery from the Web site. Louisville resident Tom Birchfield is a devotee of independent restaurants in his city and was eager to tell the network about one of his favorite haunts, Jack Fry’s. “It’s great bistro-type food,” he said. “It’s a nice place for a beer and a sandwich, and I like the ambiance a lot.” Every few months, a number of gift certificates are sold on the Web site at a substantial discount. But they go fast; gift certificates to the more renowned restaurants have been known to sell out within a matter of hours. “It’s like having free money when you go into a restaurant,” Hutto said. The Originals are hoping to partner with the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau to raise awareness of the culinary scene and get the word out across the country. When that happens, you can bet foodies everywhere will be making a beeline for Louisville. “Louisville’s great to visit,” Hutto said. “We’ve got a lot of great restaurant choices for not a lot of money.”