By Katherine Tandy Brown

With so many consuming choices in Central Kentucky, selecting can typically be daunting…until, after all, you stick to a restaurant that’s regionally owned, makes use of as a lot contemporary native meat and produce as doable, and is staffed by educated, caring servers.

That description suits any of Ouita Michel’s 9 space culinary properties—seven eating places, a bakery and an occasions firm.

An eight-time James Beard Award nominee, together with Excellent Restauranteur and Finest Chef Southeast, Michel and her eating places are usually featured in native and nationwide media, together with The New York Instances, Backyard & Gun, Southern Residing, Meals Community and The Cooking Channel. She has additionally been a visitor choose on Bravo’s Prime Chef sequence.

Along with her husband Chris—whom she met whereas each had been on the Culinary Institute of America—and daughter Willa, Ouita lives in a 200-year-old cabin in Halfway, the place she oversees her latest enterprise, Holly Hill (hollyhillandco.com), a life-style model that celebrates farmers and agriculture, culinary traditions outdated and new, cooks and native expertise, and the bonds that unite them to domesticate a real sense of group.

“For me, as a younger cook dinner finding out French and Italian delicacies, I noticed their constructing blocks had been native agricultural artisan merchandise, and started to see the connections to our backyard at dwelling in Kentucky,” says Michel. “From the very outset, written into our first marketing strategy, we’ve got differentiated ourselves by cooking what Kentucky farmers can develop. There will be no Kentucky delicacies with out the Kentucky farmer.”

Michel can also be the host of a brand new video sequence, Up House with Ouita Michel (hollyhillandco.com/videoseries). Its focus is on the tales of Kentucky meals and tradition. In her phrases, it’s “a love letter to eating places, farmers, cooks, artists and everybody else who’s a part of our state’s wealthy culinary traditions.”

In 2021, Michel co-authored a cookbook, “Only a Few Miles South: Timeless Recipes from Our Favourite Locations,” together with chef Sara Gibbs and Genie Graf. You’ll discover ordering data on the Holly Hill web site, together with intriguing tales and recipes, the video sequence and contacts for the eating places. You’ll additionally discover a store with an array of presents, resembling Holly Hill Bourbon Balls, a ham biscuit equipment, a bourbon grilling reward field, the Bourbon Lover’s Cookie Field, ornaments, tea and the reward to offer anybody with an urge for food—a present card!

On the Holly Hill household of eating places, you possibly can tuck in your serviette for a terrific meal, whether or not it’s breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, relying on which eatery you select.

Holly Hill Occasions
(2017, hollyhillevents.com)
A combo of heat Bluegrass hospitality and scrumptious farm-to-table delicacies, Holly Hill Occasions hosts gatherings of 30 to 300 in numerous multi-sized, indoor and out of doors venues at Fasig-Tipton Thoroughbred Gross sales Co. on the outskirts of Lexington. Occasions Director Theresa Darnell and her husband, Occasion Chef Scott Darnell, host weddings, fundraisers, company occasions and different celebrations, full with Kentucky Proud menus, signature cocktails, an intensive bourbon assortment and award-winning wines.

Holly Hill Inn
(2001, hollyhillinn.com)
Referred to as by The New York Instances “a gem of a restaurant,” the Holly Hill Inn affords prix fixe menus that modify with the season, Sunday brunch, dinner, non-public eating, Friday and Saturday dinner property buyouts, and an art-filled downstairs eating room, all however a brief drive from Lexington.

In-built 1845, the inn has a wine record created by Chris that has nabbed the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence yearly since 2001. Whereas chef-in-residence at Woodford Reserve Distillery, Ouita developed a taste wheel to indicate how bourbon’s taste parts may very well be explored with Kentucky’s native spirit. For sure, bourbon performs an vital half within the inn’s culinary choices.

Wallace Station
(2003, wallacestation.com)
Situated amid beautiful horse farms on Outdated Frankfort Pike, Wallace Station is an informal cease for outsized sandwiches on Halfway Bakery bread, hearty soups, wholesome salads and yummy sweets.
Made with contemporary floor beef from Stone Cross Farm in Taylorsville, the hamburgers right here have been featured on Meals Community’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and the Cooking Channel’s Finest Factor I Ever Ate.

Windy Nook Market
(2010, windycornermarket.com)
Bordering a number of of Lexington’s well-known horse farms, Windy Nook Market is thought for its lunchtime po’boy sandwiches and steamed vegetable baskets, its weekend breakfasts, and nightly dinner specials, resembling meatloaf made with beef from Stone Cross Farm.

The Halfway Bakery & Cafe
(2012, themidwaybakery.com)
Housed within the outdated Halfway College, this haven of fragrant delights provides baked items for all of the Holly Hill eating places, primarily utilizing regionally sourced components like Weisenberger Mills’ cornmeal and flour, and chocolate and cocoa powder from Ruth Hunt Candies.

Smithtown Seafood
(2013, smithtownseafood.com)
Voted Kentucky’s favourite seafood restaurant, Smithtown Seafood boasts the very best fish and chips and fried catfish within the state! Attempt that seafood with a chilly one from proper subsequent door at Sixth Avenue Brewing in Lexington.

Honeywood
(2017, honeywoodrestaurant.com)
Honeywood was voted the favourite new restaurant in Lexington by Lexington Herald-Chief readers in 2021. Assume candy potato beignets, entire roasted quail and a libations menu extraordinaire!

Zim’s Café
(2018, zimscafe.com)
Tucked right into a nook of the outdated courthouse in downtown Lexington, Zim’s Café—named for Ouita Michel’s grandfather—affords favorites from Wallace Station and Windy Nook Market plus new dishes.
On the off likelihood that you may’t determine which restaurant to go to first, simply strive all of them!