Muffalettas, beignets and turtle soup. Downtown Lexington’s about to get its Cajun on.
A much-awaited new Cajun-Creole-French fusion restaurant is finally opening on Short Street: Roulay Restaurant and Bar will begin serving a limited menu of items on Feb. 17.
It’s been a long journey for executive chef Kelly Mackey. A Lexington native, she went to the University of Kentucky to study child and family development but a student job with UK Dining as an assistant sous chef led her into the restaurant industry 16 years ago.
Two years ago, while she was working at Sidebar Grill, Mackey launched her Lady Remoulade pop-up, serving a Cajun brunch on Saturday at Sidebar and bringing the food truck to local breweries at night.
She built a following and was looking for the next step when she bonded with Buddha Lounge owner Nick Lagagsorn over love of spicy food.
It seemed like there was a niche for quick and tasty Cajun-Creole food. More than a year ago, working with architect Jon Cheatham of Graves Architects, they began renovating a building on Short Street, right in the heart of Lexington’s now-booming downtown dining district.
Sandwiched between Jonathan Lundy’s flourishing Corto Lima and School, an upscale sushi restaurant, the former rabbit warren of lawyers’ offices has been turned into a restaurant and bar, with an upstairs lounge and a rooftop patio that will open in the spring.
Now decorated with a hand-painted mural by Joe King of Oracle Tattoo Guild, the restaurant kept the original brick and upstairs hardwood floors. Hanging baskets of plants and brightly colored chairs give the place a hint of the French Quarter, the look that Lagagsorn was going for.
The restaurant plans to start with lunch and dinner, serving a limited menu including turtle soup (think more along the lines of venison stew, not lobster bisque) and crawfish Monica, both big hits at a recent invitation-only soft opening.
Other selections will include frog legs piquant; fried pickles and okra with ghost pepper ranch and Mississippi “comeback” sauce; Nola-style bacon-wrapped bbq shrimp; andouille sausage chicken gumbo; chicken Tchoupitoulas; pumpkin polenta with prawns; and a rice bowl platter with chicken etoufee, shrimp creole and maque choux with boudin.
Desserts include pralines and cream and a vegan verinne of coconut panna cotta, chocolate pudding, orange marmalade, cinnamon custard and chocolate mousse.
Mardi Gras on Feb. 25 will be a big party, Mackey said, and then after that the hope to go live with their full menu.
“We’ll have a Mardi Gras menu and it’ll be a big celebration; we’ll have live music and do a crawfish boil,” Mackey said.
The full menu will include breakfast with beignets and chicory coffee, something Mackey and Lagagsorn also thought downtown could use. And for lunch, Roulay will have po’boys, muffalettas and pistolettes, a deep-fried stuffed Cajun bread roll. Mackey said there will be vegetarian muffalettas made with portabella mushrooms and olive spread, which were a hit when she offered them at Sidebar.
While lunch will be heavy on takeout (with seven vegetarian and two vegan options), dinner will be upscale casual with a menu for patrons to sit down and enjoy.
Roulay Restaurant and Bar
Where: 107 West Short St.
Open: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. beginning Feb. 17. Hours will expand later.
