West Main Street between 1st and 9th holds Whiskey Row, the corridor of historic bourbon distilleries and the Brown Hotel where the Hot Brown was invented.
Order The bison burger from the local grass-fed herd, plus a bourbon flight built by the bar team.
Proof on Main in Louisville pairs chef Cody Stone's Ohio Valley plates with a deep bourbon list, set inside the 21c Museum Hotel on West Main Street.
Order Smoked brisket with two sides, plus a flight of three Kentucky bourbons.
Doc Crow's on West Main in Louisville smokes brisket and shucks oysters on Whiskey Row, pairing both with a bourbon library of more than 2,700 expressions.
Order The Hot Brown, served the way Fred Schmidt wrote it in 1926.
J. Graham's Cafe in the Brown Hotel serves Louisville's original Hot Brown, the open-faced turkey-and-Mornay sandwich invented here in 1926.
Order A pot of mussels in white wine and garlic, plus the house burger.
Mussel and Burger Bar in Louisville pours pots of steamed mussels and grills smashed burgers at a casual American bistro counter on South 7th Street downtown.
Mercury Ballroom on South 4th Street in Louisville is the downtown 800-capacity concert hall booking touring rock, hip-hop and indie acts, the city's mid-size live-music room.
8UP on West Chestnut in Louisville is downtown's rooftop drinkery, the all-glass Hilton Garden Inn-top bar with mint juleps, bourbon flights and skyline views of West Main Street.
Pin + Proof inside the Omni Louisville Hotel is a prohibition-era speakeasy with sleek wooden bowling lanes in a dimly lit cellar, hidden behind a photo mural of a woman shushing.
Down One Bourbon Bar in the Galt House Hotel basement pours 100+ bourbons in a low-lit speakeasy-style room under West Main Street, a hidden hotel-attached drinking room.
