Quick Update:
We had a great time at the Derby. Stayed in an AirBnB in the NuLu neighborhood, a newly-gentrifying warehouse district with lots of art galleries, new restaurants and hipsters. One important note I learned is that in KY it’s illegal for customers to bring their own wine. I pleaded with a couple of places to test their resolve but they held firm. So be warned…
Dinner reservations during the Derby weekend were near-impossible, but the “show up and wait for a cancellation” strategy outlined earlier worked out just fine. That combined with the fact that we were darn tired Friday and Saturday evenings after full days at the track meant that we were less interested is very fine dining that we thought we would be.
We stayed in NuLu for dinner each night. First night was at Rye, a contemporary place that was really excellent where our 6:30 reservation was perfect after a long day of driving. Had a Stoplman Roussanne that was quite tasty.
Second night we ate just a couple of doors down from our AirBnB at Wiltshire. Again this was contemporary dining, and we landed a sidewalk table that was perfect to enjoy the lovely evening weather. Solid but not outstanding food, and a bit pricey. That night’s bottle was 08 Felsina Rancia Riserva, which was drinking great.
The final evening we grabbed takeout from Feast BBQ, a hippish place apparently recently opened by a former PerSe chef. BBQ was fantastic, and went well with our own bottle of Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Nicolas Francois Billecart 1999.
If folks are interested I’d be happy to share lots of insights on the entire weekend experience. There are so many ways to do the Derby (cheap/expensive, go for fun vs. seriously watch races, etc.) that I’m not sure any universal advice I might give would apply, but I will say we had a tremendous time. It’s 10 hours a day of sensory overload, as there is so much to see, so much noise, and actual thinking going on if you’re gambling, that we were absolutely gassed at the end of each day.
One note on transportation – we used Uber each day to and from the track. They apparently had drivers ship in from surrounding cities for the weekend. Getting to the track was easy and cheap; getting home harder and more expensive, but overall all it worked out fine and was much cheaper for us than riding the city shuttles back and forth from downtown…
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or want more info and I’ll be happy to share.