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Inside, Sq. Reduce seems like what you’d anticipate from a contemporary, sustainability-focused restaurant in Louisville: stylish decorations, a decent, well-designed menu, and an open kitchen.
Initially, the restaurant centered on Roman-style square-cut pizza however has since expanded to further farm-to-table dishes. Visitors can a lot on charcuterie boards served with pickled greens and grape mustard bread, attempt house-made cheese spreads and spiced bread, and order a wide range of fine-dining entrees and Roman-style genuine Italian pizzas.
And although chef-owner Emil David does not stand out within the kitchen — he wears the identical black T-shirt uniform as everybody else on workers — his background and expertise are something however extraordinary.
Earlier than David opened his personal restaurant in Louisville’s Shelby Park, he was working in motels in Aspen, Colorado. Earlier than that, he labored in New York Metropolis on the revered Italian restaurant San Domenico, Giorgio Armani’s wonderful eating restaurant, and superstar chef Bobby Flay’s restaurant Flay’s Bar Americain. Earlier than that, he lived and labored in Italy for 10 years.
David has come a good distance since rising up within the Philippines, working his approach up from a dishwasher to a revered Italian-trained chef. However out of all of the locations he is lived and labored, Louisville has had a particular affect on him, significantly due to how hospitable and dependable Louisvillians are as prospects.
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“In New York, if you happen to do not do it proper, neglect it, town will eat you,” David mentioned. “Right here … individuals come again repeatedly and assist us maintain the restaurant. I made buddies by my meals in Louisville. In different cities, I made buddies as a result of I labored with them. It feels just like the restaurant shouldn’t be ours, it is theirs. We do what we do, and so they’re the people who assist us make it occur.”
David spent eight months perfecting the bread recipe he makes use of as the bottom of his Sq. Reduce pizzas.
He knew he acquired it proper when it reminded him of residence.
In Italy, he mentioned, pizza is flatbread. The star of the present is the bread, not the toppings. Italian-style delicacies is very exact, with fastidiously chosen elements you could individually style within the remaining product. In Filipino meals, generally the mix of spices covers up the bottom ingredient. In correct Italian meals, you’ll be able to style all of them. The result’s a half-inch thick pizza with a delicate, webby texture within the center and crunch on the underside, robust sufficient to carry extra recent toppings than other forms of pizza.
“I at all times inform individuals I am unable to convey them to Rome, however I can get them shut,” he mentioned. “We do not solely make pizza now, and the extra I modified the menu, the extra individuals acquired connected to our mission of sustainable cooking and seasonality.”
Sq. Reduce is not the one place in Louisville you’ll be able to see David’s culinary fashion on show. When David first moved to Kentucky, he and his spouse began the primary bao bun-focused idea within the state, Sizzling Buns meals truck. After two years of working the meals truck, they opened Sq. Reduce at 741 E. Oak St. in October 2021. The 4,500-square-foot restaurant area additionally homes a soft-serve cream store referred to as The Sugar Room.
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Then final fall, David opened two extra fast-casual ideas: Taco Rito and Ramble, each small areas at Paristown Pointe’s Village Market, 712 Brent St. They serve Tex-Mex avenue tacos and “non-traditional” fried hen sandwiches, respectively.
“We opened 4 ideas in lower than a 12 months,” David laughed. “This 12 months my spouse has requested me to sit back out. We do not actually have a giant workforce as a result of we’re nonetheless rising. So we’ll do some changes within the spring.”
What’s most attention-grabbing about cooking in Louisville is how completely different it is felt for David in comparison with different cities. When he was a boy, he realized to prepare dinner from his great-grandmother, household matriarch Conrada Tinio. They shared a love of meals and even a birthday.
“She solely placed on make-up like someday a 12 months, and it was the household reunion celebration for [our] birthday,” David mentioned. “And she or he’d be in her gown however even on her big day, she’d be within the again cooking. And also you’d see the smile on her face. I get that now. Louisville gave me extra of a connection to my great-grandmother. Cooking right here is once I began understanding her.”
David mentioned although he is cooked in high-profile eating places everywhere in the world, he does not put on that basic white chef’s jacket anymore. He definitely might — he labored laborious to earn sous chef and government chef positions, so he might benefit from the privileges that got here with them. However cooking on a meals truck in Louisville, after which in Sq. Reduce, modified the whole lot.
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“On the meals truck, I used to be no one, I used to be only a meal,” David mentioned. “However individuals used to return again with a smile and revel in what we did. It wasn’t in regards to the jacket. It wasn’t as a result of I used to be the chef that traveled the world, who labored with these completely different mentors. That did not matter. It was what we cooked, like my great-grandmother, regardless of how many individuals or what event, for the enjoyment of doing it.”
Sq. Reduce is open Monday to Saturday 5-10 p.m. and Sunday 3-8 p.m. The Sugar Room and Sizzling Buns meals truck will reopen within the spring. Village Market Meals Corridor, the place Ramble and Taco Rita are positioned, is open Sunday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Attain meals reporter Dahlia Ghabour at dghabour@gannett.com.
