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Corto Lima. Lexington, KY 2-4-17. (c) 2016 Photo by Bill Straus.
Jonathan Lundy never set out to do farm-to-table Southern food when he opened his namesake restaurant, Jonathan’s at Gratz Park, 14 years ago. In terms of trends, Southern was searing-hot and bourbon was fuel for the fire. Lexington wanted it, and owners of the Inn at Gratz Park did, too, “and so I kind of fell into it. It was a chance to do my own thing, so what are you going to do?”
But when he became a chef in the late 1980s, Southwestern American cuisine, and all its Latin influences, captivated him. Those foods became his favorites, and the chefs who elevated it, were innovators he wanted to emulate.
“Dean Fearing, Mark Miller, Stephan Pyles, those are the guys I followed,” said Lundy, chef and co-owner of his newest venture, Corto y Lima. The Latin inspired restaurant opened quietly on Feb. 8 at 101 W. Short St. “Nobody was doing that here, anywhere around here.”
Which he concedes also was a good enough reason not to do it back then. It would take the forced end of Jonathan’s in 2014 and a side trip as a long-term consultant chef at Coba Cocina to form the runway to Corto y Lima.
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Corto Lima. Lexington, KY 2-4-17. (c) 2016 Photo by Bill Straus.
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Corto Lima. Lexington, KY 2-4-17. (c) 2016 Photo by Bill Straus.
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Corto Lima. Lexington, KY 2-4-17. (c) 2016 Photo by Bill Straus.
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Corto Lima. Lexington, KY 2-4-17. (c) 2016 Photo by Bill Straus.
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Corto Lima. Lexington, KY 2-4-17. (c) 2016 Photo by Bill Straus.
“It’s been a line of progression, and everything has led up to this point,” Lundy said. Though Coba Cocina closed in 2016, its owners, the Greer Cos., were highly successful Cheddar’s Casual Café operators who mentored Lundy. In January, they sold all 44 franchised restaurants back to the Irving, Texas-based parent corporation.
“Coba was a good experience for me, and I learned more there than I did running Jonathan’s,” Lundy said. “Everything was too loose at Jonathan’s. Coba gave me organization and structure.”
Latin Influences, Personalized
The name Corto y Lima is a Latinized play on words based on the restaurant’s location at Short and Limestone streets.
According to Lundy and co-owner and director of operations, T.J. Cox, the 61-seat restaurant (45 at tables, 16 at the bar) is intended to be mashup of a neighborhood bar, a Mexican cantina and a Spanish tapas restaurant. Small plates and sharable bites dominate the modest but diverse menu and cost $5-$12, while main courses remain affordably priced from $12-$24.
In creating the menu, Lundy focused on authenticity “reimagined my way.” Masa for his tacos, masa grits and empanadas is made via the painstaking process of nixtamalization that uses field corn imported from Oaxaca, Mexico. The kernels are soaked in an alkaline solution of water and calcium carbonate for 24 hours to soften their husks. The husks are then hand rubbed off the kernels, and the remaining corn is dried and pulverized using a motorized lava-stone grinder. The first time you taste and smell it, you know the difference immediately, Lundy said.
“The [grinding] machine arrived from Mexico without any instructions, so we had to figure it out,” Lundy said, rolling his eyes. “It was so big we didn’t think we could get it inside the [basement] kitchen. We had to take a door off to get it in.”
Pairing Food and Drink
Lundy’s influence shows up in dishes like chicken chicharron, which blends fried chicken thighs and skin with chiles, cilantro and lime. Cauliflower “al pastor” uses charred achioto-sour oranges to marinate cauliflower cooked with pineapple and coconut-cashew crema.
The papas en la latta, a dish he described as “basically a Mexican poutine,” sees layers of fried potatoes laced with melted Oaxaca cheese, mezcal gravy and barrel-smoked carnitas. And the Brazilian feijoada (pronounced “fezsh-wada”), a traditional stew of pork and black beans, receives Lundy’s touches of pickled peppers and crispy collard greens.
Cox, who Lundy worked with at Jonathan’s and Coba Cocina, has developed a beverage lineup firmly rooted in Latin and Caribbean traditions. Tequila, mezcal and rum lead the way, though bourbon remains in the mix.
“The barrel is still important to us,” Cox said.
Wines are from Latin countries, and all cocktails are $8. Flights of spirits are forthcoming.
“The whole idea of Corto y Lima is to be affordable and a neighborhood place,” Cox said. “We could charge more for our cocktails and be in line with other places, but we didn’t want to go there.”
The wine list is reserved at 18 choices that include reds, whites, ports and Madeiras, while the cocktail list features three margarita variations, eight other riffs on classics like sangria, the mojito, the caipirinha and others. The familiar beer list is short with eight choices.
“To be a neighborhood cantina, the [beverage] menu has to be simple,” Cox said. “We want it to be the Cheers of Lexington.”
Design to Grow
Of the $145,000 invested in the space, Lundy said the largest share went to décor. Interior designer Cara Drion, also Lundy’s ex-wife, did the overhaul of what previously was The Upstart Crow. Cox’s original business plan forecasted startup capital needed would be $215,000.
“But we knew what we needed to spend and stayed with our parameters,” he said. “It was good to come in under budget and start with some operating capital.”
The project was funded partly by an equity investment from Leon Hollon, owner of Peoples Bank & Trust Co. of Hazard, Kentucky. Lundy said Hollon was a fan of Jonathan’s who wanted to see the chef get a new start in a new and innovative concept.
“He and his wife are incredibly friendly people who just love eating out,” he said. Hollon was not available for comment by press time. “They’re the types who really get to know the staff and are excited about being involved in a restaurant.”
The rest of the funds came from loans from multiple private lenders who, perhaps ironically, are mostly Lexington restaurateurs. Among them is Lee Greer, Lundy’s former boss at Coba Cocina.
“Lee’s been a mentor and a friend to us,” Lundy said. “Though we don’t work for him anymore, he’s still kind of the boss.”
Greer said he wanted to see Lundy and Cox get their own restaurant for the long term.
“It’s about the relationship more than the investment,” Greer said. Though technically competitors, he said he and several other restaurateur lenders in the group “all help each other and bounce ideas off each other. It’s good that we work together this way.”
Greer said this isn’t the first time he and some of his restaurant partners have invested in other operators’ dreams. Most recently his group took a stake in Ouita Michel’s restaurant, Honeywood, set to open in Lexington in late April.
“What I think is neat about them investing in Honeywood and Jonathan’s place is it’s a way to advance Lexington’s food culture,” Michel said. “That’s a huge compliment that we’d get help and he’d get help because there are a lot of projects out there that they’ve not invested in.”
Greer’s hunch is Corto y Lima has legs, that once the kinks are worked out, other units could be added not only in Lexington, but Louisville and Knoxville — not surprisingly, markets Greer Cos. developed for Cheddar’s. If the model is duplicable, he’d consider taking a stake in the company and expanding it.
“I’d be interested in helping them grow if it works, and I think it could,” Greer said. He believes good prices and great food will draw a crowd, and that Corto y Lima’s casual, polished vibe is on trend. Still, he said the first unit will have its challenges in its current location. “If they can overcome the parking in downtown Lexington, they’ll do fine. But overall, I like the menu and the vibe of these smaller, modern-day restaurants.”