Hospitality Design - August 2012 - 107

Michael Paley
Executive Chef, Metropole, and Chef/Owner, Garage Bar Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky
You recently migrated from your post as executive chef of Proof on Main, at the 21C Hotel in Louisville, to Metropole at the new 21C property in Cincinnati, opening late this fall. How will this restaurant be different? It’s rustic American. Proof in the beginning had more of an Italian inﬂuence, and then moved into a more regional sensibility. I’m into ﬁnding farmers in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky and knowing for example, that this guy has great eggs, this guy grows great greens. I just wrote the ﬁrst draft of a menu; it sounds warm and comfortable. Cincinnati has a history of being very pork-centric so we deﬁnitely want to have a meat heavy menu but also highlight vegetables. I’m ﬁnding a lot of interesting techniques for cooking vegetables in the hearth, reading old books about cooking ﬁreplaces. And the ﬁreplace is the centerpiece of the restaurant. Metropole’s whole design is based around a hearth, a six-foot-wide open ﬁrebox. We use it as a tool, something we can cook all day with. It’s super versatile—we can cook things over the ﬁre, roast in the ashes, and braise over the embers. What else can you tell me about the design, by New York-based Deborah Berke & Partners? The hotel [the former Metropole] is going to turn one hundred years old this year, so there’s a lot of history. The ﬂoor features original tiles. There are reclaimed wood tables and waist height counters so everyone can see into the open kitchen. At the end of the bar is the cold station with a refrigerated box and hanging charcuterie. We also have an antique slicer made in Holland in the 1900s. There’s a guy in Argentina who ﬁnds old ones and transforms them until they are gleaming. What else is going on in Cincinnati you ﬁnd inspiring? They’re putting in so much investment downtown on the waterfront and with streetcars. Our location is on a busy street right across from the Aronoff Center for the Arts. The Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, said to

Clockwise from top left: The exterior of casual Louisville brick oven pizza lair, Garage Bar; Michael Paley (photo by Josh Meredith); and a rendering of the exterior of Metropole at the new 21C Hotel in Cincinnati, opening late this fall, with design by New York-based Deborah Berke & Partners.

be the most intact urban historic district in the country, used to be a huge brewery district in the 1800s. After World War I it all went into decline. Now they are rehabbing condos and renovating Washington Park. Have you discovered any new eats while exploring Cincinnati? There are some great restaurants in Over-the-Rhine, like Senate, Bakersﬁeld, and Lavomatic. Downtown there’s Local 127 and JeanRobert’s Table.

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