Proof on Main opened in 2006 as part of 21c Museum Hotel's Louisville flagship, and the restaurant still shares its rooms with the hotel's rotating contemporary art exhibitions — dining space and lounge doubling as gallery. Executive chef Cody Stone, part of the original 2005 sous chef team that launched the restaurant, has returned to lead the kitchen after a run as executive chef at Decca in Louisville's NuLu neighborhood.
Stone's cooking draws on the seasonality of the Ohio River Valley, treating traditional dishes of the American South and Appalachia as a starting point before reworking them with global technique and a particular interest in Mediterranean and Italian cooking. On the tables: charred octopus, a bison burger, cornbread, and a weekend brunch that has built its own following.
The bar runs a single barrel program, working with master distillers across Kentucky on bourbons bottled and sold exclusively through the restaurant and hotel. A private dining room accommodates groups up to 24, and the lounge hosts a daily Art & Aperitivo Hour tied to whatever exhibition is currently on the walls.
Stone's cooking draws on the seasonality of the Ohio River Valley, treating traditional dishes of the American South and Appalachia as a starting point before reworking them with global technique and a particular interest in Mediterranean and Italian cooking. On the tables: charred octopus, a bison burger, cornbread, and a weekend brunch that has built its own following.
The bar runs a single barrel program, working with master distillers across Kentucky on bourbons bottled and sold exclusively through the restaurant and hotel. A private dining room accommodates groups up to 24, and the lounge hosts a daily Art & Aperitivo Hour tied to whatever exhibition is currently on the walls.