Cafe Meridian

I stopped by Café Meridian for a quick lunch last week, and I have to say, it’s a quirky, fun little place. Located at 112 Meridian Avenue in St. Matthews, Café Meridian resides in a two-story house, and although it’s small, I didn’t think it was overcrowded. There was ample space between tables for customers and servers to navigate through without knocking into each other. This is a big plus with me, as I’m of the “that’s your dance space and this is mine” variety. Everything in the place is mismatched. Seriously. Mismatched tables and chairs, even the salt and pepper shakers for the most part. The décor is sort of like Lynn’s Paradise Café but without the wacky, kooky, acid-trippy element.

As I entered, I was invited by a busy but cheerful server to have a seat anywhere. The same server showed up just a few moments later to take my drink order. Hmm, what will it be? Water. I took a few moments to look over the entire menu, which even though it contained mostly sandwiches, had quite a variety. There are plenty of selections for the herbivore and the carnivore. Incidentally, Café Meridian serves breakfast and lunch. Ok, so after a pretty serious internal struggle over the Gourmet Grilled Cheese sandwich (three cheeses, bacon, avocado, and tomato on whole wheat) and the Greek Wrap (Bibb lettuce, Roma tomato, feta, cabbage, olives, and capers with sun-dried tomato vinaigrette on a spinach wrap), I chose the grilled cheese with a side of pasta salad (penne pasta, fresh veggies, in a basil- balsamic vinaigrette with feta cheese). Yes, I’m aware that’s a lot of cheese, but….it’s cheese.

It was crowded for lunch, and my sandwich took a little while, but I busied myself reading a copy of the LEO. My food arrived, and after the first couple of bites, I kind of felt like this was a grilled cheese sandwich I could have made at home. Maybe it was because I’d hoped for a little more of a smoky flavor from one of the cheeses, but I wasn’t too impressed. The pasta salad was fantastic though. It wasn’t drowning in vinaigrette like most pasta salads I’ve encountered. I finished up pretty quickly and asked for my bill, which came to $9.28. I left a 15% tip and was on my way. I enjoyed the atmosphere, and I’ll probably return sometime, but I’ll definitely order something else next time.

Cheers,
Fleur de Lunch