Welcome to the weekend!
Today we’re off to Lexington, Kentucky, home to horses, rolling bluegrass hills, and the University of Kentucky. It’s where you’ll stay on the Bourbon Trail if you’re visiting the nearby Woodford Reserve Distillery, and where we go to eat grilled country ham and pimento cheese sandwiches, old-school doughnuts, and more. Our Overnight Stay itinerary features picks for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks. You can find more of our Overnight Stay guides here — we have restaurant and bar recommendations to places like Sonoma, California; New Buffalo, Michigan; and the Mississippi Delta.
This month, we also rolled out a brand-new Field Guide to Knoxville, with a two-day food and drink itinerary organized into a handy digital download. Our Field Guides, which include picks for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks, are included with a paid subscription but can also be purchased on our website.
Finally, our Weekend Reading list covers where to get great thick burgers in Chicago, a deep dive into the barbecue lexicon, and where to find morel mushrooms, that delicious harbinger of spring, in the Midwest.
Thanks for reading!
— Amy Cavanaugh & Kenney Marlatt
Editors, American Weekender
American Weekender is a weekly travel newsletter that covers the best places to eat and drink around the country. Subscribe to receive it in your inbox every Friday and upgrade to paid for the best intel.
Bourbon Country Bites
LEXINGTON, KY. — There are many reasons to visit Lexington: Bourbon distilleries, horse farms (it is the “Horse Capital of the World” after all), or catching a University of Kentucky basketball game. While we’re definitely sending you to a distillery on this trip, we’ve enjoyed spending our visits here exploring the local restaurant scene. Whenever we are in town, we check in with friend and fellow food writer , who grew up in Lexington and always knows just where to go.
Much of the dining scene is clustered downtown, but you’ll want to expand your reach to find the city’s best. Like Spalding’s Bakery. While we like fancy doughnuts, we really like old school doughnut spots, and Spalding’s meets that criteria. It’s a family-owned bakery that opened in 1929 and serves doughnuts that are hand-formed and irregular in shape (that just means more craggy edges to catch the sweet glaze!). Get an OG glazed yeast doughnut, a yeast doughnut with chocolate icing, and the apple fritter, which is stuffed with cinnamon-y apple filling.
Kentucky has one of the fastest growing Latino populations in the country, and there’s a stretch of Mexican businesses in Lexington (dubbed “Mexington”) where you’ll find the popular taco joint Tortilleria Y Taqueria Ramirez. There, you can eat gorditas, burritos, quesadillas, tortas, tacos, and more. Get a plate of tacos — we especially like the crispy chorizo and the carne asada — with a giant horchata to tame the heat from their excellent salsas.
Finally, Lexington’s best known chef is Ouita Michel, who has a few spots around town, including Holly Hill Inn and Smithtown Seafood. Honeywood Restaurant is a go-to for us. There’s a fun snack platter with country ham, buttermilk biscuits, pimento cheese, spicy pickles, and other goodies to start with alongside the eponymous cocktail, made with Woodford rye, Aperol, honey, and grapefruit. Don’t miss the fried chicken, which comes served with hoe cakes dressed with honey butter, chili green beans, and pickles.
If that all sounds good, keep reading — you’ll find our perfect Lexington day outlined below.
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