B I S T R O L E R E L A I S O F F E R S A N E L E VAT E D YET RELAXED DINING EXPERIENCE Writer / Noelle Tennis Gulden Photography Provided
Anthony Dike was just 21 years old when he moved from Switzerland to the United States to learn commodity trading at American stock brokerage firm E.F. Hutton.
“I just got very lucky starting to work in very good places in New York,” says Dike, whose resume includes such culinary giants as Mortimer’s and La Goulue.
However, Dike quickly found out that the stock market wasn’t what he expected.
After nine years in New York, Dike was ready to move on and explore other parts of the country. He and renowned FrenchAmerican restaurateur Jean Denoyer decided to open Le Relais in Louisville.
“I did a few trades, but it didn’t make me feel good,” Dike says. “People are losing money and I’m still making money? It’s not right. So that was it.”
“I was still young and I wanted to try,” Dike says. “So we came here and I said, ‘Okay, we’ll open it and then I’ll move on.’ But that happened 32 years ago.”
During his brief time as a trader, Dike had picked up night shifts at several restaurants in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. When he decided he’d had enough of trading, Dike started working full time in some of New York City’s finest restaurants.
When you first step into the restaurant, it’s easy to imagine that nothing has changed since Dike and Denoyer first opened it 32 years ago. Perhaps that’s due to the timelessness of its location at Louisville’s historic Bowman Field airport.
The eatery is located in an administration building that was constructed in 1929. The space the restaurant occupies once served as the airport’s terminal, and the main lobby is available for private parties. It can accommodate up to 48 people for a sitdown dinner, and more for a cocktail party. Denoyer’s former wife, a Louisville native, originally proposed the unique location. Its art deco architecture was a perfect fit for Denoyer’s well-known style. Dike refers to it as New York chic with French appeal. While many aspects of the restaurant have remained the same - such as the walls, which were painted 32 years ago by a young German artist to look like wood paneling others have not. “We originally had a New York-style layout with the tables closer together,” Dike says.
30 / ST. MATTHEWS MAGAZINE / APRIL 2020 / StMatthewsMag.com
