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Neighborhoods

Your Guide to Fine Dining

Lexington is a city of neighborhoods, and each neighborhood has its own cluster of restaurants. There are many residents of Lexington who eat out once or twice a week year round and never visit a restaurant out of their own neighborhood. This is possible because various kinds of restaurants have been divided equally across the city. A new nationality restaurant or specialty restaurant will seek out a neighborhood where it will be the only one of its kind. After several decades of this, no matter where you are in the city, you can find your favorite type of restaurant fairly close by.

This becomes especially useful to visitors, because wherever your hotel is located, you don't have to drive across town. You can usually eat within a reasonable walk of your hotel. Large metropolitan areas, of course, have always taken this distribution for granted. But Lexington is a small city of only 400,000, so it used some fairly far sighted planning to achieve the same effect.

The ambience varies considerably, though. Nicholasville Road and Richmond Road are the two major thoroughfares heading into the city. There are good restaurants both places, but they're looking out on a four to six lane highway. Hamburg Place is a sprawling shopping district, where instead of everything being inside an enclosed mall, each business stands alone in the middle of a parking lot. Beaumont Center is a sort of elegant 21st Century interpretation of the old strip mall. Stores and restaurants are mostly in an attached row, but there are trees, grass and a stream flowing through. Chevy Chase is a two block square in the middle of Lexington's old money, very classy residential district, with the university just down the street. Downtown is a quieter, greener version of downtowns everywhere. There's a park with fountains and trees, blocks of 1890s federalist buildings, and boutiques and bars mixed in with the restaurants.

Parking is less of a hassle in Lexington than other cities. If you're staying in one of the downtown hotels, or in town for one of the basketball tournaments Lexington is famous for hosting, you already have a parking space. If you're driving anywhere else in town, there's plenty of parking available. Everywhere else, it's right in front of or next to the restaurant. In Chevy Chase, there are lots tucked in behind or down the street from the restaurants.