There’s a European cafe culture in which friends gather over coffee, talk for an hour or three and maybe have a snack. Then, after night falls, the social feast moves to a different venue with more substantial provisions or maybe some music and dancing.
At one Clifton restaurant, you don’t have to leave your table to experience the full spectrum. Caffe Classico, which started as a coffee shop in 2003, is now a full-service cafe that allows diners to begin their day with coffee and a pastry, and end it, on some nights, with a live flamenco dance performance. “We evolved to have lunch and dinner and full service, because that’s the style of cafes all over the world,” explains proprietor Tommy Mudd, a former golf pro who opened the Frankfort Avenue venue eight and a half years ago. “It’s always nice to be able to have a sandwich at 3:30 in the afternoon in London, and we want to provide that service for the community.”
The community vibe surrounds the restaurant, right down to the OPEN sign in Spanish, English and Arabic. To Mudd, this is both a declaration of hospitality and a hint of what’s inside. “The concept of Classico is the vision of different cultures coming together, and the two most enduring ways that cultures learn about each other is through food and music,” he says. Inspired by Arabic-speaking friends and the beauty of their calligraphy, Mudd also wanted to extend an inclusive invitation to all comers. “We’re saying, ‘Yes, you are welcome here.’”
Although 1492 is recalled across Europe and North Africa as the year the Spanish kicked the Moors out of their country, the combined Spanish-Middle Eastern influence is alive in this corner of Louisville. The cafe features a live flamenco musician on some nights, with individual dancers or groups from that or other cultures performing a couple of times a month. Mudd recalls a recent night when a group of flamenco musicians dropped in for dinner, only to end the evening in an impromptu dance and jam session. “They have the Gypsy spirit,” muses Mudd. “It’s a lifestyle.”
The food also reflects this lifestyle: Along with the coffee and Spanish elements, Caffe Classico offers a full range of cuisines from across Europe. A substantial amount of the kitchen’s produce comes from local providers, including small farmers who have helped create some of the menu’s vegetarian dishes.
“At the root of what we’ve always done is quality as opposed to quantity,” Mudd says. Indeed, it started small: “We originally opened as a coffee shop – ‘Caffe’ – and then I picked ‘Classico’ because in Europe it signifies a different distinction of quality, such as in Chianti Classico.”
Whether customers come in for an espresso or a few glasses of wine at dinner, one thing that is distinctive is the 12-person staff’s refusal to push diners out the door. “We never take drinks or coffee cups from the table until they’ve left, and we don’t try to turn tables,” says Mudd. “If there are two people at a table having a conversation, and there’s something possible there, I don’t want to interrupt that.” Amazingly, this business practice has turned positive dividends, and Caffe Classico enjoys a loyal clientele, many of whom visit several times a week. “Our bumps are just bumps and not big dips,” Mudd says of the ups and downs of business. “We’ve built that by doing the same thing, being consistent and really just liking people.”
So how does he keep things interesting? “I ask myself that a lot,” says Mudd. “As a restaurant, if you’re not freshening up, it can get a little stale. So we’re probably going to start doing a bit more music soon.”
As for the golfing life, Mudd has never looked back. He and his wife of 11 years, Claudia Peralta-Mudd, live in St. Matthews with their 2-year-old son, and he prefers his cafe’s international flavor – or that in his home – to a day on the fairway. “My wife is from Buenos Aires, so her culture is tango,” he says. “We play some tango in the cafe, but my passion is flamenco. She’s passionate about flamenco too, but that was a coincidence with us. It’s just meaningful and has lots of layers of depth.” In other words, classic.
Caffe Classico, located at 2144 Frankfort Ave., is open Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Coffee service is available at all hours, with lunch served until 5 p.m. and a combined lunch-dinner menu after that. The restaurant is closed on Monday. For more information, visit www.caffe-classico.com or call (502) 895-0076.
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