Overnight Stay: Paducah, Kentucky
Head to this Midwest river town for barbecue, bourbon, and a terrific dinner spot from a world-class chef.
Welcome to the weekend!
There’s no distance that’s too far to travel for a great meal. We’ve planned many road trips just for the chance to visit a single restaurant. We’ve spent a couple nights in Paducah, Kentucky and each time we’ve dined at Sara Bradley’s terrific restaurant, Freight House. The chef, who was a finalist on two seasons of Top Chef and was a finalist this year for the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast, serves a creative and delicious menu that’s right at the intersection of Midwestern and Southern fare. We talked to her for a story — you can read it here — but we have plenty of other Paducah recommendations as well. We’re headed to the vibrant town for this month’s Overnight Stay. Overnight Stay newsletters are exclusively for paid subscribers and give you picks for a perfect single day in a destination.
If a Pacific Northwest escape is more your speed right now, go download our brand-new Field Guide to McMinnville & Oregon Wine Country, which organizes all our picks for the beautiful area into a three-day itinerary. Each Field Guide includes Google Maps links and is downloadable for offline reading.
Finally, we’ll wrap up the week with our Weekend Reading list, which covers what to do on Cape Cod this summer, a renovation of a classic San Diego hotel, and walks and eats on Oahu.
Thanks for reading.
— Amy Cavanaugh & Kenney Marlatt
Where the Midwest Meets the South
PADUCAH, KY. — Located in Western Kentucky along the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, Paducah has a walkable downtown with beautiful architecture, great restaurants, and bars. There’s also a thriving arts scene here, with enough activities to easily fill a weekend. Paducah is a UNESCO Creative City and you’ll find The National Quilt Museum and the Paducah School of Art & Design, along with theaters, live music, murals, and more (the Paducah Artist Relocation Program is a big reason why).
Paducah is at the crossroads of the Midwest and the South, and you’ll see influences of both regions in the food scene. For our dining itinerary, we’ll start with coffee, then grab a box of old-fashioned doughnuts. We’ll eat barbecue pork sandwiches at a classic favorite for lunch and deviled eggs and shrimp with pimento cheese grits from a Top Chef All-Star for dinner. And we’ll also stop in at two fun cocktail bars for bourbon drinks (and much more).
Let’s go explore.