Luke’s Kitchen & Bar – 640 South Orlando Avenue Maitland.
Continuing with the “Restaurantification” (Is that even a word?) of Maitland, Luke’s Kitchen and Bar opened for lunch service today after their grand opening a few weeks ago. Teak Neighborhood Grill will join the ranks of the Maitland restaurant expansion soon.
The team that brought you Prato and Luma have done a terrific job with the space and created a “Contemporary Industrial” design that has a bar area with booth and bar seating, and a main dining area with booth and table options. I must admit I found the open area of the main dining to be somewhat awkward and felt it would be better as a mirror of the other side but that is just my opinion. There is a theater kitchen and raw bar to the rear of the space and great patio for al fresco dining.
Luke’s promotes its food style as Classic American with a modern twist and features Spit – Fired Chicken as one of their signature dishes, the rest of the lunch menu combines Soups, Salads, Sandwiches, with Ceviche’s and a Raw bar. Cocktails follow the current “On Point” trend of “Prohibition” stylings.
The management team seem to be still playing around with the menu content and preparation, a wise move in my opinion during the first few weeks of trading, so expect to see changes in the offer as they perfect and customer proof the menu options.
I chose the signature Spit-Fired Chicken with roasted broccoli, corn and parsley salad, the chicken was perfectly roasted but the surprise of the dish was the Smokey BBQ flavor of the roasted broccoli which helped elevate the dish in flavor profiling.
Service was good but obviously still a lot of training going on with copious amounts of management supervision.
We wish Luke’s well and we are sure the experience of the management team will mirror the success of their other two locations. We will return in few weeks to fully review.
