Come Fly With Me

The guy working the desk at Max said the author's estate has been chasing a whole bunch of restaurants that have been making bank on Papa's good name. But not all of those restaurants, because Bass Pro Shops -- the same folks who are partnered up with the Islamorada Fish Company so gently upbraided in this week's review (see page 49) -- operate a gigantic fish restaurant called Hemingway's Blue Water Cafe on the fourth floor of the Bass Pro shop in Springfield, Missouri. So I called general manager Lori Zeppenfeldt and asked if she'd gotten the same kind of nasty note that Max Barber had.

No, she said, although she'd heard some "rumblings" about the Hemingway estate going after other people who were throwing around Ernest's name all higgledy-piggledy. But Zeppenfeldt doesn't expect to ever get such a letter. And why is that?

Apparently, the folks behind Hemingway's Blue Water Cafe have "special permission from the family's estate," Zeppenfeldt said -- namely, a friendship between the founder of Bass Pro, John L. Morris, and some guy (no, I'm not making this up) named Bonefish Willy down in the Keys. See, Morris used to fish the Bimini Flats with Mr. Willy, and Mr. Willy used to fish that same stretch with...you guessed it, Hemingway himself. Zeppenfeldt even has pictures on loan from the Hemingway estate and museum of Morris and Willy and Papa out on the water.

Which just goes to show that it really is all about who you know.

Leftovers: The folks behind Mondo Vino, a great wine store at 3601 West 32nd Avenue in Denver, did its expansion in the opposite order. The shop came first, then Cafe Mondo at 3301 Tejon Street, which started out last year just offering breakfast and lunch for the neighbors. But now that Cafe Mondo finally has its liquor license, it's added Friday- and Saturday-night dinners. Though the kitchen is small, the crew is putting out very interesting cheese and charcuterie plates and a surprisingly French menu, with duck rillette, chicken breasts stuffed with herbed chèvre, seared scallops over melted leeks and garlic risotto, and some desserts you just have to see to believe.

Finally, the old Sunny China space at 1156 South Broadway is sporting a sign that pronounces it's now Wild Basil.