NEW IN TOWN: Duos Kitchen
Duos Indy opened up a brick-and-mortar shop on the ground floor of the International Medical Group at 2960 N. Meridian Street
A select group of culinary stars (Brown, Mehallick, Hardesty, Dunville) spearheaded the renaissance in Indy’s restaurant scene, but these days, the young chefs training under them are just as likely to be the ones making your dinner. We caught up with the next wave and grilled them about personal favorites and inspirations. It’s an enticing taste of where cuisine is headed.
“Food is community building by its very nature,” Indianapolis chef and co-owner of Duos mobile kitchen Becky Hostetter said on the stage of The Toby theatre at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Thursday night as part of IMA’s We Are City Film Series. It was no surprise that she was speaking to a lively crowd of foodies, film lovers, and community members who had gathered for a screening of Sally Rowe’s A Matter of Taste, a documentary depicting the culinary passions, struggles, and rising career of Paul Liebrandt, chef of the Michelen two-star restaurant Corton in New York City.
The first thing you notice at Divvy, after you have strolled by packed communal tables in the bar and passed under raw-wood lampshades curved like Mobius strips, are the menus. Long, horizontal, and leather-bound like an old-timey razor strop, they contain sections upon subsections with suggestive monikers such as “Motion in the Ocean” and “Grazers Galore,” spanning more than 20 pages. You could dine here five nights a week, as some have, and never conquer the dozens of “Tidbits,” “Liquid Goods,” and “Mini Morsels” offered by this new foodie oasis in the shadow of Carmel’s Palladium. “The fun part was coming up with the names of the dishes,” says owner Kevin “Woody” Rider, the restaurateur who also brought Woody’s Library Restaurant to northside diners and helped open Bonge’s Tavern in Perkinsville.
“Miguel” might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think of Southern or Creole cookery. But if you’ve followed Miguel Santana from the kitchens of erstwhile downtown bakery and restaurant Benvenuti to Battery Park Saloon (also now closed) to his innovative fusion cuisine at Northside Social, then you know he’s anything but a conventional chef. And growing up in Miami does technically qualify him as a Southerner. His eponymous Miguel’s Southern Kitchen (130 N. Delaware St., 317-955-0001) is certainly a nice addition to lunchtime choices in a classic high-ceilinged storefront that most recently housed a chicken roaster and before that a longtime newsstand. The gorgeously ornate tile floors with fleur-de-lis patterns are enough of a reason to stop by. Santana’s selective menu divided between comforting classics and Bayou favorites shows some careful forethought.
The name may have changed one more time at this ever-evolving bar and eatery just north of Central Library on 9th Street downtown. But while it began as Bar Yats and morphed into simply The Bar at the Ambassador when Yats owner Joe Vuskovich pulled out of the business venture, what’s now Azul (43 E. 9th St., 602-2279) looks almost the same as it always has with its stark black walls, spacious banquettes, and plate-glass windows facing Pennsylvania Street.
If you had followed Ryan Nelson’s career from the beginning, you might have predicted the scene: Just 10 days after he opened Late Harvest Kitchen in the former Smith & Hawken storefront near The Fashion Mall, Nelson strolled from table to table in the packed, candlelit dining room of his first solo enterprise, talking to customers with the ease of a seasoned restaurant professional. But in many ways, he was still the guy from Minneapolis, the onetime English major and avid hockey fan a tad uncomfortable in his chef’s whites, humbly hoping you enjoyed the food he had cooked for you. Only now he was not answering to the corporate offices of The Oceanaire Seafood Room, where he established himself as both team player and rising star, garnering an invitation to cook at the revered James Beard House in New York City at age 26.
The belovedly funky but now slightly dated Shelbi Street Cafe has changed its name to the verbose End of the Line Public House (1105 Shelby St., 317-687-4857), promising a slice of Indianapolis history and the best selection of local craft beers. We popped in to see the changes over the weekend. But not all that much has changed here, save for a row of historical photos of such classic Indianapolis sights as the streetcars for the old Interurban system–which is where the restaurant gets its new name.
When I first moved to Indy, in the mid-1990s, I lived just north of 49th & College, a decidedly sleepy intersection in SoBro, a moniker then in use by only the hippest of locals. We were, in fact, south of Broad Ripple, but you would never know it. I yearned for a spot down the street where I could drop in for a drink or a snack, maybe even a bar where at least a few of the patrons knew my name.
When Zing, the small-plates-then-big-plates eatery on Indiana Avenue, closed last May, we knew it wouldn’t be long before someone came along to snatch up this historic, two-story gem of a restaurant location. But we were surprised to hear it would soon be the second outpost of Avon strip-mall Cajun eatery Nawlins Creole Cafe. Hopefully they could do the big, flashier space justice. So when we saw an open sign lit up in the window after the John Waters event at the Madame Walker Saturday night, we dashed across West Street to try it out.
Gone are the rustic mailboxes, the grape-vine wreaths, and the weathered tin watering cans. But chef-owner Ryan Nelson, former executive chef at The Oceanaire Seafood Room, has kept a good deal of the woodsy charm of the old Smith and Hawken location for his first solo effort, Late Harvest Kitchen (8605 River Crossing, 317-663-8063), which opened officially to the public on Friday night. We had fun trying to imagine where a bank of shelves might have been or whether we were dining in a former storage room or not (and dreaming of warmer weather to dine in the pergola outside). Nelson has definitely made the space his own, and a cozy bar inside the entryway, a dining room with sweeping ceilings, and elegant dark wood against white walls demonstrate the attention that’s gone into converting this former retail space into the latest seasonally inspired eatery to open in town.
Hundreds of gourmets and gourmands alike braved the cold and crammed the parking lot of the Old National Centre Friday night for what proved to be Indy’s biggest food truck event. Featuring nearly 20 food trucks, local beers and wines, live music, and dj sets, this third monthly First Friday Food Truck Festival showcased a […]
Of all the experiments chef Neal Brown has conducted, whether in his kitchen laboratoire or the culinary free market, none has come as close to successful alchemy as The Libertine Liquor Bar, his shrine to the cocktail in a Washington Street storefront downtown. A shot of Scandinavian austerity, a jigger of pre-Prohibition American frontier swagger, and a dash of orange bitters dosed from eyedroppers by Brown’s exacting barkeeps, The Libertine is a study in contrasts—some logical, some forced—that all mingle, dazzlingly. Take “The Last Word,” one of several clever coinages on Brown’s drink menu. It mixes Bluecoat gin, lending its distinctly piney profile, with Luxardo maraschino and green chartreuse, haute liqueurs as opposite as stop and go. A bracing hit of lime merges these improbable comrades into a restrained elixir that cleanses the palate at the same time it sweetens it, a beguiling medicine you’re all too glad to take.
We had to fight through the traffic on US 36 west of I-465, but once we got to Avon, we were impressed that there are a growing number of independent, international eateries, not just chain restaurants in strip malls. The newest player is actually a remake of the former Green Leaf Vietnamese restaurant, which is now called Pho Asian Grill (10240 East US Highway 36, 271-7999). True to its name, this cozy, shotgun eatery with seating for only around 30 people offers Vietnamese standards such as the iconic spiced soup pho. We tried one with rare beef that had a good depth of flavor and the usual accompaniments of sprouts, basil, mint, jalapenos, and lime. But the restaurant also offers a small selection of entrees that span Asia, such as Chinese stir-fries, Korean barbecued ribs, even the Japanese fritter tonkatsu. Spring rolls, both fried and fresh, came with flavorful dipping sauces, a peanut version and a rice vinegar dressing, and cream cheese rangoons seemed a bit more homemade than some, if without much (or any?) crab. “Shaken” beef was perhaps the hit of the evening, with surprisingly tender beef the menu suggested was filet in a rich soy-based gravy with a nice kick of chiles. Lemongrass chicken was a bit more timid but did have an aromatic undertone of ginger and garlic. We might not trade our favorite pan-Asian takeouts inside of I-465, but if we’ve got a reason to travel west of town, we know we can find some freshly made Asian favorites amid the franchises.
The south side’s international dining offerings grew by one enthusiastic Indian eatery this summer with the addition of The Clay Oven (7415 US 31 South, 888-2600) in Southport. Priding itself on its tandoor oven, this strip-mall eatery offers up a plentiful menu with everything from chicken kababs to broiled salmon to an abundance of vegetarian offerings. A stop in for dinner last weekend proved that this newcomer can compete with some of the better Indian restaurants in the city. Particularly tasty was a vegetarian appetizer combo with crispy vegetable samosas, golden fried pakora, and alloo tikki, nicely spiced mashed potato patties. For entrees, the lamb rogan josh was a luscious curry with meaty hunks of lamb that didn’t blast our palates away. A side of cauliflower korma was lush and creamy with the richness of ground nuts, though an overabundance of salt had us reaching for our water glasses. Thankfully, we also had a malty Haywards 5000, an Indian brew with a full 7% alcohol (it’s labeled “Super Strong Beer”), which helped make this cheery eatery, with its quite amicable staff, all the more charming.
