Best Restaurants: Secret Weapons

Hours before the first small plate arrives at your table and long into the night after you’ve left for home, the staff behind your dinner toils to get the details just right. For every showstopping entree or pretty dessert, there’s a trusty saute pan or a time-tested kitchen gadget that makes the city’s best food possible. Here, some of Indy’s most iconic weapons of mass consumption.

Steel-mesh oyster-shucking glove and knife from The Oceanaire’s raw bar.

A well-seasoned frying pan from Milktooth’s arsenal of Dutch baby–makers.

The Garden Table’s commercial cold-press juicer.

Table-spanning charcuterie boards used to deliver Union 50’s chef’s-choice Grand Board.

Plastic condiment cups that Love Handle’s Chris Benedyk uses to make soft-poached eggs in meat gelee.

Jane Burgess, who bakes all of the pies for her son Jake’s restaurant, FoxGardin Kitchen & Ale.

Marrow chef John Adams’s hat, featuring the restaurant’s “globally inspired soul food” logo.