Critic's Pick: Milktooth's Brunch Eats The Competition's Lunch

This might be a good time to mention that restaurant workers have never been big fans of brunch, the meal that drags them out of bed on the weekends to serve stuffed French toast to a bunch of perky morning people. In an unexpected twist, the restaurant that ranks as one of Indy’s hottest new places to eat also happens to serve that very meal—and not much of anything else—with the kind of precision and love that a fine restaurant might lavish on a multi-course meal set upon white linen.
Brunch is the raison d’être at Milktooth, the 3-year-old restaurant that Jonathan and Ashley Brooks opened in a former automotive shop in Fletcher Place, a location that you might blink and miss if not for the crowds of hungry customers standing outside the entrance, waiting for a weekend table. For those with a taste for nouveau home cooking—up-styled fried chicken, lacy potato-and-celeriac latkes, pickled-cranberry scones, porridge (yes, porridge) with coconut milk, and a rotating cut of local protein with a sunny egg on top—Milktooth has become an essential weekend tradition.
National food writers have joined in the praise. Soon after Milktooth opened, Food & Wine hailed Jonathan Brooks as one of the best new chefs of the year. Bon Appétit included it among its best new restaurants roster in 2015. The next year, Condé Nast Traveler ranked it among the best restaurants in the world! No word yet on where Milktooth ranks in the solar system, but Indy has known from day one that the city’s brunch disruptor is out of this world. Brunch hours: 9 a.m.–3 p.m. Wed.–Mon. 534 Virginia Ave., 317-986-5131, milktoothindy.com.