Love Handle

The only thing more surprising than Indy’s newfound craving for chopped pork-tongue sandwiches and trout-skin chips is where we discovered this implausible love: in a tiny East 10th Street storefront with a minimalist decor that most closely resembles its past life as a Subway sandwich shop. The location choice was but the first act of fearlessness by owners Chris and Ally Benedyk, who started serving up their one-of-a-kind take on sandwiches and charcuterie last August. Chris, one of the first employees to man the counter at Goose the Market in the early days of craft butchering, smokes his own meats in-house and whips up batches of glistening headcheese and beef-tendon terrine. The counter doubles as a display case for smoked pork belly, beef shoulder, and other glorious hunks of meat that find their way into sandwiches with names like Riptide (slices of spicy beef heart under a layer of fontina, with a sweet-sour accompaniment of mixed-berry jam and pickled veggies) and the Giton (roasted pork belly and beef shoulder with miso mostarda, spicy sour cabbage, and coffee mayo).

TIP: Desserts, Ally’s contribution to the daily menu, deserve equal billing. Don’t skip the banana cake layered with goat-cheese frosting, or anything with the word “cheesecake” in its name.

DON’T MISS: Love Handle’s interpretation of the breakfast sandwich, which might come in the form of a meaty French toast slider.

2829 E. 10th St., 430-5004

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