Photos: Best Restaurants Event 2014

Two hundred comers noshed on goodies from some of the city’s premier chefs during our tasting hour last night, and then gravitated to the penthouse level at the Ivy Tech Culinary School building on Meridian Street for a four-course sit-down dinner featuring the culinary prowess of seven more of Indianapolis’s cream-of-the-crop chefs, plus desserts by Ivy Tech culinary students guided by Cindy Hawkins of Circle City Sweets.

Here’s a litany of #IndyBestRest tweets from the evening, posted by attendees, our editors and social media team, and the restaurants and chefs themselves. You can find more images on the go at our Instagram account. (For those of you with Instagram accounts, you can find even more event photos by searching the #IndyBestRest hashtag in that app. Happy salivating.)

Without further ado, below are last night’s menus:

Tasting Hour

» Beet salad with Just Pop In popcorn and more (Napolese)

» Chili-rubbed pork lollipop, caramelized honey jicama, blueberry, melon-lime salsa (The Local Eatery & Pub)

» Sweet-chili tuna tartare: seasoned daikon radish, wasabi pea emulsion, with soy glaze and crispy wonton (Peterson’s)

» Thai green papaya (som tam) spring rolls with sweet chili sauce, containing crab (Shoefly Public House)

» Local rabbit rillettes, pickled rhubarb with whey chutney, buttered popcorn cracker (The Loft at Traders Point Creamery)

» Beet tartare, horseradish creme fraiche, salmon roe (Taste Cafe, with an assist from adjacent Eat + Drink)

» Pork arancini with miso-lime aioli (Meridian Restaurant & Bar)

» Bruleed Brie, black Mission fig jam, and green apples served on toasty crostini; also, edamame hummus served with wonton crisps, carrot wedges, and cucumber circles (Divvy)

» Duck-reuben deviled egg with crispy Swiss cheese and 1000 Island coulis (Oakleys Bistro)

» Szechwan with pickled bamboo shoots and micro-beets (Rook)

» Cochinita Slider, from adjacent La Mulita, new in town: achiote roasted pork, avocado, and pickled onions (Delicia)

Dinner Menu

» Amuse Bouche: Soy- and ginger-marinated duck proscuitto over sesame crackers (Ryan Kernodle, Indigo Duck)

» First Course: Dueling ramps (Abbi Merriss, Bluebeard, and Greg Hardesty, Recess/Room Four)

» Second Course: Avocado toast with pickled smelts, asparagus pudding, ramp ash, and goat’s milk (Neal Brown, The Libertine Liquor Bar)

» Third Course: Rabbit, bulgur, 5 spring vegetables (fiddleheads), shallot caramel, and black garlic (Caleb France, Cerulean)

» Fourth Course: Cotechino sausage with sheep’s-milk polenta and tarragon–pine nut gremolata (Ryan Nelson, Late Harvest Kitchen, and Mark Marlar, The Oceanaire)

» Open Dessert Bar: Ivy Tech Culinary Students, led by Cindy Hawkins of Circle City Sweets

Photos by Sarah Boyum, Jonathan Scott, Savannah Snyder, and Tony Valainis