Cafe Patachou

The restaurant’s window-fringed dining room highlights slate-black tables, bench seating, wooden stools, and blown-up portraits of colorful dishes infused with produce from the onsite gardens.

From to Union 50 to The Mug, La Mulita to Ezra’s Enlightened Cafe, we’re highlighting 22 winners in the dine-and-drink categories.

Here are the winners of our online survey accompanying the magazine’s “Best of Indy” feature, with a selection of comments from the readers who voted.

A Petite Chou eatery converts into a Cafe Patachou, and Revery opens in Greenwood.

Whether it was shrimp cocktail from St. Elmo Steak House, lasagna from Iaria’s Italian Restaurant, or tostadas from Acapulco Joe’s, Annie Zoll cultivated an adventurous appetite from the time she was 6 years old.

A few Indianapolis-based entrepreneurs reveal their insights on starting a business, be it a boutique or a bar, a franchise or a food truck.

Including a colorful hardbound wedding album from Bohemian Red Images, by offbeat Indy photographer Katie Basbagill.

About local-favorite Long’s Bakery, Stewart tells IM, “They let me go in the back and photograph the entire doughnut-making process. We ate so many of them.”

A pioneer of locavore dining is now raising the profile of the homesteading trend.

He has free reign over the menu at Napolese, a pizza empire that grows by one more when Martha Hoover opens the restaurant’s third incarnation this month at Keystone at the Crossing. But success has not diminished chef Tyler Herald‘s sense of adventure. Here, the Portland-trained chef with the locavorian spirit reflects on his growing season.

Over a month ago, we reported that Martha Hoover, the owner of Napolese, was cool as a cucumber while preparing for yet another opening. Yesterday, she opened her new downtown Napolese (30 S. Meridian St., 317-635-0765) in the stunning Deco-style skyscraper that originally housed the L.S. Ayres men’s shop.

Seven of Indiana’s top culinary dogs are strutting their stuff as 2013 James Beard Foundation nominees, selected from more than 44,000 online entries in 20 categories. Last week, the foundation unveiled its “long list” (421) of the year’s semifinalists—which will be cut down to the final list of nominees on March 18 during a press brunch in Charleston, SC. (NOTE: nominations will also be announced live via the Foundation’s Twitter feed.)

The latest addition to Cafe Patachou owner Martha Hoover’s family of eateries is Gelo, an Italian-style gelato shop adjacent to her pizzaria, Napolese (114 E. 49th St., 317-925-0765). Gelo opened on Oct. 5, inspired by “the tiny dessert shops in Europe,” says Hoover.

We’ve collected links to several recent local and national stories about dining in Indianapolis during the Super Bowl. Here, a few of our favorites.

See what the owner of Cafe Patachou is up to in early 2012: