food and drink

Pearl Jam in Chicago, Chef’s Night Off, an al fresco movie night, and more.

The Best of Indy Food and Drink section features the best restaurant spin-offs, mall pretzels, soft cheeses, boozy milkshakes, and more.

Where’s a good place to drop some of your $53 along the trail? Glad you asked.

Get a taste of this: Indy’s top dining stories of 2014 feature kid-friendly pubs, chef burgers, Alton Brown’s Indy food-and-drink tour, the year’s best restaurants, and more.

Owners and managers at stores ranging from Haus Love to Homespun, Rogue Decor to Rusted Moon Outfitters, dish on the places they love to browse.

How to avoid the lines, what to taste, and the edible accessory you’ll want to wear.

“Hopefully the word is out that I’m coming, and I’m looking to have some fun and enjoy the festivities,” he says.

Many frequent shoppers will attest, if you see something worthwhile among the racks, snag it, because tomorrow it’ll be history. And carefully check expiration dates, as many of the items are past their prime.

Fabric store Crimson Tate is beloved for its whimsically patterned Indiana pillows and Harriet headbands. Find out what else we’re loving on downtown’s liveliest strip.

Give your mother the day off this Sunday and treat her to brunch at one of Indy’s restaurants that bridge the breakfast/lunch gap in style.

Considering the electric lime and Pepto-Bismol pink walls, mounted taxidermy, indoor bocce ball court, and Mister Rogers and Merle Haggard portraits, we have a feeling the owners of at the soon-to-open The Tin Roof (36 S. Pennsylvania St., 317-224-0785) won’t be taking much of anything too seriously.

Newly appointed as the head chef of Meridian Restaurant & Bar (5694 N. Meridian St., 317-466-1111) Layton Roberts brings some lusty, low-country cooking to Meridian-Kessler. (SPOILER ALERT: That means the return of the fried chicken dinner.) The 30-year-old toque, who started his career in Louisville before arriving in Indianapolis five years ago, headed up the kitchen at 14 West and most recently served as chef de cuisine at Mesh on Mass—an impressive resume in its own right. Using a dog-eared Meridian menu heavily annotated with handwritten notes as his show-and-tell, Roberts gives us a preview of what he has planned for one of Indy’s longest-standing eateries.  

When it comes to making cash during the biggest event this city’s seen, Sensu is stocked and ready to serve loaded East Coast visitors. The deliveries have been rolling in, including cases of Grey Goose in an array of flavors, Patron, and Jack Daniel’s. You know, the usual. 

New to the Mass Ave corridor is a vodka-meets-video concept that fills a gap in the city’s bar scene. Tini (717 N. Massachusetts Ave., 317-384-1313) opened on Dec. 13 to much buzz from those who can’t get over the idea that “Video Killed the Radio Star,” which is, not coincidentally, the first music video that owner Brad Kime played. The visuals are colorful and lively, of course, and the rest of the room complements those video clips, which skew evenly across classic and current. You’ll get both your Bruce Springsteen and your Beyonce here.