NEW IN TOWN: Ralston’s Drafthouse
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If you’ve been following the saga of all the startups trying to make a go of it on the ground floor of the recently renovated Ambassador building downtown, you may have been surprised to see an “Open” sign lit in the front window for the last few weeks. In the very beginning, after Yats owner Joe Vuskovich “stepped away” from the original Bar Yats concept just as the place was opening in September of 2010, the bar morphed into The Bar at the Ambassador with real promise serving authentic Cajun dishes and top-notch cocktails, including excellent Sazeracs and Vieux Carres. But slow, understaffed service and a dwindling crowd caused the place to change concepts, then close, until it reopened briefly in January of this year as Azul, with a curious menu of Mexican-inspired dishes though minimal decor changes. The doors darkened just a few weeks later, with little hope of a bar or eatery coming back to this seemingly prime downtown location just north of Central Library, amid a host of downtown apartment complexes.
But in mid-August, the place opened again as The Diplomat at the Ambassador (43 E. 9th St., 317-602-4433), the name clearly hoping to restore some of the style and elegance that the historic space promises. With a streamlined menu that features everything from crab cakes and fish tacos to affordable stick-to-your ribs dinners such as pot roast ($12) and duck with a Port and berry reduction ($14), the place has promise to do what its forebears didn’t: provide straightforward bar eats and solid drinks to a downtown block with somewhat of a dearth of dining choices.
A meaty squid salad at the SEO-friendly Sushi Bar Broad Ripple (911 Broad Ripple Ave., 317-257-7289). Carefully assembled to provide the perfect ratio of grated cheese to dressing per bite, the cherry tomato salad from Room Four (4907 N. College Ave., 317-925-7529). The shrimp and grits appetizer at
This time next month, you’ll once again be able to grab a beer and a bite from the Aristocrat Pub & Restaurant (5212 N. College Ave., 317-283-7388). According to manager Melissa Uhte, the 79-year-old neighborhood favorite will reopen its doors in the first or second week of October after a 13-month closure for reconstruction, the result of an electrical fire that destroyed the back of the building and left everything else saturated with smoke.
The latest lunchtime addition to downtown is Punch Burger (137 E. Ohio St.), a casual burger-and-beer joint where diners can grab a quick bite for $5 to $6. Scheduled to open Oct. 1, the concept comes from Travis Sealls and Devon Everhart, owners of downtown’s fast-sandwich spot, Pita Pit (1 N. Pennsylvania St., 317-829-7482).
Inspired by the success of upscale watering holes like Ball & Biscuit, Libertine, and Bluebeard, Valerie Vanderpool, chef and co-founder of Zest! Exciting Food Creations (1134 E. 54th St., 317-466-1853) is getting in on the cocktail craze. In April, Vanderpool plans to open Twist Lounge in the former N. Rue spot next door to her SoBro restaurant. The lounge will have a “sparkly, Paris boudoir look,” according to Vanderpool, who plans to apply Zest’s philosophy about food (“make it fresh, use quality ingredients, add a little whimsy”) to drinks such as the Cuzmopolitan and the SoBro Long Island Tea. “It’s going to be a total extension of what we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years,” Vanderpool says.
If you’ve driven up Meridian Street lately and wondered about the construction at the once-dingy hotel north of 28th Street, you are in for a tasty surprise. For the past 18 months, with the help of grants by the Lilly Endowment and other entities, Ivy Tech Community College has been quietly, furiously revamping the former Stouffer’s hotel, recently a Christian ministry, and relocating its culinary school classrooms to the 13-story, 196,000-square-foot high rise, now with nine culinary labs, state-of-the-art fixtures, and the potential to accommodate 1,500 budding student chefs. Just as exciting as the impact these students will have on the local restaurant and banquet scene is the opening, at the recent start of the new semester, of Courses (2820 N. Meridian St.), the culinary school’s 140-seat restaurant.
The opening is a coup for Hoosier history buffs as well. The North Meridian address links back to a storied history of baked beans and the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. The school is built on the property that was once the site of the ornate mansion of Frank Van Camp, the famous bean magnate, who built his stately home in the late 1800s, fitting it with ornate wood carvings and leaded glass windows. It wasn’t until 1965 that the location was converted to a hotel by Stouffer’s, the frozen dinner folks, who were expanding their restaurant and hotel empire around the country. Noting the structural riches of the Van Camp estate, Stouffer’s architects preserved many of the windows and integrated various carved archways into the hotel design. Ivy Tech’s designers have kept these historical details in their new culinary institute, creating a refreshed, pristine facility that yet has links to the past. Sadly, the Institute for Basic Life Principles, the building’s most recent tenant, removed the second-floor swimming pool when it moved into the facility in the late 1980’s, but Ivy Tech has converted the Institute’s spacious auditorium into a stunning multipurpose space with soaring windows that will soon host weddings and receptions. As a hotel, the facility saw its share of celebrities and dignitaries. Dolly Parton and Glen Campbell both purportedly stayed here when performing in town, and it’s believed that it was the last hotel Elvis stayed in while he was offering his infamous last concert at Market Square Arena downtown.
Associate professor and culinary arts instructor chef Thom England has had the joy of ordering many of the latest cooking appliances and gadgets to set the school’s high-tech labs and teaching kitchens apart, including built-in sous vide wells, induction burners, even a Swiss Pacojet, which can blend foods at super-fast speeds at sub-zero temperatures. Just this week, Englad was still jogging about the building, making certain that the right smoker was installed in the right kitchen. In addition to the much larger digs, Ivy Tech’s culinary school will be operating as no-waste facility, with extensive composting and machinery for turning waste products into lint. In addition to its labs, the school now houses climate-controlled chocolate work and charcuterie curing rooms, and plans are in the works for herb and vegetable gardens to the west of the building.
Ivy Tech’s culinary program culminates with two hands-on classes where students gain experience that’s as close to restaurant work as possible. Now, that experience is coming at Courses, which is currently serving lunch on Monday and Tuesday and dinner on Wednesday and Thursday. The menu reflects what the students are studying in 8-week courses, currently classic French dishes such as Coquille St. J
Since January, Indianapolis Monthly has been following the progress of Bluebeard (653 Virginia Ave.). So this past Friday, our forks were at the ready for the restaurant’s soft opening. Fans of Abbi Merriss Adams and John Adams were happy to see the pair back in the kitchen (right behind the bar), plating everything from white-bean salad with chorizo, zucchini, and radicchio fleur to a sharable whole snapper with house giardiniera.
Yats lovers, rejoice: The Cajun/Creole mini-chain has opened its fifth location, up north at 12545 Old Meridian Street in Carmel. The new place offers the same etouffee goodness that gave Joe Vuskovich’s delightful 10-year-old eatery a cult-like following. The 1,400-square-foot location, while in a fancier part of town, will still allow customers to order New Orleans cooking from a chalkboard menu and savor the delicious bread slathered in melted butter. Even though the food will be the same, Vuskovich says they are experimenting with some new items to serve at all five locations. “We’re trying to rebrand ourselves as more New Orleans inspired,” he says, “instead of just Cajun or Creole.”
Fans of pitch-perfect surf and turf always have the fallback lushness of Peterson’s (7690 E. 96th St., Fishers, 598-8863, petersonsrestaurant.com), especially in its tender osso buco, and row of seared Maine Diver scallops with alternating disks of apple tuille on a bed of risotto > Sporting dark paneling and Germanic robustness, The Rathskeller (401 E. Michigan St., 636-0396, rathskeller.com) pioneered the civilized rustic theme. Oxtail is listed among the soups, and the sides include spaetzle, red cabbage, and warm potato salad.
