Mini Review

Sneaky-good vegan fare at Bird & Cleaver, like Nashville hot “chicken.”

It’s a gutsy move, serving fried chicken to a Hoosier audience raised on Hollyhock Hill and Gray Brothers Cafeteria, but this bird—Amish-raised on an Ohio farm before being brined and dredged in a proprietary dusting that gives the pieces a hint of delayed heat—might as well hail from a Hendricks County church pitch-in.

Their cheery bistro dedicated to Le Cordon Bleu classics and the rustic buckwheat galettes of Kathy’s native Brittany feels as though it’s been serving soupe a l’oignon to Mass Ave sophisticates for years.