The Dish

Last month, Dave and Krissy Tallent of Restaurant Tallent (208 N. Walnut St., Bloomington, 812-330-9801) packed their knives to slice and serve grub in Sonoma County at Mauritson Winery, where the duo whipped up a three-course dinner that was paired with Rockpile wines. The first course sounds like a heartbreaker: a porchetta complemented with a green garlic polenta, chicory salad, and wild fennel vinaigrette, all drizzled with zinfandel syrup. The second course, an Indiana beef brisket made with Smoking Goose andouille, was smoked with wood from some of the winery’s old barrels. The final course: a mascarpone tart topped with fresh cherries and lemon thyme.

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.

Decadent Gruyere salad at The Pantry, Brad Gates’s City Market stand. Dijon vinaigrette and housemade salmon pastrami top the tender leaves. A warm, gooey, cinnamon-infused homemade cinnamon roll from City Cafe (443 N. Penn

For convenience, do you hit the big-box chains and bury your prepackaged factory-food crimes deep in your canvas tote? We understand—spending hours going from roadside farm stand to farmers market just isn’t that practical. Roy Ballard, a Purdue extension educator from Hancock County, has a plan to help us out with that. In the coming months, he will be working on getting an exciting new food venture off the ground, a food hub in central Indiana.

St. Elmo Steak House will be serving up wine on a silver platter. The popular downtown eatery is teaming up with Silver Oak Cellars to bring 200 guests an RSVP only event to celebrate the winery’s Tower Tour.  The July 12, social event will include Silver Oak wine and St. Elmo’s appetizers. The hearty hors d’oeuvres will include TKTK. “Everyone’s going to be fed really well,” Director of Marketing Bryn Jones said. The tickets are going for $125 a pop but money seems like no issue for the 50 or so guests that have already purchased their tickets. St. Elmo’s put out a mass email and Jones said “almost immediately” they sold 25 percent of their tickets.  The party’s theme will be silver. “Everything is going to be that color,” Jones said. Guests that attend the shindig are expected to wear “cocktail savvy attire.” Nothing to businessy, St. Elmo’s wants their guests to be the “sexy, fun, party type,” according to Jones. To RSVP to the event, send an email to jandrews@stelmos.com.

Earlier this year, Mayor Greg Ballard announced a plan to add a new Marsh supermarket, apartment complex, and parking garage at the downtown corner of Michigan Street, Senate Avenue, and Indiana Avenue. Though construction has yet to begin, the opening date is estimated sometime in the fall of 2013. 

The summer season is upon us, which means kitchens are getting creative with the southern classic side dish that dunks crisp slices of green tomatoes in batter for deep frying and mayonnaise dunking. Here are some Indy restaurants that are putting their own interesting spin on fried green tomatoes.

It boasts one of downtown’s most coveted locations, at the busy crossroads of Pennsylvania and Washington streets, with Bankers Life Fieldhouse framed squarely in its front windows. But the brand-new, Atlanta-based Tin Roof (36 S. Pennsylvania St., 317-951-2220) seems determined not to be mistaken for some kind of nice, uptown restaurant.

The moist, savory pull-apart bread at The Libertine Liquor Bar (38 E. Washington St., 317-631-3333), essentially adult monkey bread made with Sun King Wee Mac, Fair Oaks cheddar, mustard, dill, and crunchy salt. It arrives in a bowl. Tug it out in big, buttery hunks. Crunchy, breaded onion rings served with a creamy horseradish-spiked sa

On Saturday, I rounded up some friends and joined the “Ridin’ Local” tour–a 9-mile excursion highlighting three restaurants that emphasize locally grown ingredients. Note: Because this same tour happens every second Saturday this summer, I will not tell you the locations along the tour. Tippins guards the identity of the specific locations as fiercely as a chef does his recipes.

Is it healthier? Does it taste richer and creamier? Or is it a bacterial threat and potential health hazard to the larger public?

Wheat averse? No need to go without a great meal. Here, a roundup of restaurants around the city that offer either a dedicated gluten-free menu or menu items that can be ordered without the gluten.

What better way to reward ourselves for taking on a leg of Indy’s 16-mile Monon Rail Trail than by chowing down at one of the restaurants along the way? Here are some of our favorites.