Devouring Indianapolis

One of the perks of Beard’s new job is that he gets to travel. If Broad is available, she can also accompany him. His first trip of the year took him to Indianapolis and it’s a city we’ve both never explored, plus it was a good excuse to stop in Muncie on the way back. (Hilariously, we love Muncie.)

We spent two days in Indianapolis and stayed downtown. Generally, when we go to a new city we do a lot of research on what to eat, drink and do. But luckily we have friends, Tom and Katie, who visited there and gave us a lot of good recommendations. We basically just used all of their recs and then did a little bit of research because it was Devour Indy, their restaurant week. Here are the highlights:

Wildwood Market
Wildwood Market is owned by a married couple, Craig and Emily Sanders. They are purveyors of local goods, but what we were interested in were the sandwiches. They have a daily, unique sandwich (and also salad) that is only available that day and sold until they sell out (which frequently happens). As soon as we got to Indy, we stopped here to get our fill and OMG sandwich perfection. It had city ham, fontina, candied walnuts, sweet orange and jalapeño mustard, dried cherries on a brioche bun.

Chilly Water Brewing Co.
We were at the end of our #sobertarian January, but when exploring a new city we like to try the local brews. We decided at the beginning of the month that we would break our booze fast in Indy so that we wouldn’t miss out on any Hoosier-brewed deliciousness. We stopped at Chilly Water and loved the vibe (and beer). We also ordered snacks. We recommend the fries and Fire on the Mountain apps. Also, the Ziggy Stardust saison was our favorite beer.

Hotel Tango Distillery
After Chilly Water, we walked across the street to Hotel Tango Distillery. We honestly could have spent the entire night here. They make bourbon, whiskey, gin, rum and other spirits. Adam (our friend and Beard’s co-worker who was also on this work trip) and Broad had cocktails and Beard had a mocktail. It’s super cozy, yet swanky. You just want to curl up with a cocktail and stay the night there. We were also obsessed with the branding (we both bought shirts).

Bluebeard
After cocktails we headed down the street to Bluebeard for dinner. They were participating in Devour Indy but the three of us decided to order a bunch of things to share instead of doing the prix fixe dinner. They are a farm to table restaurant offering everything from snacks to large plates. We did salads, a charcuterie board, the bread, cauliflower, and pork belly and scallops. Everything was amazing and fresh. Our server was friendly and knowledgeable, and he gave us great tips about how big some of our dishes we were going to be so that we didn’t over-order. Highly recommend heading here with a few people so that you can share a bunch of plates.

Books & Brews
We planned on stopping at Books & Brews in Muncie but found out they had a location in Indy as well! They have a bar with their own brewed beers (with fun names) and other options. They also are a bookstore where they sell gently used books of all kinds at an affordable price, and 10% of all proceeds goes to IndyReads, a nonprofit that offers adult and childhood literacy programs. It’s seriously an adorable place to chill out and enjoy good drinks.

Love Handle
We did a quick search of lunch places in the area and Love Handle came up on a lot of lists. Here’s some fast facts: their menu changes often, they serve “unique and unusual” brunch and lunch fare, they have fish fry on Fridays and rotisserie on the weekend from 5-10pm. It’s super quirky inside. They were playing Field of Dreams on the projector. It was just the best! Beard ordered the beef tongue cheesesteak and Broad ordered fried oysters. This is a must stop in Indy!

St. Joseph Brewery & Public House
Our friend Alexi recommended we pop into St. Joseph’s for a beer. It’s a brewery/restaurant that is in an old church. We absolutely love when breweries are in unique architectural settings. We tried a bunch of their beers and would definitely go back to try the food.

Tony’s
We decided we definitely had to try one of the Devour Indy restaurants and a prix fixe menu. We were craving a steak and decided on Tony’s. Broad made the mistake of reading the entire menu before ordering and had to order the carbonara, which was excellent. The wine was fabulous and the service excellent. We normally don’t head to fancy steak houses when traveling. We prefer to stick to the unique, quirky places but we definitely recommend Tony’s for wine and steak.

Milktooth
We were warned that we would probably fall in love with Milktooth and that we absolutely had to do breakfast here. Spoiler: we ABSOLUTELY LOVED MILKTOOTH. They serve “world inspired” breakfast and lunch, made with local ingredients. Beard ordered a cake donut, pork posole, and a turmeric and cinnamon latte. Broad ordered the Korean Dutch Baby and Kimchi Michelada. This place was so fun, quirky and communal. The food was out of this world and we wish we would have ate there all three days. If we have to give a single recommendation for Indianapolis, it would be Milktooth.

We loved Indy! It reminded us of a nice, midwest capital city (like Columbus). We also felt incredibly safe, even while walking around downtown at night. There were a few more places on our list we didn’t get to hit and would love to go back to explore those and hit some of our favorites again. Stay tuned for our next post on Muncie!