Get your restaurant bucket lists ready. I'll be blowing upmy Instagram withnew places to eat and drinkin 2017. These are the ones I'm most anticipating:
1. The next Milktooth
BeforeFood & Wine magazine named Milktooth chef/owner Jonathan Brooks one of America’s best new chefs in 2015, hewastalking about a second restaurant. Expect doors to open on the yet-to-be-named project “sometime in 2017,” Brooks said. He and business partner Josh Mazanowski, sommelierat Recess, are shooting for fall. They’re considering a lease in the Woodruff Place/Windsor Park area of 10th Street. Serving dinner only, Brooks would continue his focus on Indiana cuisine “in an aggressively different way.”
“We’re really going toblow it up and push the boundary on what we’re doing, and maybe prove I deserve some of the attention I’ve gotten,” he said.
Meantime, Brooks is planning a Mexican pop-up in late January with San Diego chef Claudette Zepeda Wilkins. Eater San Diego named the self-titled "rogue chef" among the top food-related Instagram accounts to follow. Growing up, Wilkins worked at her family’s restaurant in Guadalajara. Her last gig was chef de cuisine at Bracero — Cocina De Raiz in San Diego, which received a James Beard nomination for best new restaurant. Wilkins and Brooks plan a 14-course menu featuring dishes from all seven of Mexico’s regions.Get ticketsin early January.
Also look for a taco pop-up Jan. 6byMilktooth cook Justin Eiteljorge, formerly of Pioneer, and his chef friends. Taco arabes, influenced by Lebanese immigrants in Mexico's Puebla region, features shawarma-style lamb. Torta is beef cheeks braised with citrus and chilies. Crispy tripe and the crunchy nut salsa namedmacha go on top. If the taco pop-up is a hit, it could lead to a restaurant.
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2. Nook
Think New York meets California meets Naples, Italy, when you try the “artisan American-style pizza” at this Broad Ripple shop the owners of nearby The Northside Social debut in late January. House-made crumbled fennel sausage, pickled red onion, stewed cremini mushrooms, from-scratch tomato sauce, applewood-smoked bacon and assortedcheeses top the house pie. The Clam Bake sports clams, bacon, mozzarella, pecorino, chili flakes, cracked black pepper and garlic white sauce.Nook sources local ingredients for seasonal salads such as the combination of chopped kale, arugula, shaved Brussels sprouts, cranberry, parmesan, fried shallots and candied bacon in tahini maple dressing. Former Meridian chef Dean Sample oversees the kitchen. The place used to host Village Cigar. Now, trapezoid glass lanterns hang over the intimate bar under exposed ceilings.
6513 N. College Ave., (317) 253-0450, northsidenook.com
3. The Inferno Room
Restaurateur Ed Rudisell likes rum, as evidenced by the more than 100 labels behind the bar at his Black Market restaurant on Mass Ave. Get the full-on tiki co*cktail and food experience when The Inferno Room opens sometime in 2017. Follow the “dangerously Polynesian” developments on the place’s Twitter feed. Rudisell is talking about putting the business in a building nearhisSiam Square restaurant in Fountain Square. He also has a stake in the neighborhood’s Thunderbird and nearby Fletcher Place’s Rook restaurant.
902 Virginia Ave., Twitter: @TheInfernoRoom;facebook.com/TheInfernoRoom
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4. Mile Square Bistro
Chef Charles Meredayearned critical acclaim for his Southwest Florida restaurants before taking overDowntown’s former City Café location. Classic technique drives the creative breakfast and lunch menu he plans at the spot, across from the Indiana War Memorial. Opening day is scheduled in early 2017. Dinner service plus beer and wine would come sometime in 2017.Local, seasonal ingredients as well as stocks, demi-glace andthe basic mother sauces, includinghollandaise, are prepared from scratch in Mereday’s kitchen, but he puts his own contemporary spin on dishes that run the gamut from French Vietnamese to North African to the Southern cooking he grew up with in tiny Dudley, N.C. Think fried oyster Benedict.
443 N. Pennsylvania St.,charlesmereday.com
5. Blue Sushi Sake Grill
Social sushi meansdishes are served center table to encourage sharing. Sushi is a bigattraction. Other dishes include beef tenderloin served over a plate of sizzling hot rocks and roasted shish*to peppers with soy garlic butter sauce. Sapporo sake bombs and specialty martinis like cucumber-infused vodka in the saketini are among co*cktails. Flagship Restaurant Group, based in Omaha, Neb., is behind Blue, opening in fall 2017. Other locations are in Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Texas.
Ironworks at Keystone, 2727 E. 86th St., bluesushisakegrill.com
6. King Dough Pizza
One of the best things I ate in 2016 was a roadside pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven that King Dough Pizza rolled up on a trailer in front of Bluebeard. Fresh basil andcharred bubbles on the crispy crust made me swoon. Cooksstretch the mozzarella cheese.Bluebeard owners Ed Battista and his father, Tom Battista, are working on bringing the downtown Bloomingtonpizzeria to Indianapolis' Cottage Home/Holy Cross area in summer 2017.I'm looking forward to the Sweet Bee pie sportingred sauce, fresh mozzarella, soppressata, chili oil, honey, basil and parmesan. This is an independent restaurant that ownersAdam andAlicia Sweet started as a food truck.
7. Coat Check Coffee
Neal Warner created the bomb coffee program and was the lead barista at Open Society in SoBro. He applies his talents to filter coffee at this shop he launches with his brother, Paul Warner, in early 2017 in and around the old coat check room at the Athenaeum.Top Midwest roasters like Indy’s Tinker Coffee Co., Ruby in Wisconsin and Madcap in Michigan supply the beans. The kitchen crafts flavorings like caramel made with grass-fed butter as well as the shop’s pastry line.The opening coincides with the unveiling of the Athenaeum's $1.2 millionrestoration.
401 E. Michigan St., coatcheckcoffee.com
8. Crispy Bird
If you like Petite Chou'sduck fat fried chicken, come March check out Crispy Bird, the latest project from Patachou Inc., therestaurant group that runs Petite Chou. Founder Martha Hoover teamed up with her son, David Hoover, to create thisfried chicken joint in Meridian-Kessler.He's not long back from culinary training in Paris and working Denmark's Michelin-starred organic restaurant Relae, No. 40 on Pelligrino's 50 Best Restaurants in the Worldlistand winner of Pelligrino's2016 sustainablerestaurant award.The wee 800-square-foot Crispy Birdwillbringfried chicken the way Martha Hoover likes it, "really brined, really Southern-style, really crispy ... super moist” with ultra-comfort side dishes, all focused on local ingredients. David Hoover's menu tests includegorgeous biscuits and gluten-free fried chicken.
115 E. 49th St., instagram.com/crispybirdchix
9. Goodfellas
Who wants late-night pizza and 300 bourbons? Get them when this Lexington, Ky.-basedpizzeria opens next door to Salt on Mass seafood restaurant in the Millikan on Mass building. Another location is coming in 2017 to Broad Ripple inside the former Wild Side Smoke Shop. The early 20th century gangster scene features a hidden speakeasy bar for pre-prohibition co*cktails. New York-style pizza dominates the menu, which also offers oven-baked subs, breadsticks and a few salads and desserts. Goodfellas, in business since 2006, operates three Kentucky locations and one in Cincinnati.
545 Massachusetts Ave. and 914 Broad Ripple Ave., goodfellaspizzeria.com
10. Burger Study
St. Elmo Steak Houseowner Craig Huse opens the 136-seat upscale hamburger place in May 2017 at Circle Centre mall. The Ivy League-themed restaurant will be between Harry & Izzy's steakhouseand Punch Bowl Social bar and diner, on the mall’s first floor facing Georgia Street. Huse plans variations on Harry & Izzy's primesteakburger, as well astuna and vegetarian burgers, all in the $9 to $14 range.
127 S. Illinois St., instagram/burgerstudy
11. Ukiyo
Last year, my list of 2016 restaurants openings included chef Neal Brown’s taco dream Juanita in Fountain Square. That place won’t happen after all, but the lease is signed and design work is underway at what Brown bills a "Japanese farmhouse" sushi restaurant. It will bein the oddly shaped building that was Skip’sFoodMarketin Fountain Square. Brown, who also runs Pizzology Craft Pizza &Pub and Mass Ave.'s Libertine Liquor Bar, plans to source local produce for the kitchen, as he does at his other restaurants. Ukiyo means "the floating world" in Japanese. Follow Brown’s ethereal photos of menu testing on Instagram: @ukiyoindy.
1031 Virginia Ave.
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12. Hedge Row
Billionaire entrepreneurKimbal Musk, brother to Tesla CEOElon Musk, bringsfarm-to-table fare cooked in a wood-fired oven to Mass Ave.in summer. Expect a cozy but “high-style urban design” with 135 seats inside and 40 seats on a 1,000-square-foot patio with fire pits and abar in the new Marott Center at the junction of Alabama and Vermont streets.
342 Massachusetts Ave., thekitchen.com
13. The Garden Table
This healthy Broad Ripple restaurant opens in early January at Marott Center. Expect brunch and brunch co*cktails made with the restaurant’s signature cold-pressed juices. You could order a bloody mary pitcher to share. Plans also include more lunch options, a grab-and-go area and a full coffee bar featuring rotating beans. Happy hour brings snacks, wine, craft co*cktails and local beers. Dinner featuring local produce rolls out a few weeks after the opening. A 36-seat patio is in addition to 50 seats inside.
342 Massachusetts Ave., thegardentable.com
14. The Owner’s Wife
Free up your calendars. This gastropub fueled by Outliers Brewing Company beers and Milktooth chef Jonathan Brooks’ culinary imagination is scheduled to open any day now. Brugge Brasserie and Outliers Brewing Company owners Ted Miller and Shannon Stone have been talking about The Owner’s Wife since at least 2013. Life got in the way, but the pair expects to finally open in Lockerbie Square, a one minute walk south from Mass Ave. Expect snippets of Brooks’ imagination plus a taste of Miller and Stone’s experiences living in China, Taiwan and the Caribbean. Food has been planned to perfectly pair with the beers. “We’ll have house-cured meats, homemade cheeses, conservas-style canned-fish and an assortment of freshly brewed vinegars,” Miller added. FYI: Brooks is neither chef nor owner. The Owner’s Wife head toque is Brugge’s Jay Petroy.
608 N.Park Ave., theownerswife.com
15. Bona Tavern
An intimate, 21-and-older gastropub named Griggsby’s Station was to open in Irvington in 2016, but owner Chris Baggott had a lot on his plate. He launched the first Griggsby’s in Greenfield; The Mug restaurant and Tyner Pond Marketgrorcery, both in Irvington; and the Downtown food delivery service Clustertruck. Lately, Baggott is talking about changing the name of the Griggsby’s in Irvington toBona Market. The name honors Bona Thompson. In 1890, banker Edward Thompson moved his family from Edinburgh to Irvington so that his daughter, Bona, could finish high school and attend Butler College. When Bona graduated college in 1897, her parents gave her a European tour. Alas, she died from typhoid after the trip. Her parents were devastated and donated $40,000 and land to build Bona Thompson Memorial Library. Whatever Baggott calls the restaurant, menu details have yet to be revealed. Local food is likely. After the software mastermind, who co-founded ExactTarget, read Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Baggott founded free-range Tyner Pond Farm, which supplies his restaurants.
130 S. Audubon Road
16. Red, The Steakhouse
How many steakhouses does Mile Square need? No. 13 is Red, under development at the former 14 West Restaurant at Maryland and Meridian streets. Cleveland-based Red Restaurant Group has yet to reveal the opening date for this super swanky brand. Playboy called the Miami branch one of the sexiest steakhouses of the year. Red also gets kudos from major publications including USA Today, Forbes and Esquire. Steaks and chops, plus seafood like Alaskan king crab or a tuna “filet mignon” with roasted red pepper sauce are on the menu. Red has a little Italian edge withcarbonara, bucatini with meatballs, lamb Bolognese, clams casino and an antipasti plate with olives, cheeses and cured meats.
14 W. Maryland St., redthesteakhouse.com
17. Burn by Rocky Patel
Opening in summer 2017 at Circle Centre, this swanky cigar bar serves more than 100 wines and champagnes, 60 single malt scotches, numerous other high-end spirits andcraftco*cktails. Thestaff can suggestcigar and spirits pairings. A food menu is in the works, too. Exotic, far-flung locales inspire the luxurious setting where you'll hear live music and an in-house DJ. Burnwill fill 5,500 square feet in the former Nordstrom,atthe intersection of Meridian and Maryland streets. Burn launched in 2010 in Naples, Fla.APittsburgh location isunder construction. Owner RockyPatel isa Hollywood attorney-turned-cigar-entrepreneur.
Circle Centre, 49 W. Maryland St., SuiteC30B,burnbyrockypatel.com
Follow IndyStar food writerLiz Biroon Twitter:@lizbiro, Instagram:@lizbiro,FacebookandPinterest.Call herat (317) 444-6264.
