Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/205467
RESTAURANTS THAT MATTER Crossroads of American Food FROM ARTISANAL BEERS AND EDGY COCKTAILS TO ADVENTURESOME DINING, INDIANAPOLIS MOVES BEYOND BREADED TENDERLOIN Roasted marrow bones at Black Market. PHOTO: MATT KRYGER F Cerulean's duck pastrami on rye macaron with sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing. ning with the admirably eclectic cooking of Caleb France at Cerulean. This is a land of Buffalo chicken skins, duck pastrami, wild salmon with rum-infused pineapple and heirloom tomato confit with fromage blanc— many worlds apart from the pork tenderloin sandwich. An entire page is taken up with a list of local farms that supply the ingredients—every one of them in Indiana. By contrast, the beers, wines and spirits are wildly global, with one half of the wine list dedicated to Old World, and the other to New World. The cocktails are mixology at its edgiest. The beers are many, and very artisanal—as well they should be. In the years pre- PHOTO COURTESY OF CERULEAN or the longest time, good eaters who found themselves in Indianapolis would seek out what for years was the city's signature dish—a deep-fried creation known, generically, as a pork tenderloin sandwich. There were also sugar cream pies to be eaten in Indy. But mostly, the local cuisine was defined by the pork tenderloin sandwich—an object of desire so intense it was the subject of a 1998 documentary titled In Search of the Famous Hoosier Breaded Tenderloin. And you can still find the sandwich at legendary dives like the Mug-n-Bun, Plump's Last Shot and Dawson's on Main. But there's so much more to be found in the Crossroads of America—begin- CREDIT: 80 / the tasting panel / november 2013 TP1113_066-107.indd 80 10/24/13 9:24 AM