Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/205467
PHOTO COURTESY OF R BISTRO LET IT BREATHE. Irish seafood chowder at R Bistro. PHOTO: MATT KRYGER Eve Decanter PHOTO: POLINA OSHEROV Height: 19-7/8" Capacity 48-1/4 oz. Prohibition, Indy was one of the Beer Capitals of America. Based on the list at Cerulean, it is again. Local is the name of the game as well at the understated R Bistro, where the ladies in charge—chef-owner Regina Mehallick and her sous chef, Erin Kem—journey to farms all over Indiana to find the ingredients necessary to make a constantly changing array of ethnically varied dishes like their Irish seafood chowder with brown soda bread, their onion bhajis with tomato-chili sauce, their fish 'n chips with mushy peas, chicken and smoked sausage gumbo and their French "abondance" with fruit and biscuits. In a city built upon red meat, R Bistro is based more on fish and chicken. And vegetables—lots of locally grown vegetables. By contrast, Chef Micah Frank does love the animal protein he serves at Black Market. And well he should, for he speaks of Fergus Henderson of London's St. John—the man who gave us nose-to-tail cuisine—as his greatest influence. This rough-hewn, largely communal restaurant is a place to go for a beef tongue cocktail starter (made with pickled 750 ccm 26-1/2 oz Chef Micah Frank at Black Market. (Right) Black Market's Dr. Feelgood cocktail with a Lemon Hart 151 Rum float. beets), roasted marrow bones with a parsley-shallot salad, brined pork chops with summer succotash and a smoked duck leg with pickled blueberries. Not surprisingly, the beer list is massive—and wholly quirky. The wine list is even longer, and filled with names most have never heard before. (Movia Pinot Nero from Slovenia?) And along with cocktails with names like The Sledgehammer and Dr. Feelgood, there are four different rum flights, four different tequila and mezcal flights, four bourbon flights and a cognac flight. There's lemon pudding cake and salted chocolate brickle. If you ever get around to it. It's unique, it's functional, it's exquisitely handmade for young reds and whites. And yes, it's a decanter. Available online at riedelop.com. TP1113_066-107.indd 81 10/24/13 9:24 AM