For our last meal in Indianapolis, we checked out Bluebeard - named after a Kurt Vonnegut novel.

This trendy restaurant has a little bit of it all, as described in the article above: Farm-to-table ingredients and handcrafted cocktails served in glass jars. A courtyard communal table made from a single slab of timber. Exposed-brick decor layered with vintage typewriters and architectural fragments from the building’s 1920s past.

The restaurant's menu changes daily, which is pretty impressive, and they source their meat locally: Big City Farms, Butler Campus Farms, Crossroad Vintners, FarmIndy, Fischer Farm, Full Hand Farm, Growing Places Indy, Gunthorp Farms, Harvestland, Josh Horrigan, Smoking Goose Meatery, South Circle Farm, Traders Point Creamery, and Viking Lamb.

Bluebeard is a restaurant and bar located in the historic Holy Rosary Neighborhood on the southeast edge of downtown Indianapolis.  Abbi Merriss has joined up with longtime friends Tom and Eddie Battista to create a unique food-focused experience.  The menu offers contemporary American cuisine featuring the best local produce and meat our farms have to offer.  The space, a renovated 1924 factory warehouse, features a family dining room, a bar room, a private dining room and a courtyard (Our Story).

We were here just before they opened, which was perfect timing. The outdoor space is very cool, and the indoor is even better - a cozy converted warehouse with hipster touches like books and typewriters.

The menu features really cool local, seasonal ingredients in various serving sizes, as well as touches from Amelia's Bakery.

Amelia’s is a production bakery that specializes in hearth baked bread in the Italian tradition. We bake fresh bread every morning for use in our restaurant Bluebeard and for sale at our lunch counter. After we bake our orders for the day we mix, divide, and then handshape each of our loaves and allow them to undergo a long, cool fermentation overnight in order to develop a depth of flavor unlike a commercially yeasted bread.

Because of the restaurant's influence with the bread, I decided to get that as an appetizer, which came with bacon fat and cheddar butter, anchovy butter and roasted garlic oil. This was all good - so good!

For my entree, I wanted to try something that's on the menu often: the pappardelle butchershop bolognese with tomato sauce, parmesan and herb oil.


Man, this was good. Hearty, perfectly cooked and topped with finely shredded cheese. Perfectly seasoned. Very filling and hit that Italian spot in my tummy I was looking for.



Everything was so good up until this point, I couldn't not get dessert too.

And, of course, all those options sounded amazing. I went with the vanilla bean chess pie, with caramel sauce, candied walnuts and whipped cream.

Maggie went with the cheesecake, and BJ got the brownie.

Not to brag, but I loved mine best. The chess pie alone - which I love because it's southern - was sweet, creamy, amazing. Those dollops of caramel? Amazing. And, candied walnuts and whipped cream? I think I could just live in this dessert forever.



Grade: A