NUVO.NET/FOOD+DRINK to keep up with trends and keep up with my When it comes to the quality of a restaupeers around the city because Indianapolis, as rant, the bar program is as important as the far as it’s concerned, is like a booming culinary kitchen and CharBlue’s bar is in good hands. scene right now, including us, but we’re trying Zach Bowsher came over from Louie’s Wine to play both sides of the fence because we’re Dive, where he was able to further his knowlstraight Downtown.” edge of wine. When I’m seated in the dining room on a “Food and drink go hand in hand,” HatThursday night, I get the opportunity to see field says “Zach and I talk on a daily basis and taste the way the CharBlue team bridges about ingredients and stuff, like what cockthis gap. I start off my meal tails and wines would work with a steakhouse classic: with the food and desserts “I don’t want shrimp cocktail. In a city and stuff like that. He’s like a where we serve possibly chef with cocktails. to steer away the most famous shrimp “He has a great cocktail prothe triedcocktail in the world at gram. He’s great at beer, wine St. Elmo, it is necessary to and spirits. He’s been making and-true offer the dish on most any some of the best cocktails I’ve Indianapolis, steakhouse menu, but that ever had.” doesn’t mean it’s necessary When my cocktails come steak and to try and emulate that to the table I can’t disagree potato crowd.” horseradish-heavy cocktail with Hatfield. The barrel-aged — RICKY HATFIELD, sauce. I’m met with a flavor Journeyman gin in The First EXECUTIVE CHEF OF profile that steers far away Word is perfectly balanced by CHARBLUE from the classic. the addition of a basil mint “We’re using gigantic sixsimple syrup, which Bowto-eight count [Gulf] prawns and chimichsher handcrafts for each cocktail. The flavor urri sauce, which you usually don’t see on a complements my tamale and also happens shrimp cocktail and my recipe on a chileto go well with my entree for the evening, a based cocktail sauce,” Hatfield explains. hickory-roasted venison chop. While the shrimp cocktail is to be expected I had planned on getting a steak, in order on the menu, my second appetizer is as far to see how they blended the two worlds tofrom a steakhouse classic as you’ll get. The gether. But I can’t pass up venison, especially pork cheek and pumpkin tamale is on the opwith a side as interesting as potato cannolis. posite side of the spectrum from the chimichThis venison doesn’t have the gamey flavor I urri shrimp and yet I can see how they ended grew up with, and Hatfield explains why. up on the same menu. “That’s totally farm. I like using game like “There’s a lot of Latino influence around that, the farmed-game, like elk and bison and Indianapolis,” Hatfield says, and there’s a lot of all that stuff,” he says. “The farmed stuff tastes it on his menu as well. “It’s not that I was trytotally different. I grew up on it wild and you ing to secure that market, but it’s one of those cook the crap out of it, you don’t serve it rare flavor profiles that I love; there’s so many huge like that. You maybe make a little summer and amplified flavors and spices and stuff.” sausage, jerky, stew or something like that.” With most tamales I’ve had around the city Having it perfectly prepared to medium the filling is the star, but by deconstructing rare and served with a sauce consisting of the tamale, Hatfield has allowed the delicious, items a wild deer would eat — a black walnut moist masa to shine. My offering is a pumpkin and blueberry pesto — makes this dish an tamale — and not the sugary, cinnamon-y instant and simple classic. Does Indianapolis need another steakimposter that people equate with pumpkin, house? Who’s to say? But, CharBlue is much but the slightly sweet squash. The green mole more than just another steakhouse. As Hatfield is the perfect accompanying sauce. It’s fresh says, “We have to have something that is and slightly spicy, and the smokiness makes recognizable, but it’s just outside-of-the-box it a sauce that I literally would have used on enough to draw people — foodie-wise — in. N every dish throughout the night.
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