L'Explorateur, au rebours---a restaurant ghosted

When you're telling all those lies how about the one where Indy had one of the best restaurants in the US?

When you're like Tom and me and driving down from Chicago to our friends' demesne in Broad Ripple, now 7 years ago. The house we've made ours for the past 5 years.

Like Me and Tom, your first visit to Chez Nous Broad Way St. would include a 6 course meal at a copper table provided by those we visit; victuals and surface.

We wittle ourselves, habitual scrimshaw

Once you're new again

Like me traveling with Tom to see his friends in Indy for the first time and breaking into an crab custard in eggshell in silver eggcup

There was a vacant lot around the corner

That weekend we dined at L'Explorateur

I've gotten ahead of myself, before our friends moved back from Hawaii to their new house in Broad Ripple, Tom and I drove down from Chicago the day after St. Patrick's Day, stayed at The Canterbury, walked past a roped off parking lot a foot deep in frozen vomit, on the way to his niece's Indy choir performance at the theater complex in the circle, sunlight as silver as a new knife

When we went to L'Explorateur for the first time and I afterwards talked it up as one of the best places I'd et at in the U.S. in fucking Indianapolis of all places; in league with cusp-culinary vanguard Chicago-area restos like Trio, NAHA, Crofton on Wells, Savoy Truffle...just for a city-specific start.

We made it a point to dine at L'Ex anytime we made it to Indy. Great service, great food, and a sense of humor. I wish I could have the bone marrow ice cream just one more time. And how could I not love a restaurant that introduced me to my favorite sake? Wandering Poet. And sipping it from the wooden box, and the pour that which spills abundantly, welcomingly over the edge.

When we moved here and our friends moved back to Mt. Tam we brought my dad and his wife from Houston to L'Ex, ate on the patio, my dad still raves about it("Jill loves Cafe Annie and even she likes it," he said.) I think he still thinks it's there.

When we moved here there was that vacant lot which got a market where I started as an asst. deli manager 4 years ago. Since then I've opened 16 stores, training crews how to cook, manage, supervise. Before my store opened, I was gonna ask Neal if he might let me stage in his restaurant.

I don't see Chef Brown very often anymore. It was always a treat when he'd come in the store. I remember him coming in just before close once and needing some cheeses wired for a party he and his wife were throwing for a cadre of Italian wine distributors. I'm not the cheese specialist, but that's actually why I applied to the company, so any opportunity to work the product, I leap.

as for his latter day quests, Pizzology and The Libertine. I'm sorry to say we haven't made it to Carmel for pie, however, I highly recommend Libertine for an exacting Sazerac

Once I giggled at the pile of cookbooks including Brillat-Savarin in the foyer of a little restaurant in Broad Ripple whose bar was always more hopping than the dining room

2005 seems a very long time ago

Your post led me via tangential rambling to learn of the (impending?) existence of “Grace”, a new venture in Chicago by Curtis Duffy (formerly of Avenues at The Peninsula).

Lamenting the loss of a long line of worthy restaurants in Indy (Peter’s, Something Different/Snax, Tavola di Tosa, Elements, L'Explorateur…); I was left thinking that about the only “special occasion” places left in town are Oakley’s Bistro and now, maaaybe…Bluebeard. Your mention of Crofton on Wells led me to consider a comparison of Bluebeard, not quite to Crofton, but to the lesser-though-similar Grace (on Randolph St.). Having been many years since I was last there, I Googled “Grace” and found it to be closed – only to find its name being recycled. Serendipity-do!

Chef Brown remains a Facebook "friend" in spite of my reveries.

Bluebeard(my one experience) left me a bit perplexed(as noted elsewhere on LTH); the apps were perfect, the entrees way hit and miss.

The other Chicago resto, I'll mention in the realm of L'Explorateur, Sweets and Savories, in it's heydey(it's gone now, right?):

Sweets and Savories offered great, French-inspired, innovative food, at an incredibly reasonable price, coupled by EXECRABLE service...

L'Ex, on the other hand, was inspired, contemporary cuisine, paired with great service, and, integral to it's concept, a sense of the chef having fun; not everything worked(I recall a terribly gamey goat curry), but for the most part the restaurant performed as a Libertatia in the wan Indianapolis culinary realm.

New Cerulean restaurant in City Way to raise bar on fine dining in Indy

...When the 30-year-old opens his new Cerulean restaurant in the City Way development next month, diners can expect to be wowed -- not only with the beautiful space, but also with food, presentation and service.

And they just might learn something along the way.

The 140-seat restaurant, which France expects to open Nov. 23, will include what he is calling "a food lab," where chefs will be able to demonstrate techniques.

"We're going to be doing a lot of molecular gastronomy things," he said. "Nitrogen, sous vide, encapusulation."
...

Perhaps Chef Caleb France will please you and fill the void.

Regards,

Thank you, Cathy

I've been hearing whispers here and there re: Cerulean. We shall see.

As regards my above title post: Chef Neal's a great guy and continues impacting, motivating, Indy's culinary demimonde, we're in sporadic touch via Les Facebook and he takes everything I write in good humor and with a grain of salt.