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I'm bill Addison eaters ever roving
national critic Indianapolis is hitting
its stride as a restaurant see its
modern restaurants are creating dinner
menus that celebrate the regional bounty
and draw on flavors from around the
globe as exciting as Indianapolis is
becoming the first meal I have on my
mind when I come to town is breakfast my
destination is milk tooth
Jonathan Brooks is postmodern diner
while offering plenty of comforts also
reveals some cutting-edge creativity
normally breakfast is kind of like a
throwaway disposable meal for most chefs
it's where they use up the scraps or
leftover sauces and our goal here at
Monteith was really to take about fine
dining mentality of buying the best
ingredients possible doing as little to
them as possible to really make them
shine and just apply that to breakfast
fare
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milk tooth sort of came along and said
you know here are some new flavors
there's a line at the bottom of the menu
that you know it specifically says
modifications will be politely declined
sort of a situation where John Brooks
said trust me you can thank me later
just eat this and Indianapolis kind of
went along with it
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Hoosiers a lot of us are maybe two
generations removed from hillbilly you
know we've had a cousin who hunts we've
had rabbits in our freezer so these are
all sort of like vaguely familiar
flavors and familiar ingredients to us
and we've maybe never really been as
proud of them as we are now that John
Brooks has started making them these
delicious dishes
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the signature Dutch babies are served
either sweet or savory with seasonal
ingredients roasted apples and lemon
caramel or Welsh rarebit a rich cheese
sauce offset with pickled sweet corn and
greens
the lamb steak burger comes with
ever-changing toppings like fennel
marmalade blue cheese and a fried egg
sunny-side up
when eater's editor-in-chief amanda
Clute and i visited India recently we
both lost our minds over the waffle
Brooks reimagines the waffle with things
like sourdough and zucchini bread as
inspiration it's both familiar and
startlingly original I will go as far as
to say it is the best waffle I have ever
eaten
being a young chef here in Indy and
opening up a restaurant that I thought
would push the boundaries a little bit
we certainly had to gain people's trust
and that's why we have things like a
waffle and a pancake on the menu that
are still somewhat recognizable as
breakfast is one of my favorite things
about cooking breakfast is that I can
use a lot of different world influences
like funny flavors or like a Reuben
sandwich flavor or a ham and cheese
flavor just something to get a little
more creative with
a huge moment for me was in that first
year we've had a chopped chicken liver
dish on the menu and I remember it like
10:30 in the morning on a Sunday just
ticket after ticket rolling in for these
chopped chicken livers and out selling
the waffle and the pancake and that's
really when I have this moment of
clarity like man we've we've kind of
made it it is a little bit harder for us
to survive as a restaurant our profit
margins are pretty slim our food costs
our labor cost is high but that's what
motive is to me is being able to provide
this excellent breakfast service that's
quality food that you don't see very
often but that I still really love and
my son loves and eat on a weekly basis
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I think this is a really exciting time
for Indianapolis as far as the food king
goes it continues to grow and get better
and better
I feel blown away by the opportunity
that I have to work with these best
ingredients but we certainly didn't set
out to change the breakfast scene but we
just wanted to open up a really cool
honest little diner and I think we've
honestly retained both those goals and
really
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everybody has a pizza rotation basically
of the places you order from and hardly
anybody doesn't have Pequod's in their
rotation is the way I think
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