in the kitchen with
No Blues for
Cerulean BY AMY LYNCH PHOTOS BY KELLEY JORDAN HENEVELD
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ince its opening in November, Cerulean has added color to Indy’s dining scene with modern Midwestern offerings.
But it has also been a vibrant addition to CityWay, the urban neighborhood going up at South and Delaware streets, southeast of the Circle. Cerulean’s sleek dining room is in the ground floor of the Alexander, a four-star hotel in the development. There, chef and owner Caleb France and his crew strive to tell a story with their food, with whimsical and striking presentations on each plate. The restaurant’s sharable small dishes and entrees often star Indiana lamb, pork, beef, duck and bison.
Though the restaurant is France’s first in Indianapolis, he also has Cerulean and Cerulean Garden, which is open seasonally, both in Winona Lake near Warsaw. Here, France sounds off on his new Indy venture: What’s the story behind the names of your restaurants?
Cerulean is my wife’s favorite color in the Crayola box! We always thought it would be a great name for a restaurant. The local dining scene has become so savvy and diverse; how do you cater to different appetites and styles of eating to give customers what they want? We’re big on “coursing.”
Our menu is divided into different courses on each page to let customers create exactly the kind of dining experience they want to have. You can come in and have a leisurely three-hour meal with multiple courses, or you can just stay on the “bites” page with items that cost around $3 and $4 and have a cocktail for a quick happy hour. What dishes are your most popular so far? Definitely our
corn macaroon “bite” with pork belly, smoked cheddar and arugula for $3. And people are going crazy about our sweet potato soup with vanilla bacon and a nutmeg-thyme cracker. Will your menu change seasonally? At minimum. Maybe more
often. What’s your take on drink offerings? Our bar program foCerulean’s lamb pappardelle
www.edibleindy.com
cuses mainly on handcrafted cocktails. We work with small dis-
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