What makes Bluebeard stand out
Bluebeard has shouldered the heft of its own hype for nearly its entire existence. With acclaimed chef Abbi Merriss leading the kitchen, Bluebeard was named a semifinalist for the best new restaurant category of the James Beard Awards within a year of its opening.
After Merriss exited Bluebeard in 2024, the Battistas brought on executive chef Alan Sternberg to help author the restaurant’s next chapter. Nearly two years later, Bluebeard still offers plenty of the casual-made-classy and cross-cultural dishes that have long defined it, but Sternberg’s team has steadily overlayed its own identity over the last two years. Handmade pastas now receive a significant share of the spotlight, and the Bluebeard’s roster of ingredients continues to grow in variety and ambition. Walk in on the right night, and you may have the opportunity to sample octopus ragu or frog legs in lemon pepper butter.
Sternberg, whose former stops include the since-closed Indianapolis location of the acclaimed Winona Lake restaurant Cerulean, described Bluebeard as the rare restaurant where chefs are empowered to source local ingredients and approach them from virtually any angle. The chef said the pressure his staff puts on itself to prepare food they want to eat is as great as any outside pressure.
“We’re so inundated with food media of like, the best this, the best that, but the reality is, it’s a hard job,” he said. “It takes a lot of work and it’s hard to wake up every day and stay true to doing things the right way. There’s no shortcuts — it’s just, ‘Is it good, or is it not good?’ And if we can do it better, then we’re gonna do it the better way.”
With the bulk of ingredients sourced from nearby producers, Bluebeard puts a degree of artistry into each facet of a meal. Bar director Fernando Munoz leads the restaurant’s beverage program, while pastry chef Youssef Boudarine handles dessert.
The team’s combined efforts yield dining experiences that aren’t easily forgotten, whether an intimate dinner shared in the low light of the rustic dining room or a quick lunch devoured out on the shaded patio sans silverware. Inside, guests crowd around tables cloistered in wood and brick alcoves lined with paintings, books, even a handful of typewriters. Like the 1987 Kurt Vonnegut novel from which the restaurant took its name, Bluebeard encourages guests to drop their guard, surround themselves with other people and try something that frightens them a little.
What to order at Bluebeard
“What should I get at Bluebeard?” is one of the more invigorating questions any given Indy resident gets to mull, but it can be a daunting decision nonetheless. Keeping in mind that there probably isn’t a wrong answer, here are some places to start:
Salads, or any vegetables really. Enough time in any white-collar job will leave you with the impression that “salad” is just a Tupperware container or overpriced bowl of wet leaves you plow through around noon, but Bluebeard’s veggies are far from an afterthought. Each leaf, sprout and tuber gets the same attention as a center-cut ribeye. Dishes like roasted cauliflower or seasonal salads pop with drastically different yet complementary flavors in ways you never quite expect.
Pasta. Sternberg’s team applies the same open-ended curiosity to pasta as sports bars do to nachos and fries. This is a very good thing. That “what else can work here?” mentality has spawned roasted mushroom rigatoni and alligator tortellini among other stellar forkfuls. Last summer’s menu briefly featured a clash of North African and South Asian flavors in a bowl of mafaldine with lamb merguez sausage, charred corn, coconut, lime leaf and cilantro. I still think about it, conservatively, a few times per week.
Dessert. The aspiring artist-to-chef pipeline is well established, and seldom is it more obvious than with Boudarine’s desserts. Leveraging the natural sweetness of ingredients like fruit, chocolate and honey, the Moroccan-born, French-trained pastry chef crafts some of the most visually intriguing desserts you’ll find in town, such as cob-shaped sweet corn ice cream or a “stick” of browned butter cake, tablespoon markings and all.