(Photo by Brandon Snyder)
With Champaign’s Chinese food scene recently being featured in the New York Times and Chicago’s ever-looming presence as a foodie haven, it can be easy to overlook the thriving restaurant industries of other nearby cities.
Consider St. Louis.
With a growing reputation for its diverse food and cultural offerings amongst locals and travelers alike, St. Louis has been referenced as a top US food destination in recent years. As a lifelong resident of the Metro East & food enthusiast myself, I’ve crossed the city many times over looking for a new favorite.
Well, I found it in iNDO.
Although St. Louis is a nearly 3 hour drive from Champaign-Urbana, its immense offering of things to experience and places to eat make it worth every second of the drive for those who haven’t been yet.
Opened by local chef Nick Bognar in 2019, iNDO has received nothing but praise and attention since. In 2020, iNDO was a nominee for the James Beard Foundation’s Best New Restaurant award. This year, Bognar is a James Beard nominee for the sixth time, with this being his second nomination for the Best Chef: Midwest category. The long list of awards and nominations associated with iNDO drew me towards it as a choice for a celebratory dinner.
We were seated in their newly-renovated sunroom, a beautifully decorated and naturally lit room that had a very comfortable air about it.
The service I received at iNDO was second to none. After being seated, our host immediately asked us if anyone had any dietary restrictions. As my party’s only member with a dietary restriction, the waiter made sure to spend extra time reviewing the menu’s meatless options for me. While only a handful of items were clearly marked with a ‘V’, the waiter took care to point out other menu items that could be made vegetarian upon request.
I started with their ‘Oh My Cha Cha Cha’ cocktail, a delicious, fruit-forward cocktail with omija berry infused soju, suntory toki whiskey, spiced asian pear, campari, and lemon. It was a pleasantly light drink that let the pear and omija berry soju do the talking. This cocktail was very refreshing and mildly herbal. It had the perfect balance of not tasting too alcoholic while each individual sip still clearly influenced the taste.
iNDO’s menu is balanced around a large selection of small plates that are meant to be shared amongst several people. Depending on the size of your party, the host will recommend how many different dishes should be ordered to leave everyone feeling full at the end of the meal. With my party of five, it was recommended we order around 10 different plates to split. My partner and I ordered four vegetarian & vegan dishes between us, while the rest of my family split a handful of dishes with meat in them.
(Photo by Brandon Snyder)
Each dish was brought out individually to ensure that they remained hot & fresh out of the kitchen. We started with salt and pepper tofu, which was my favorite dish of the night. The batter on the tofu was supremely crisp, dotted with the black pepper and large flakes of salt. The added accent of deeply caramelized onion and crisp chili peppers came together with the tofu to make a bite so balanced.
The dish filled my mouth with a maelstrom of flavors and textures — the sweetness and umami of the onions, salt of the tofu, and a hint of sourness and bitterness from the combination of fresh and pickled peppers — but all coming together into something cohesive.
(Photo by Brandon Snyder)
The next dish was roasted purple sweet potatoes with a pleasantly spicy sauce, all sprinkled in green onions. These potatoes were wonderfully indulgent. Between the sweetness and creamy texture of the roasted potatoes, the richness of the sauce and fresh taste of the onions, I had the feeling I was eating a dish prepared for a King. Though the tofu was my favorite of the night, these roasted potatoes had an undeniable air of royalty about them that made them the favorite of the others at the table.
Following the potatoes was a plate of chili garlic noodles that could have convinced even the most headstrong mushroom hater to change their ways.
These noodles were completely coated in a black garlic sauce that catered perfectly to my garlic-loving heart.
(Photo by Brandon Snyder)
The chili garlic noodles had a very of-the-earth flavor profile, with mushrooms, black garlic and soy creating a rock solid foundation of smokiness, umami, and earthy flavors. The gremolata on top of the noodles built on this foundation with some brighter, more herbal flavors.
The final dish was roasted Japanese eggplant atop of labneh and drizzled with chili crisp. iNDO takes something as simple as roasted eggplant and elevates it through a simple pairing of tangy yogurt and spicy chili crisp.
(Photo by Brandon Snyder)
A standout moment in a night of wonderful service was when I ordered a second drink to try, their ‘Burning Lotus’ cocktail. Described on the menu as ‘herbaceous and funky’, the drink gets its signature flavor from house-made red curry paste.
I placed an order for this when the host came to refill our waters, and shortly after placing this order, the waiter came back to our table to inform me that the curry paste actually contained shrimp and that I would be unable to drink it.
This was the most stand-out moment of the night for me. The thoughtfulness and attentiveness of the waiter kept me from consuming something that I choose not to eat, and knowing that the waitstaff paid such close attention to these details shows how seriously iNDO takes its experience.
While St. Louis’s culinary iconography of toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, Anheuser-Busch, and St. Louis style pizza have cemented its food history as one of innovation, it’s restaurants like iNDO today that prove that the city still has what it takes to push the boundaries of the restaurant industry.
For anyone from or in CU wondering if taking a trip to St. Louis is in the cards for them, let this be your sign to make a trip to the Gateway to the West.
Brandon Snyder is a graduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.