This may be the best mac and cheese on Mass Ave.
Create your own mac and cheese at Rooster's Kitchen, which moved into the former R. Bistro location
R. Bistro on Mass Ave. closed this year. If you’re still sad about that, the macaroni and cheese made by the restaurateur who took over the space will make you feel better.
Tender elbow macaroni is drenched in from-scratch béchamel sauce. Unbelievably creamy. A ton of cheddar cheese. What’s even better is you get to have your mac and cheese any way you like it. Add the house-cured bacon. Add the slow-roasted brisket. Go all veggies. Order a dose of house-made giardiniera. Ask for crumbled pork rinds on top. What the heck, crown your mac and cheese with a fried egg.
Then eat it with 3 Floyds Brewing Co.’s famous Zombie Dust American pale ale — while the keg lasts.
New Rooster’s Kitchen, 888 Massachusetts Ave., cuddles like a mom hug with good reason. Owner Ross Katz uses a lot of his family’s recipes to create a cool comfort food mix of snacks, sandwiches, salads and meat-with-two-sides meals.
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My mac and cheese was a Katz family culinary album complete with stories. Mama Katz’s tender brisket mingled with crunchy, spicy giardiniera that the clan for years has made from scratch.
Katz’s father told me the crew would sit around a table for a few hours cutting up carrots, celery, cauliflower, green olives and sport peppers. He and his wife learned to make the giardiniera when they worked together at a Chicago hot dog stand. They weren’t married then. The stand’s owner encouraged them to date and then shared the giardiniera recipe that the couple went on to use at their own hot dog stand.
The sunny-side-up egg on top was all Katz. As his mom said, “Ross takes things to a whole other level.”
Katz defines Rooster’s Kitchen as “homestyle-inspired” with some twists. Hence that warm egg yolk running into an already luscious mac and cheese. For $13, get a mac and cheese with your choice of one meat, two vegetables and a topping. The fried egg is $1 extra.
Meats include Katz’s own pork belly bacon and Canadian bacon. Pork rinds he fries in-house are among toppings. You can also order them as a snack.
The Canadian bacon is an unsmoked pork loin. It’s a delicious hunk of ham inside The Lucy, Katz’s take on a Cuban sandwich. He stacks the quarter-inch-thick slice with roasted pork shoulder, mustard, pickles and Swiss cheese on a super-crusty Italian roll.
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As a kid, Katz awoke every morning at sunrise and usually cooked himself breakfast. His mother nicknamed him Rooster. These days, he does breakfast for lunch or dinner via the Canadian Tuxedo. A Canadian bacon slice and fried egg crown a brioche from Indianapolis-based Cornerstone Bread Co. Katz naps the whole thing in creamy whiskey maple aioli that flows like pancake syrup.
I sampled my first bites of Rooster’s Kitchen during a preview Oct. 15. When I go back, I plan to try the Canadian Tuxedo with the Irish Coffee beer from Round Town, a brewery opening Oct. 20 at 950 S. White River Parkway. It’s an Irish red ale with a hint of coffee. Rooster’s Kitchen pours all local beers plus kombucha beer cocktails. Wines include the bourbon barrel-aged Cooper and Thief red blend and 1000 Stories zinfandel.
Rooster's Kitchen prices range from $5 to $14. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. Call (317) 426-2020.
Follow IndyStar food writer Liz Biro on Twitter: @lizbiro, Instagram: @lizbiro, Facebook and Pinterest. Call her at (317) 444-6264.
