Fine dining in TCI? Pass. Coming from NYC, we find fine dining in the Caribbean pretentious, overly expensive, and full of hiccups. When you shell out a considerate amount, you cant help but notice all the little things that go wrong. We mostly avoid them these days after being fooled one time too many. Fool me once shame on you, fool me 15 times, I’m a glutton for punishment. But sometimes you want to take your wife somewhere new and exciting, where she can sport her Rent The Runway dress, and matching scarf. And sometimes when the stars align, you hit a homerun. Or in this case, a “Six”. If you know, you know.
Indigo is the brainchild of Australian Andrew Mirosch, the Culinary Director at Wymara. Its the old Gansevoort which recently rebranded to Wymara. Its essentially the new Stelle for those familiar. We avoided Stelle all those years, but social media chatter and early reviews suggested Indigo is the one new kid on the block worth checking out. Indigo is named after one of Mirosch’s daughters. He often flies to Australia to see them, and comes back with highly sought-after Australian Salmon and lamb. As long as he doesnt bring back Vegemite, I think this formula will work for a long time.
Our expectations at places as such lowered over the years. But Indigo is doing its best to lift that bar. The one thing I really like about Indigo happens almost as soon as you sit down. A menu intro by Mirosch himself. Instead of meeting the host at the end of the meal as happens so often, a chat at the beginning helps with the menu navigation and palate matching. Its a game changer for some. It doesnt take long to see how passionate and dedicated he is on freshness and the ingredient driven menu. As with any place on Provo, you need to satisfy a wide range of tastes (ie tourists), and by all accounts it looks like Mirosch got the tools and expertise to do so.
The rebranding to Wymara didnt mean rebranding from sexy. So we, including Mrs Z scarf immediately felt that sense of belonging. I’m pretty sure, if we didnt arrive at Provo senior hour (7), when Indigo was fairly empty, we would have gotten plenty of the usual looks, and the few patrons we saw were simply too busy with the menu. Choosing from the menu turned out to be a difficult task as there were some very interesting looking specials that night. I prefer small menus, and this was definitely not. Andrew Mirosch, the fisherman to the rescue.
We started with the two soups on the menu, including one special. Fish soup was pleasantly creamy and loaded with various chunky delicious fish. But as good as it was, the Conch Chowder special made it look pedestrian. Complex, supremely flavorful, and as good as it gets really.
Second course was a special trio of tapas called “Would it kill them to add another shrimp to make it shareable”. Lobster spring roll and Mirosch’s take on Maryland crab cake totally upstaged the lone sad coconut shrimp which needed the two terrific sauces to give it some life. A flashy but tasty app overall.
Although it was still windy, the island fishermen went fishing after a 4 day break, hence a superb local grouper special. A hefty, perfectly flaky fish, sitting on top of freshly made light fried rice. This dish worked slightly better than the buttery lobster. Indigo has an interesting dessert selection but being a sucker for sticky toffee pudding I stopped reading the rest of the menu. A tad too sweet perhaps, but still enjoyable and something I’d order again.
The service is usually understandably lacking on the islands, but it wasnt the case here. Friendly, proficient, and anticipatory. I dont recall the wine we had as I wasnt planning on writing a dedicated post while there. But this was an enjoyable meal from start to finish. A solid exception to the rule. Go!
Eating With Ziggy 