2022-03-28 07:00:00
Chef Borel’s Kitchen has Creole/Cajun Cuisine for mobile ordering
Chef Borel’s Kitchen’s Chef/Owner Theresa Borel is ready to cook, opening March 28, 2022, with her virtual ghost kitchen for creole and cajun cuisine.
Indianapolis Star
Theresa Borel’s latest culinary venture transports diners to New Orleans via crawfish etouffee, seafood gumbo and alligator po-boys.
But they have to make the delectable journey at their homes or offices.
Chef Borel’s Kitchenwhich opened Monday, is lunchtime delivery-only; with customers ordering via third-party delivery apps.
Chef Borel’s is operated from a ghost kitchen at 6950 N. Michigan Road. Ghost kitchens operate to support restaurants accessible only through phone and online orders and limiting service to delivery or pickup. A drive-through will be added later.
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Specializing in the Louisiana creole cuisine that incorporates French, West African, Caribbean and other influences, Borel already has a name in the culinary scene, operating as a private chef and caterer since 2020.
Before that, she was part of the team at her parent’s Borel’s Cajun & Creole Cookery, which kept busy from its opening at 2274 W. 86th St., in 2014 to its 2017 closure when the rent quadrupled.
“We weren’t going to pay $5,000 a month,” Borel said.
From styling hair to creole cuisine
She cooked there alongside her mother, Becky, and her pastry chef sister when she decided to go to culinary school at Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts.
Before joining the family business, Borel had operated a hair salon for 14 years. It caught on fire in 2014 and had to be remodeled.
It’s the same facility from which Borel and her four-person team, including Becky and a former Borel’s Cajun & Creole Cookery employee, turn out their specialty gumbo, spiced with filé made from ground sassafras tree leaves. There is a chicken and sausage version; a seafood version with shrimp, scallops and crabmeat; and a combination full of shrimp, sausage and chicken.
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Although there’s no dine-in or indoor pickup, the space is festive, decorated with the Mardi Gras purple, green and gold color combo.
Well-seasoned, but not overly spicy, entrees include the gumbos, dirty rice, and chicken Cajun pasta ($11.99 for a 12-ounce bowl, or any three 8-ounce items for $12.99). Po-boys come loaded with fried shrimp, oyster or catfish; smoked turkey, andouille or pork sausage; pulled pork or beef, soft-shell crab or fried alligator ($10.99-$15.99).
Desserts include bread pudding, 7-Up cake and enticing cobblers ($6.99).
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Borel prides herself in delivering authentic Louisiana grub.
Crawfish for the crawfish boils and alligator meat for po-boys come directly from New Orleans.
And the operation is community-minded, with plans to host outdoor seniors meal events and set up a community garden on the property to allow neighbors in the area, which has seen the loss of Kroger and Target stores, to grow their own vegetables.
Borel grew up in Indianapolis, but her home was filled with the influence of New Orleans.
Going ghost
Her mother really took to the meals her father’s — retired Indianapolis Fire Department deputy chief Arthur John Borel — New Orleans family would prepare; the gumbos in particular.
“I fell in love with it,” Becky Borel said. “I just started indoctrinating myself and cooking it.’’
That was passed down to Theresa Borel and her sister, Tracy.
Borel wanted to open a restaurant early in the pandemic when she saw drive-throughs at restaurants busy with patrons, while shops without them often couldn’t operate.
“When the pandemic hit, people were eating. No one stopped eating. McDonald’s and Burger King; they were booming with their drive-throughs. People weren’t going in and they were still making money,” she said. “So as I’m sitting in the drive-through and I’m thinking, ‘We need to open the restaurant back up.’”
The how came to her when she recollected a trip to New York during which she was rebuffed from entering a Greek restaurant.
“The guy says, ’No, ma’am’.” she said, “I looked in the window and it said, ‘Ghost kitchen.’ I didn’t know what that meant.”
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The restaurant employee told her that more than two dozen virtual restaurants operated from the space and directed her to order by phone or online for delivery to her hotel room.
“I was so intrigued with it. I started studying and researching it,” said Borel, who lives in the Crooked Creek neighborhood on the city’s northwest side.
Chef Borel’s Kitchen is listed on DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber Eats and Menufy platforms.
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She expects loads of customers from nearby businesses as well as downtown Indianapolis.
And she anticipates being swamped at lunchtime; so she’s limiting hours to that period to give her staff a rest.
“After lunch, I want my staff to go home. I don’t want them to wear themselves out,” she said.
Chef Borel’s Kitchen, 317-429-9782, 6950 Michigan Road, Indianapolis, operates from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at [email protected] or 317-444-6264. Follow her on Twitter: @cherylvjackson.
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