Courses At Ivy Tech

We had a Spanish tapas lunch buffet with beverage today. Lovely venue with crisp white linens!, sparkling glasses, low music, prompt and friendly service staff and great food.
My favorite was the lemony cauliflower with toasted almonds. Second was the salt cod cakes that were perfectly cooked and light and fluffy inside. They reminded me of being at the sea coast. The ceviche was scallops. There were two paella selections, one with shrimp and a vegetable only one. Lots of other choices. I cleaned my plate.
Will be going back. Note they have only a few lunches and dinners each month and the menu varies. Next week is an African inspired buffet.
Great value at $ 12 plus tip. Downstairs is the bakery where I picked up a homemade $ 1 cookie for dessert later. It too was fantastic.

I attended a reservation only wine dinner here on a recent Wednesday evening. The entire experience was fantastic! The penthouse restaurant has a spectacular view of downtown Indy from afar. The staff and service were terrific. The food presentation and flavor in addition to the wine pairings were outstanding.
For the price, this experience was WELL worth the $ 34 spent for the evening! Here’s what we had:
Salad: Spring greens, apple cider cranberries, feta cheese and spiced walnuts
Entrée: Braised Beef Short Ribs with roasted fingerling potatoes, haricot vert and petite carrots
Dessert: Petite Gâteau of Almond and Nougat
I definitely recommend attending one of these events. Courses also serves lunch on occasion. I can’t wait to go back for lunch!

It pains me to rank this place low, but a bad experience is a bad experience. I understand that this restaurant is ran by students, and I was completely prepared for a wait, or things not to be perfect, but lunch took over two hours! Lunch on a weekday; people have places to go!
Aside from a huge chunk of my day being eaten up, the food was good, well priced (cheap even — mussels for $ 6!?) and the venue was gorgeous. What a view of Indianapolis! So, if you’re willing to gamble on time, it’s worth checking out .
Insider tip: Make sure you plan your visit at the end of the semester as that’s when students are most polished on working on final projects (fancy meals/​desserts).

I was here for a catered event, not a practicum for culinary students. So I won’t comment on the food. However, the atmosphere is great. The room is decorated in dark wood paneling and upholstered chairs. The bar is in front with a small lounge area. The dining tables are in the back. The view of downtown Indianapolis is one of the best.

Be a part of a hospitality students education!

I had this review all written ahead of time. The location, the legacy — Stouffers restaurant, where my parents took me for my birthday dinner back in ’78, age 14, in my green denim leisure suit. It was one of the ‘nice’ restaurants in town and had that showy view!
And oh to learn the Lilly Endowment would pull this facility back into existence. And Indy would have one of those fun culinary institutes with a restaurant ‘lab’. And all within four miles of my house. Well — I couldn’t wait. Then I promptly forgot.
THEN I was on Unilocal at 3:00 am a couple weeks ago, cruising around and realized this place had come to life. It was Courses!
It was downhill from there… The website was three weeks out of date as of 1÷1÷13. The reservation person listed on the site didn’t return my emails. The Ivy Tech hospitality department chair did!
Reservations were made, and the magic moment arrived, I dined there with a friend last night. That Lilly money bought a damn sweet interior re-​do. That was apparent right off the elevator. We were met by a mumbling albeit friendly host who seated us. Several of the student waiters buzzed about. We were well, if goofily, attended. It was funny to think that this was probably the first restaurant job for these kids. Like, the only place to get restaurant experience is doing practicals at Courses. Makes ya appreciate the working staff at real restaurants all the more.
The food was average to terrible. The salads were okay. The escargot completely uninspired. The braised beef short rib on whatever mashed potatoes contained about (literally) 2 oz. of meat and was a joke. The crepes suzette were decent. The whatever french pot of chocolate was some weird, highly rich pound of brown goo. Pardon my french.
At the beginning of the meal, I saw someone getting soup and I hadn’t seen soup on the menu so I asked our server. She said yes, chef sometimes created dishes that weren’t on the menu and proceeded to read them to us. Though she spoke no french so that was sorta odd as she made no attempt to read her notes if it was in french. My dining partner asked if those might be called «specials» in the non-​academic dining world.
All food was served within 18 minutes of being seated. Waitress didn’t know what beers they had other than something by Sun King. Bread (which sucked) was taken away (??) as we were discovering the braised short rib was mostly nothing.
Well, you get the idea. Total bill with two beers: $ 43. Add tip to $ 50. Highly amusing but not very inspired.
And yes, unparallelled views.
No one from the teacher/​professional side of the venture ever made contact to ask how things went. I had the whole thing lined out — I was writing the Unilocal review the entire meal. (Dog ate first, good version)
Would I go back? Hell yes. Was it good? Sadly, no.

A little slow, but good food! Try the breakfast burritos.

Who knew such a gem existed in the city?!
Ivy Tech recently rehabbed an old hotel, creating a sharp, modern, professional culinary school, topped off by «Courses,» the student-​run restaurant. The restaurant still retains the original woodwork, including intricate archways and beautiful fireplaces. Low lighting and comfortable seating arrangements make for an intimate setting. The room is surrounded by windows, revealing the beautiful Indianapolis skyline below. The food, prepared by the talent of the students, was incredible.
While I was only visiting during a special event, I very much look forward to seeing this place in action!

Thanks to Unilocal,I had a rare opportunity for a behind-​the scenes tour of the new Ivy Tech Culinary School’s «Courses» venue, a 13-​floor, 196,000 square foot state of the art culinary institute that formerly housed the Stouffer’s Hotel and, before that, the Stokley-​Van Camp mansion. I hear Elvis stayed at the hotel in 1977 when he performed his final concert at Market Square Arena.
The first floor houses a pastry shop that will soon be open for students and morning commuters to stop by for a freshly baked breakfast made by the students of the culinary school (with reserved parking spaces out front for to go orders.) Behind the shop are state of the art classrooms where students gain firsthand knowledge in a kitchen environment on all types of cooking techniques from basics to sushi and even foods involving liquid nitrogen.
As the tour wound upstairs towards the Penthouse restaurant, it became very apparent that Ivy Tech can accommodate almost any size meeting in their various conference rooms, each one with an impressive list of technology available for crowds big and small.
Our tour ended in the Penthouse, a sit down restaurant on the 13^th floor with impressive views of the downtown skyline and even better desserts and finger foods created by the talented student chefs at Ivy Tech. We might have had one or two cocktails throughout the evening, maybe some great wine from Butler and Huber Wineries, but one thing is certain: we all had a great time decked out in our tackiest Christmas attire and I for one will certainly be back to Courses in the very near future.