25-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- Indianapolis Star
INdulge: Italian sandwich at new SoBro Mediterranean restaurant is best thing I ate this week
Trees are leafing, birds are chirping and the mere thought of sending a Microsoft Teams or Slack message feels like an affront to Mother Nature; spring has finally sprung in Indianapolis.
To me, few cuisines embody spring like those of the Mediterranean. Drawn by the salty siren call of olives and cured meats, for this week's INdulge I wolfed down:
The best thing I ate in Indy this week
Seasonal ingredients abound at Corridor, which in January rebranded after a 15-year run in SoBro as Nicole-Taylor's Pasta. The Mediterranean-inspired eatery's spring menu, curated by chef-owners Erin Kem and Logan McMahon, features a treasure trove of bright flavors in the form of salads, seafood and pasta. Because I am who I am, I opted for a sandwich — specifically, the mortadella ($15).
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Classified as a salume — the class of Italian meat products typified by cured pork — mortadella features finely chopped or ground pork with at least 15% fat by volume. Some modern versions of mortadella incorporate pistachios or other fillings; Corridor plays it straight with pink sheets of fat-dotted meat.
Sliced to roughly the thickness of a postcard, that meat joins sun-dried tomatoes, salad greens and tapenade, a Provençal French condiment of chopped olives and capers, on Corridor's sandwich, all snugly pressed between hearty slices of toasted Italian bread.
After crunching through the gritty exterior of the starch-sweet bread, you're met with the full force of the deli counter. Savory pork and briny tapenade slam against your palate, while a merciful scattering of greens doused with lemon juice softens the blow. Each bite leaves a pungent sheen of olive oil upon your lips, a sort of true love's kiss for people who really get down with cold cuts.
Those who grew up celebrating the proud culinary tradition of Oscar Mayer might think mortadella sounds a lot like bologna. And that's no coincidence. Mortadella made in the Italian city of Bologna bears Protected Geographical Indication status, a designation from the European Union that means virtually identical products made elsewhere cannot bear the genuine article's name. Hence, the ubiquitous floppy American "bologna.'
Historians generally agree mortadella originated at the latest in Medieval Rome, with early iterations likely consisting of wild boar or donkey meat. Some say the name 'mortadella' alluded to the use of a mortar to grind the meat that winds up in the sausage. Others say the mortar motif was merely a marketing tactic — mortadella roughly translates to 'the death of it' (it presumably being a wild boar or donkey), something meat-mongers probably wouldn't have been quick to advertise.
Regardless, mortadella was a big deal in Rome. So much so that in 1661, Cardinal Girolamo Farnese issued a decree that legally defined mortadella products, with later papal decrees outlining gruesome consequences for those hawking fraudulent salumi.
As I understand it, today's cardinals have somewhat more pressing matters at hand than policing meat production. Still, I admire their predecessors' commitment to preserving the sanctity of mortadella. I'd like to think old Girolamo would have approved of Corridor's spin, which stuffs the cold cut and other salty, fresh flavors of the Mediterranean into an American sandwich shop package.
We only get so many lovely spring days like these in Indiana, so as the Romans would have said: carpe diem. Or for a slightly more attainable goal, carpe mortadella — after all, it'd be a true shame not to seize a good sandwich from time to time.
What: Mortadella sandwich, $13 with salad or chips
Where: Corridor, 1134 E. 54 th St., (317) 257-73734,
In case that's not your thing: Sandwiches comprise a small fraction of the offerings at Corridor, whose upscale counter-service operation runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. A sliver of the restaurant's spring menu includes Pacifico bass with a Moroccan tomato and eggplant spread and unleavened bread ($20), spring pea agnolotti (pasta) stuffed with lemon mint ricotta ($17) and vegan sunchoke fritters ($8). Corridor also features a market (open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday) stocked with Nicole-Taylor's pasta, take-home pizzas and other Mediterranean fare.
