After 2-year delay, former Milktooth chefs open Borage, a new café and bakery in Speedway

It took Josh Kline and Zo? Taylor years to open their dream restaurant, but less than a second to come up with the name. One day early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor rolled over in bed and glanced down at the leaves and petals inked into her left forearm.

Oh, my god — Borage.

A Mediterranean herb with bright blue flowers and a taste like cucumber, borage (rhymes with “forage”) was one of the first plants Taylor successfully grew as she and Kline honed their lockdown gardening hobby. Now the plant is the creative and philosophical inspiration for one of Speedway’s most anticipated eateries.

Borage opened Wednesday at 1609 N. Lynhurst Drive, just under a mile west of Turn 1 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I joined droves of eager diners to sample the café menu and the bakery’s myriad pastries. Here’s what to know when you visit.

What’s on the menu at Borage?

Virtually everything customers eat at Borage is something Kline and Taylor cooked for one another throughout their relationship. Kline’s tastes skew tangy and vegetal, while Taylor’s pastries cover the spectrum between sweet and savory.

The marinated mushrooms on the flatbread sandwich ($14) are meaty enough to briefly make you think they came off a shawarma. Pickles, herbs and lemon juice pack alternating punches of brightness and acidity. Although rich hummus and chewy charred flatbread absorb some of the bite, there’s no fully escaping the pungent pickle barrage. Your mouth will cry a little, but they’re mostly tears of joy.

For a cozier dining experience, try the all-day breakfast plate ($12). The rustic sourdough oat toast is leagues ahead of your average breakfast spot’s wheat/white, but the maple fennel sausage patty is the star. It’s crumbly and tender, with just enough cool fennel and sweet maple to make you think you could eat several in a row with no negative consequences. Remember, we’re talking about greasy pucks of ground pork. Show some restraint.

In the bakery, Taylor’s team kneads just about any flavor you can imagine into an array of intriguing pastries ($3-9). Espresso glaze and pistachio bits give a flattened croissant the richness of a fat, slightly underbaked cookie. Strawberry syrup and peanut butter pastry cream imbue Borage’s PB&J bostock with a flavor somewhere between an expensive Danish and the classic sack-lunch sandwich. And the spongy, elderflower cordial-infused canelés are frighteningly easy to plow through.

For more adventurous eaters, Borage also offers a sampling of savory croissants — one of which includes poached asparagus, herby chili cream and shaved parmesan atop a featherlight rectangle of flaky dough ($9).

The croissant itself shatters apart in buttery sheets that go down extremely smoothly. Everything else hits you like a ton of bricks. Garlic and herbs dominate each dollop of chili cream, delicious to a culinary miscreant like me. Pair this pastry with a strong black coffee, and I suspect your breath will be capable of melting a bank vault.

There’s plenty of other flavors to explore on the menu. Plus, if you like one of Borage's dishes enough to want to make it yourself, you may find some basic ingredients for purchase in Borage’s small attached market. Part of the restaurant’s effort to connect with its patrons is eliminating the opaqueness of food production, whether by selling its ingredients or literally eliminating solid walls in favor of glass panes so guests can see into the kitchen.

Why Borage?

In North America, borage is considered a beneficial non-native plant. Kline and Taylor like to see themselves in the same way — transplants who have made Indianapolis their home and who hope to serve their community.

Kline grew up in Crawfordsville and cut his teeth as a line cook in Chicago. He moved to Indy in the early 2010s and steadily rose up the ranks to head chef at popular Fletcher Place brunch spot Milktooth. Taylor was born in Texas but moved often, always absorbing a knowledge and love of food from both parents. Her first job in Indianapolis was at Angie’s List, though that didn’t last long — roughly a week.

“Wow, I f—ing hate my life,” she quickly realized.

But she knew how to bake, so she brought her resume to then-Bluebeard executive chef Abbi Merriss and got a job as a pastry chef. A stint at Amelia’s to learn bread making followed, then Taylor helped open Milktooth in 2014. She met a new coworker, Kline, shortly thereafter.

“I had a crush on her from day one,” Kline said.

“And I was like, ‘I do not date coworkers,’” Taylor said.

But night after night of planning the next day’s menu together eventually pushed Taylor to reconsider her stance. By late 2021, the pair had two young sons. Their restaurant was set to open in less than a year. And then it didn't.

What took so long?

Kline and Taylor incorporated Borage LLC in July 2021. In November, they took to Instagram to announce plans to open in 2022. Coverage from multiple local outlets followed. So did plenty of snags.

Borage’s obstacles ranged from financial — the project budget quickly ballooned — to geological. The 7,100-square-foot building the restaurant occupies previously housed multiple businesses, one of which was a long-closed Texaco gas station. That Texaco had several large underground tanks, which required unplanned excavation.

As the setbacks piled up, Kline and Taylor leant on each other.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Taylor recalls asking Kline multiple times. But when one reached their wits’ end, the other provided much-needed support.

Much of the ground below which the gas tanks once sat now thrum with bees and butterflies. Kline estimates they planted 2,000 native species in the flowerbeds surrounding the restaurant, a process during which they broke about seven shovels — “lifetime warrantee trench spades,” Kline called them — trying to dig in the barren dirt above the tanks.

Kline said he and Taylor spent hundreds if not thousands of hours crafting Borage’s atmosphere. Taylor likened the décor to walking into someone’s living room.

Painted flowers span the restaurant’s white brick exterior. Boxes of cookies and jams and slender bottles of gem-colored sparkling drinks line the market’s shelves. There’s a wall dedicated to vintage artwork of fruits and vegetables that once hung in Kline’s grandparents’ kitchen.

“Our past experience informed us in a lot of great ways and showed us how much we love food, but restaurants that we’ve worked at have not been incredibly warm or comfortable spaces to walk into,” Taylor said. “We just wanted it to be comfortable for everyone.”

That includes staff, who receive at least $20 an hour, plus health insurance and sick days. Kline and Taylor acknowledged they used to get swept up in the tide of 60-hour weeks and laughable paychecks that can come with high-profile restaurant work. Now that they’re the ones making the rules, they hope to offer a better path.

The seed Taylor and Kline planted years ago at Milktooth has long germinated under the surface. After many delays, it’s finally ready to blossom.

Borage is open Tuesday through Sunday. The bakery and café are open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. The café serves a dinner menu from 5-10 p.m. on Thursday-Saturday and brunch from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

Contact dining reporter Bradley Hohulin at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter/X @BradleyHohulin.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Former Milktooth chefs opens Borage, cafe and bakery, in Speedway