Dunaway's

This past Saturday night, we came to Dunaways as part of Devour Downtown event. This was our first time eating at this establishment. Walking into the building was very beautiful with a person playing the Harp. We were seated upstairs. Service was very good. We got our drinks right away and our appetizer which was pesto gnoochi crab with roasted red pepper. Then we got our dinner salad with balsamic vinagerette. I got the triple cold water lobster with smashed red potatoes with asparagus. My friend got 6 oz filet with smashed red potatoes. The dessert was creme brulee with whip cream and raspberry on top. The dinner was excellent. But the price we payed for the meals was not worth it. Total bill was $95.00 and we tipped our waiter $18.00. Total of $113.00. We started to park in the parking lot, they wanted $7.00 valet parking, so we decided to park along the street and walked up to the restaurant. I think its ridiculous to having to pay to park. I can park at a downtown garage for $2.00 an hour.

If you want a good fine dining experience, I strongly recommend this place. Just make sure you have plenty of money to spend on a very small dinner. It was a great experience and I want to thank the staff of Dunaways for giving a great service.

Appearance: externally it looks like a bar or pub. Internally it's a bit more inviting. Didn't like the area near the bar...too noisy. Lighting was tooooo dim. Fireplace wasn't up enough. Tables were a good size. View isn't so great.
Customer service: we stood waiting for almost ten minutes before a waiter answered us and said the hostess would be back soon to seat us. She never returned so he ended up seating us instead. That wasn't a great start. I'm not a food snob either. I rarely go to pricey restaurants for the mere fact that it'd be economically unwise of me at this time. However, devour downtown allows us to visit places in the hopes of wanting to visit them again. So the water boy was a bit odd. He also misinterpreted what we said and took our bread away instead of waiting until we were done. It could've been God saying, "you realllllly don't need anymore bread!" Either way it took a bit before we had our waters and bread. The waiter was decent but seemed soooo busy that it was hard to get his attention when we needed something.
Food: bread was so, so. The salad...well, we felt like rabbits in a wild open field. I love spinach leaves in my salad but it was just spinach leaves and a few chopped tomatoes with a hint of balsamic- wasn't impressed. The gnocchi wasn't a true gnocchi and the portion was ridiculously small. It tasted great regardless. The main dishes...decent. My scallops dish was quite salty and there was some grit still in my food. The scallops were cooked good and it seemed like there was some bacon chunks in the sauce that were far too chewy for me. The filet mignon was a bit smaller than expected. The scallops dish was far better. Dessert was pistachio creme brûlée and he liked his I thought it was so-so. Although....I'm not a creme brûlée fan. So for that, I'd say its good just the same.
Would I return? Probably not but it was worth the experience.

This was recommended by a local. Great place, but not sure how they stay in business. There were only three parties in the restaurant Thursday night, when we were there. It is an old renovated building, one room is almost all orignal and is quite quant. There is a fireplace and wood panelling. I recommend asking for a seat by the fireplace.

All the food was exceptional, except the risotto (but I know that risotto can be quite difficult). We ordered the crostini platter, calamari fritti and the shrimp cocktail. All very delicious. We orded the ribeye, the strip steak, the fish special and the sea scallops. The ribeye was to die for! Very juicy and cooked just right. I can't remember what the fish special was, but that was the best!

The manager gave us a tour of the restaurant, we even got to see the wine cellar! They told us the owner was a previous owner of St. Elmos (a staple of Indy).