On a recent sunny October day, a couple strolling through Spokane's South Perry District suddenly stops. They've happened upon the grand opening of the neighborhood's much-anticipated new restaurant, Indicana. The man reads the menu posted outside, calling out to his partner, "I'll meet you there!" while she walks on ahead to their original destination.
Like many, he's intrigued by Indicana's uncommon pairing of Indian and Mexican cuisine.
Indicana is the brainchild of Noreen Hiskey, who last ran the local pop-up food vendor Inland Curry, and Chip Overstreet, Spiceology's former CEO. Plans for the restaurant began forming nearly two years ago while Hiskey was running Inland Curry's Thursday pop-up meals out of Feast World Kitchen in downtown Spokane.
"My husband was one of the influences, when he first came to India," Hiskey says while explaining Indicana's Indian-Mexican fusion concept.
"He would take the paratha [Indian flatbread] ... and he would lay it in burrito-style and just wrap it up, whereas all of us were just scooping it up," she says.
To make her home country's flavors more accessible for others, Hiskey added the taco-inspired dish to Inland Curry's menu. Her husband's unintentional food hack was a big hit.
"My family, we loved her food because she wasn't just relying on those six or eight traditional British-Indian foods," her business partner Overstreet says, also mentioning chicken butter masala and the lamb saag as examples of Northern Indian cuisine that a Western palate is more familiar with.
"She was always exploring the different regions of India and bringing different types of food every week. My whole family loved it... except for my son," Overstreet says. "My youngest, he would complain bitterly on Thursdays because he would just prefer to eat burgers and pasta."
One Thursday, however, Hiskey packed Overstreet and his son something special to try. At first glance, it looked like two tacos, but on further inspection it was tender pork vindaloo sandwiched between paratha.
Overstreet's picky son didn't leave a single bite behind.
"'Why do you suddenly love this?'" Overstreet recalls asking his child. "It was pretty clear. The food was presented in a familiar form, and it got my brain spinning."
"Nobody in the U.S. has done it," he continues, noting that the only other restaurant similar to Indicana he's discovered is in Mexico City.
While she ran Inland Curry as a pop-up for four years, Hiskey had always wanted to start her own full-service restaurant. So when Overstreet approached her with the business idea, they immediately started putting their plan into action.
Going from pop-ups and catering to running her own brick-and-mortar spot, Hiskey had to carefully consider the restaurant's ambience along with the long list of other things that come with starting a small business.
When looking at photos of India and Mexico for design references, sometimes it was hard for her to distinguish the two. Both countries embrace vibrant colors and use similar patterns and textures. Indicana balances the two distinct cultures with colorful cushions, woven wall art and rattan-style light fixtures.
"We didn't want to try and overdo it," Overstreet says. "We wanted it to be simple and let the food do the talking."
And, boy, it has a lot to say. Indicana's fusion doesn't simply come from form, but highlights the flavors of both countries in creative ways.
Since moving from India to the United States 15 years ago, Hiskey says Mexican food has been one of her go-tos.
"I think I eat Mexican cuisine the most since I moved here because it's the most familiar," she says. "I like the foods, I like the braises, I like the spice, and I like the salsa."
She began learning more about Mexican cuisine from other chefs, her friend's abuela, and a plethora of cookbooks. As she discovered, the flavor profiles and ingredients used in Indian and Mexican cuisine are also very similar, partly due to their colonial history.
When people consider India's history of colonization, they may think of the British Empire. However, Hiskey says Portugal colonized parts of India for centuries starting in 1505, and introduced ingredients like chili peppers.
After months of testing recipes in her home kitchen with Overstreet, family, friends and other culinary professionals giving feedback, Hiskey says she finally settled on the menu for Indicana.
"Lunch is much more casual," says Overstreet, highlighting the tacos ($4) that are served on naan or corn tortillas and hold pork vindaloo, two masala varieties, or crispy cauliflower battered in a chili-garlic sauce with ginger.
"Then, dinner is more elevated. It's entrées. It's banana leaf-wrapped salmon that's out of this world," he adds.
The salmon ($36) is his and Hiskey's favorite dish. Salmon is marinated in Yucatán-style flavors, wrapped in banana leaves, charred on the grill and served with South Indian coconut stew and savory coconut sticky rice.
The cultural blending extends to Indicana's drink and dessert menus. One nonalcoholic option is the chai ginger soda ($5), with house-made chai and topped with ginger ale and fresh mint.
Other cocktails bring the heat, like the spicy mango margarita ($12) featuring front-of-house manager Jeffrey Kaune's special habanero tincture.
For the dessert, Hiskey enlisted the help of her friend and local chef Ricky Webster, who helped develop the recipes for Indicana's chai tres leches ($8) and the flourless Mexican chocolate torte ($10). The lassi panna cotta ($7) from Inland Curry's old menu shows how fusion can be flexible by throwing other cultures into the mix.
On top of balancing two distinct yet complementary cuisines, Indicana's menu is inclusive of various diets, offering gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options like the sweet potato enchiladas ($24) topped with a vegan butter masala.
"The goal with creating this menu was always to have something for everyone, so you can come as a group and everyone has a dish that is special and is not just a side," Hiskey says.
Overstreet summarizes Indicana's unique fusion experience: "Different things resonate with different people. What is most exciting is when people leave they say, 'I have to come back because there is so much more.'" ♦
Indicana • 1020 S. Perry St. • Open Tue-Fri 3-9 pm; Sat 4-9 pm • indicanaeats.com
