RESTAURANT NEWS | INDIANA
The Pretender Brings Hi-Fi Dining to Indiana
Japanese listening-bar culture meets a Midwestern supper club at this music-minded restaurant north of Indianapolis.
THE PRETENDER | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Jamie Dutton
2:07 p.m. CT, Sept. 1, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: Jamie Dutton's job has her in airports regularly, as does a family spread out across the Midwest. She’s partial to BPTs and Bell’s.
The first thing to know about The Pretender is that the music matters. Inside the restaurant in downtown Noblesville, records spin through Tannoy and Sansui speakers, their sound filling a dining room of dark wood, amber lights, patterned wallpaper, and shelves lined with vinyl.
It looks a bit like someone spent years building the perfect basement listening room and then hired a chef.
Owner Blake Fogelsong opened The Pretender through his family’s Clancy’s Hospitality group. The company also runs The Fountain Room in Indianapolis and several restaurants around central Indiana, but this is its first built around a sound system. The idea came from Japanese jazz kissa, small cafés where customers gather to listen closely to records played on equipment that can cost about as much as a starter home.
Snapper Veracruz
For The Pretender, Chicago-based Uncanned Music assembled the system and recorded analog mixes for a vintage reel-to-reel machine. Local DJs play vinyl on weekends, and guests occasionally get a turn during bring-your-own-record nights.
The name comes from the 1976 Jackson Browne song, which fits a restaurant that seems to exist somewhere between a Japanese listening bar and a Midwestern supper club. Chef Ricky Martinez’s menu roams about as widely as the record collection.
Rock shrimp arrives in a crystal goblet, fried crisp and tossed with sweet-and-spicy sriracha, Fresno peppers, and sesame seeds. Deviled eggs come with jalapeño bacon jam and crispy rice noodles. Brie brûlée combines honey-whipped cheese, caramelized sugar, and pistachios, ready to be spread over grilled bread.
NY strip
From there, dinner could move toward tuna oshizushi with avocado and chili mayo, pork tenderloin with spaetzle, snapper Veracruz, or a slow-roasted short rib rising from a bowl of butternut squash risotto.
Wagyu burger
Martinez and Fogelsong
The drinks continue flipping through the albums. Jesus Is Alright, named for the Doobie Brothers song, is a floral gin cocktail. Velvet Underground combines gin, sweet vermouth, and strawberry-infused Campari.
The Pretender sits about 30 miles north of Indianapolis, in a city better known for its courthouse square than Japanese hi-fi culture. Now there is a place nearby where dinner begins when the needle drops.
Chef Nicco V. Salanitro leads the kitchen at the waterfront restaurant in Huizenga Park.
By ERIC BARTON
