Trying to decide where to dine out today raises all kinds of questions. Is the food good? Can I go without a reservation? Are the ingredients responsibly sourced? At Wilson Bauer and Alice Richter’s Flour Power, the answers are all yes. But the menu is so teensy — just three daily pastas ($16 to $18), focaccia, and pasta with pomodoro or arrabbiata — that there are zero questions about what to order. Start with herby focaccia served with honeycomb and cheese, then get one pasta per person.
This 16-seat storefront opened in August 2020, closed in late 2021, then reopened the next March. You can get takeout or dine in (it’s open Wednesday to Saturday and is BYOB). Bauer comes up with the offerings each day, crafting beautifully textured pastas with a variety of toppings. One day might be reginette with spicy tuna belly, pomodoro sauce, and capers; another, spaghetti carbonara with country ham. The combinations don’t all nail it: Lumache with goat cheese, mushroom cream, and pickled shallots didn’t quite cohere, but chicken piccata sure did, with loads of lemon, capers, and butter.
I wish the menu were a tad larger, since a salad or veggie side would round things out, as would a dessert. But Hoosier Mama Pie Company is just doors away, and Flour Power knows what it wants to be: the answer when the only question we have is where to get pasta.