If you’ve been to Tinker Street, you might have tried Ieasha Ennis’ takes on Southern favorites like banana pudding or peanut parfait.
She was brought up by her grandparents in a house off 15th Street in downtown Indianapolis — not too far from her current workplace. But Ennis said it’s her grandmother, not pastry school, that led her to fall in love with cooking.
“She bought me my first Easy Bake oven,” she said, smiling.
Ennis’ grandmother Charlotte Martin was originally from Omaha, Nebraska, the second of eight children and the “first cook in the family.” She moved to Indianapolis at the tender age of 10 and cooked her first Christmas dinner at 15.
Those genes, it seems, made their way to Ennis — from her first packet of Jiffy cake mix to the pastries of Tinker Street’s dessert menu.
“We cook with love, honey, and it’s all soul food!” Martin said with a laugh.
Talking to the two women is an education in soul food, from fried chicken and cornbread to collard greens, macaroni and cheese, smothered corn, and a spaghetti casserole that Ennis said “has a little of everything in it.”
And while Ennis makes it all — just ask her two kids, 16 and 10, who can’t get enough of her cooking — her heart was always in pastry.
“Ieasha’s pastry menus tell her story, and the story of her upbringing.”
— Tyler Shortt, head chef at Tinker Street
Ennis’ love of baking landed her first at the Chef’s Academy in downtown Indianapolis. Later, she became the city’s only Black female pastry chef at one of the city’s most renowned restaurants: Tinker Street.
“Ieasha and I started at Tinker Street around the same time,” said Tyler Shortt, head chef at Tinker Street. He called Ennis “the beast behind the pastry department.”
While those familiar with the restaurant’s award-winning dishes and its upscale aesthetic may find Ennis’ inclusion of “stick-to-your-ribs” desserts surprising, the two chefs have in common a basic appreciation of flavors and good taste.
“That type of food needs to have a place in our restaurant and our industry too,” Shortt said, adding that Ennis has mastered making familiar foods look a little more elegant while still tasting like home.
“Ieasha’s pastry menus tell her story, and the story of her upbringing,” he said. “If we didn’t have items like these on our menus, then all restaurants would have similar desserts. What would set us apart?”
Shortt’s favorite creation of Ennis’ is a banana pudding dessert that’s found an iteration on every Tinker Street menu over the last decade. It’s a perfect example of Ennis’ pastry style, which she describes as “elevated soul.”
“I try to bring elegance to the Southern side of my pastries,” she said.
She swaps out Nilla wafers for housemade sugar cookies, vanilla whipped cream made from scratch, and a bruleed banana that makes the best of a blowtorch and a beautiful bounty of fresh bananas.
“I make all the components from scratch, so I’m keeping the essence of the dessert true to its roots while doing it my own way — the way the Black community would want it — while making it upscale to fit with the rest of the menu at the restaurant,” she explained.
The current dessert menu also has a peanut parfait that began as a dessert for a couple’s wedding. The groom was gluten-free and the bride vegan. It’s now a permanent fixture on the Tinker Street menu, full of love and “flava.”
Ennis’ family is full of surprises and entrepreneurial spirit. Martin has run a daycare called M2M Childcare off 38th Street and Forest Manor for the last 25 years. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought hardship to Indy’s restaurant industry and Ennis was temporarily laid off, she flipped circumstance into opportunity. Together with her daughter and grandmother, she started selling dinners, desserts and cups of lemonade at a stand off 38th and Emerson.
“We started one weekend and you wouldn’t believe: first weekend, and we were sold out! Certain folks started telling their folk, their neighbors, their communities, while my family started telling everyone they knew … pretty soon, we were sold out every weekend!” she said.
The runaway success allowed Ennis and Martin to buy all the restaurant equipment they needed to transform Martin’s second garage into a kitchen for what they hope will be their newest entrepreneurial venture: a full-fledged cooking and catering company.
“The name of our business is Savory and Sweet LLC,” Ennis said. But don’t go trying to find them on Instagram or Facebook. They prefer doing things old school, selling dinners and desserts by advertising through Ennis’ personal page, Ieasha Ennis-Terry.
Ask the women what they love to cook the most, and a common thread runs through them both: soul food and love.
“My family and friends love my sugar cookies — my daughter loves ‘em so much that after tasting them, she decided she wants to be a chef too,” Ennis said of her 16-year-old daughter who’s currently studying culinary technique at Warren Central.
Her other hits? A strawberry crunch cake that she makes for family gatherings, plus cheesecakes and pies.
Martin, on the other hand, is still the master of all things savory. Both women said whipping up their family’s favorites never gets old.
“We never get bored of it because we love our food!” Martin said with a hearty laugh.
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Lavanya Narayanan is a Mirror Indy freelance contributor. You can reach her at lavanya24narayanan@gmail.com.
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