It has somehow been four and a half years since our last meal at Alma. I cannot really explain this. Yes, there’s two years of the pandemic in there, but even two and a half years between meals at what has always been one of our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities is hard to justify. Well, it may have been four and a half years since our last visit but it’s not likely to be more than four and a half months before we go back for our next dinner. Before we’d even got to the end of our dinner there this past Friday, the missus noted that we should really try to eat their next menu as well and I was in ready agreement. This was one of the best meals we’ve had in the Twin Cities recently and—from top to bottom—one of the best meals at Alma that I can remember. Herewith the details.
Those of you who have been more recently than we have will not need to be told this but Alma is now doing a prix fixe menu only at dinner in the restaurant. You plonk down $50 at the time of making a reservation (non-refundable but, I believe, transferrable either to other people or a new date if plans change). this applies to the bill for dinner which is currently $85/head before drinks, tax and a 21% wellness surcharge. We added on two cocktails and a glass of wine and our total came to just short of $280. That is not a cheap meal for two in the Twin Cities but it was a very good meal.
The prix fixe is quite extensive. Looking at the menu when we sat down we wondered if we were supposed to make choices for each course but no: everything you see is what you get. The menu changes seasonally and if I remember correctly, we were told that the menu we ate was just a few days old. Makes sense as winter has only just begun to yield to spring in Minnesota. The good news at any rate is that this menu will be available for several weeks if you want to try it. And I really think you should. The food here remains as it has always been: clearly thought through and carefully composed in terms of flavours and textures; nothing is showy for its own sake—though there is a lot of technique at play and a fair bit of juxtaposition of ingredients/components from different parts of the world. What I’m saying is that it’s good.
What was the good food on this particular occasion?
Oh yes, drinks: We started with a cocktail each. The missus got the dill martini. I had more than a few sips of this and liked it a lot. But I liked my sorghum old fashioned even more. Some places in town have very complicated cocktail programs; the bar at Alma just mixes excellent cocktails. The missus stopped at one drink—I got a glass of white to go with the mains. On our server’s recommendation, I got the Tokaji and rather liked it, both on its own and with the fish, pork and crab.
Service was also very good (the one very long gap between first and main course aside). Like a number of other fine dining places in town, Alma has shifted to a “no tipping” model with a mandatory service/wellness charge in its place. We are fans of this model and we were particularly happy to see both that there was no confusing tip line on the bill at Alma and that our server did not in any way attempt to get us to tip on top of it (as happened somewhat egregiously at Colita last fall and more discreetly at a recent meal at Khaluna that I’ll report on next month).
As I acknowledged up top, $140/head is a lot of money. I will say again that the food is excellent; and I’ll add that there’s a lot of it. You can see this for yourself in the slideshow but there’s really no chance of leaving the meal not feeling utterly sated. Truth be told it was probably too much food for the two of us but we left nothing behind. You can take that as a very strong endorsement. We will certainly try to be back to eat the summer menu in a couple of months.
Alright: what’s next on the restaurant front? Another Delhi report next weekend. And then next Tuesday a report on Italian food in St. Paul. We are taking our boys to dinner at Mucci’s Italian this weekend. If you have suggestions on dishes on their menu that we should absolutely try or which are unexpectedly kid-friendly, do let me know in the comments.
My Annoying Opinions 
Good report and nice to see Alma is on its game – good reason for us to return. Only been to Mucci’s once but enjoyed it a lot. The pizza is well known. And if you or kids really like it, you can get it frozen from Kowalski’s to bake at home.
Planning to go to Meritage soon and so will advise. I wish they would bring the brunch back, that was our favorite.
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Well, it looks like WordPress swallowed what I wrote yesterday.
My wife and I had Mucci’s for dinner over the weekend. I’m a fan of the Hangover Kale, though I treat it more like a main than a side dish (a little heavy/hearty for a side in my opinion). The salad is mostly mesclun and red cabbage and was fresh and tasty, with a vinaigrette dressing that’s not thick or excessively acidic, but, in the end, it’s a salad. A good counterpoint to pasta or some of the heavier entrees. My wife had the lasagna. It’s of the many-layered kind (rather than a few thick layers of noodles, sauce, cheese, meat). The texture, of course, has to be finer than most lasagnas we’ve eaten. I guess you either like that or you don’t. The lasagna did not taste pasta-heavy and you don’t get a mouthful of any single ingredient, which also is good.
The pizza? I know the pizza is well-known. I don’t get it. The ingredients are high quality. The dough was tasty but the montonara technique is supposed to provide a pizza crust that is both crispy and chewy. Ours was not remotely crispy. It was chewy, in a good way, like good bread. But I expected more from a fried dough. And the ratio of dough to toppings was in cheap-pizza territory. I don’t need to eat a grease-bomb pizza but this one didn’t seem worth a long wait or a long drive. Maybe the kitchen had an off night.
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(Just found your comment from yesterday in the spam folder. No idea why it ended up there in between the offers of sexual companionship and sexual medication.)
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