Restaurant Alma VIII, Fall 2023 (Minneapolis)

Our tour of our Twin Cities favourites after a summer away continues. I’ve so far reported on meals at Homi, Tenant and Krungthep Thai. This past weekend we went back to Alma for our dinner. At this point I need to specify that it was to Restaurant Alma that we went for dinner; this because Cafe Alma (in the same building) now also serves dinner till 8 pm from Thursday to Sunday. Maybe someday we’ll give their more informal space a go for a meal as well (I do after have sentimental ties to it myself). For now, though, it was back to the flagship restaurant. Having missed out on eating one of their summer menus (the menu turns over every 6-8 weeks or so), we were very much looking forward to the current fall menu. We’d really enjoyed our dinner there at the end of September last year and we had particularly fond memories of the sweet corn-centered dishes on that menu. We were hoping for more of the same at this meal; we were not disappointed.

We arrived at 7 pm on Saturday to find the cafe fairly empty but the restaurant bustling. It stayed pretty full through the entire evening. We were handed small pours of prosecco as we sat down and perused the menu. The first order of business was cocktails. The missus is not much of an alcohol drinker and the current cocktail menu doesn’t seem to have anything on it for the hard booze-averse. By which I mean that there was nothing on it that’s very fruit forward. But she was very happy with the Spritz from the Low Proof section of the list. I got the Aloe Margarita. My position on this margarita is contradictory: on the one hand, I loved it and would love for it to become a regular on the menu (like the Sorghum Old Fashioned); on the other hand, if it did, I might not try any of their other cocktails again. [COMP DISCLOSURE: when the check arrived at the end of the meal, the margarita had been taken off.]

This was all the choice we had to make. Cold libations in hand, we settled in for the set menu ($95/head gets you everything on it), which read very, very well. And I’m glad to say that it didn’t disappoint where it really counts either.

ANTIPASTI
- Marinated olives with orange zest and thyme / Spiced almonds with brown sugar and pimenton / Hearth breads with Hope butter and fleur de sel / Fried green tomato with tomato dashi and parmesan frico / St. James Cheese from Alemar Cheese Company with chile-walnut pesto / King Crab Salad with charred jalapeno aioli, chervil, potato crisps

The usual marinated olives and spiced almonds start you off when you sit down. The rest show up a bit later. Excellent bread and butter as always; and everything else hit the spot as well. The fried green tomato with the tomato dashi chaser was perhaps the highlight of the round, but the small crab salad with chips was also very good as was the pairing of the cheese and the chile-walnut pesto.

FIRST COURSE
- SWEET CORN SOUP Smoked roe, creme fraiche, fresno oil
- FRESH BURRATA AND POBLANO TARTINE Ancho salsa, shaved tomatillos, pickled onion

After having it for the first time last year, I had been looking forward to the corn soup for a year. It was both very good and a slight disappointment. Last year’s version had been chilled (which is what it says on the current menu on their website as well); on the night, however, it was warm (and the menu we were given leaves out the word “Chilled”). This one was very good too but fell just a bit short of my memory/anticipation of the colder version. The poblano tartine, however, was dynamite. We were divided on the role of the burrata. It was very good on its own merits but I thought it might have been superfluous; the missus disagreed.

Larger plates were then furnished and it was on to the mains.

MAIN COURSE
- DUCK TWO WAYS Smoked shiitakes, spicy swiss chard, guajillo jus
- SEARED MASSACHUSETTS SEA SCALLOPS Tomato-tarragon butter, wilted summer squash, nasturtium
- HEIRLOOM CORN GRIDDLE CAKES Pepperonata, garlic-lime sauce, ALMA paprika

This course was dynamite all the way through. The duck (roasted breast, confit legs) was perfectly cooked and matched perfectly with guajilo jus and the spicy chard (I could have eaten a bowl of that chard). This was the missus’ dish of the night. I might have been even more partial to the scallops, not just because of how sweet the scallops were and how well they were seared but also on account of the fantastic tomato-tarragon butter they and the strips of wilted squash sat on. And the corn cakes paired perfectly with both the hearty duck plate and the more delicate scallop plate.

Alongside this course I drank a glass of the Refugio, a pinot noir from Chile that I had very much enjoyed on our last visit in the spring.

DESSERT
- SWEET CORN SEMIFREDDO Roasted peach, caramel corn, whipped buttermilk
- WARM COOKIES From our bakery

Yes, there was corn in the dessert as well (twice over) and a good thing too. More people should make ice cream with sweet corn. And the roasted peach and whipped buttermilk provided very good contrasting accents. The cookies were excellent as well. I particularly liked a macaroon’ish thing with raspberry. (And was that a hint of ajwain I picked up in the shortbread?)

For a look at the menu and what we ate and drank, please click on a pic below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down for thoughts on service and to see how much it all cost.

Alma, Seared Massachussetts Sea Scallops

Service was as friendly and adept as usual and the staff were all very good at answering questions about the dishes. And, unlike on some of our recent visits, there wasn’t a longish gap between the first and main course. We’ve not minded those in the past but on this occasion we appreciated the slightly quicker pace as we were parked on a street that limits parking to two hours all day long.

Price? Minus the comped cocktail and with the 21% hospitality charge included, the total came to just over $293 or about $146.50/head. This is very far from cheap but if you’re able to swing it, it’s also as close to a “value” for that price that you’re likely to come to in the fine dining world today. It’s a thoughtful progression of courses and flavours from across the culinary spectrum; and it’s also a lot of food. It’s possible to pay more at a number of places in the Cities. I’m not sure it’s possible to get better though.

Alright, next week’s Twin Cities report will hopefully take in yet another old favourite: we’re hoping our regular crew will be down for a Grand Szechuan return this weekend. Before that report posts, however, I’ll have at another report from Ireland and at least one more from Italy.