When summer in Minnesota begins to edge in the direction of fall, our thoughts begin to turn to two of our favourite restaurant dishes in the Twin Cities: the tomato water course at Tenant, and the chilled corn soup at Alma. Soon after our return from our summer travels, I pestered Alma’s executive chef, Maggie Whelan to find out when the soup would make a return to the menu. After the 20th of August, she said. And so I made a booking for Saturday, August 23 and arrived with my lawyer’s number ready to dial in case it (the soup, not my lawyer’s number*) was not in fact on the menu. I think you will agree that I would have ample grounds for a lawsuit if that were to be the case, my friendly relationship with the restaurant** be damned!. I am happy to inform therefore that there was no need for legal shenanigans: the soup was on the menu and we ate the soup; the soup was excellent but so was everything else we ate. Herewith the details.

In my report on our first meal at Alma this year—back in January—I noted that their menu format had changed. Gone was the shared tasting menu format of the previous few years, which used to see the entire table receive the entire menu for the evening. Late last year this had been amended to include a choice for the entree but in 2025 all three savoury courses involved a binary choice between two options. In January, however, and also at our meal in April, the meal began with the usual small spread of snacks and ended with a single dessert served to all diners. Now, that has changed as well. Alma is back to the menu format from about a decade ago: a three-course menu with options for every course. Spiced almonds and marinated olives are still set down to share a little after you sit down; and their wonderful hearth breads accompanied by Hope Creamery butter still show up a little after (on this occasion they were also accompanied by a small serving of excellent salmon rillettes). For the three savoury courses that follow, each diner makes a choice between three options. This concludes the three course menu (which costs $97, inclusive of hospitality charge). If you want to eat dessert, that’s extra, and you make another choice between three options. Which means that with dessert, the meal costs pretty much what it had in the most recent iterations.

Okay, now that those pesky details are out of the way, what did we eat?

I’ve already mentioned that the bread, butter and rillettes were excellent (the website currently lists beet rillettes, by the way). I’ve also mentioned that we were there first and foremost for the chilled corn soup. This made the choice of dish in the first course very easy as we both got the soup. As in the past, a bowl/cup with various delicious bits in it was set down before us; but where in the past the server poured the soup over, now it’s self-service. I note this not to complain but to indicate the potential here for criminal activity if a person with poor morals were to pour their serving first. My morals, however, are unimpeachable and our marriage did not end at this point.

For the second course there were two pastas and the red beet farrotto—another Alma classic and another favourite. I got that; it was topped on this occasion with crisp chicken of the woods mushrooms and was as good as ever. The missus got the squid ink casarecce. I chuckled when I saw that on the menu as I’d recently been perusing Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking for tips on making homemade pasta (we recently acquired a pasta rolling machine) and had seen that she, with characteristic asperity, describes squid ink pasta as “an abomination”. Well, Alma’s squid ink pasta is not an abomination. The pasta was atop a pool of tomato broth with slivers of zucchini and chopped Littleneck clams.

For the entree the missus made a quick claim on the roasted Arctic char. Arctic char is always a highlight when it is on Alma’s menu and it was excellent again, served with a delicate coconut curry sauce with basil. My only complaint was that the lovely sauce called out for some rice to mop up the remains with; but we managed with a spoon. My choices were between the duck two ways and the scallops. I would normally get the duck but I’d eaten duck on our last two visits to Alma and it was time to branch out. The scallops then. There were three of these, perfectly cooked, served with poblano rajas and a garlic-ancho sauce, and topped with smoked maitake mushrooms. This was just excellent; I think I liked it even more than my bites of the char. The scallops packed some unexpected heat, by the way.

And so to dessert. We only had room to share one, we said. But then we couldn’t agree on which that should be. And so I ate most of the dark chocolate tart (sitting on an outstanding orange caramel and topped with an outstanding espresso cream) and the missus ate most of the blueberry tea cake (with lemon-coconut sorbet etc.). We were both well pleased at not having compromised.

Oh yes, drinks. I’d started with the cocktail I always get at Alma: La Opuntia. If they want me to try another cocktail they’ll have to take this off the menu and if they do…I think I’ve mentioned my lawyer. The missus drank the Spritz from the Low Proof end of the menu and nursed it through the meal. I later got a glass of white wine to accompany my second and third courses. Alma’s wonderful wine director, James Hirdler recommended an Australian white to go with the farrotto and the scallops and I have learned to do what James recommends. The Jade & Jasper, a Fiano from Unico Zelo, was very good indeed.

For a closer look at everything we ate and drank, please launch the slideshow below. Scroll down for thoughts on service, to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Service was very good as usual and the meal was well-timed. Despite a long’ish pause between the second and third courses, we were out in less than two hours. The restaurant was hopping the whole evening, by the way; I don’t believe any tables stayed empty near us while we were there. Cost? With the drinks and desserts our total was just over $303 or just about $151.50/head. Even with the fluctuating menu formats, Alma has kept prices remarkably consistent for the last few years. Not a cheap meal by any stretch of the imagination but, as I always say, also somehow very good value.

Alright, what’s next restaurant report-wise? A more casual Twin Cities restaurant next week; but before that at least two more reports from our summer travels. At least one of those will be from Seoul and one from Delhi. Look for those to go up towards the end of the week

*I don’t actually have a lawyer.

**This is your reminder/disclosure that I did a pop-up dinner at Alma in February 2023 and am what the cool kids call “a friend of the house”.