Alright, so I didn’t post this yesterday after all. Why should I be more reliable after a five-month hiatus than I was for the 13 years before that?

This meal was eaten at Alma, our favourite fine dining restaurant in the Twin Cities, in mid-January. The menu format at the meal was same as it had been on our previous visit in the late summer of 2025: the classic seasonal three course menu for $97 with choices for each course; dessert priced separately. Since then the format has gone through some more evolution but I’ll have more on that in my next report from Alma, which should post in a couple of weeks (we are due to eat there again at the end of next week). As this meal was eaten more than five months ago and the menu is no longer on the go, I’m not going to go into very much detail. I do have my notes from the meal but I’m going to keep it relatively brief.

As always, I will remind you that our experience at Alma has to always be placed in the context of that fact that we are “friends of the house”, so to speak: I did a pop-up dinner with the restaurant back in February 2023. This fact doesn’t usually result in special treatment above what other regulars receive but on this occasion I was given a generous pour of a riesling to try (not pictured) and we were both given a small off-menu mid-course dish on the house.

With those disclosures out of the way, here is my account of the meal. We had an 8 pm reservation on a Saturday. The federal government’s assault on the Twin Cities was well underway at that point and, perhaps as a result, the restaurant was not as full as you might expect it to have been under normal conditions. Which is not to say that it was empty. We had a table along the long line of 2-tops by the front—our preferred part of the restaurant to be seated when it’s just the two of us—and got right down to it.

The three-course prix fixe was prefaced by a plate of their classic spiced almonds and olives that was set down shortly after we sat down. We were also given welcome pours of prosecco (I think this is a little perk reserved for regulars—though we haven’t always received it either). We perused the drinks menus as we settled in and got a cocktail each to start: the Cider No. 3 (oloroso sherry, cider) for the missus and the Bitter Saint (gin, vermouth, amaro etc.) for me. Both were very tasty. Some of their excellent bread accompanied by butter and rillettes (my notes fail me here: I think smoked fish was involved) was set down as well shortly before our first courses arrived. I started with the Endive & Poached Bosc Pears and the missus got the Red Kuri Squash Soup, which included foie gras. I really liked mine; the missus liked hers too but we both thought that the foie gras didn’t do much for it.

For the mid-course we each got a pasta. Mine was the Spaghetti alla Chitarra (w. uni creme, yuzu etc.) and the missus’ was the Buckwheat Rigatoni (with wild mushrooms, black truffle and rosemary butter). Both were excellent. They then brought out the aforementioned off-menu dish for us to try: salmon belly (I think) in soubise. The fish was perfectly cooked and the soubise was excellent as well. I’m sorry to say that we both preferred it to the salmon that was actually on the menu and which the missus got as her entree: Sauteed Wild Atlantic Salmon (w. vadouvan curry, spiced red lentils, roasted carrots). The salmon was just a bit over-done and the flavours of the sauce seemed a bit muddied to us (perhaps exacerbated by the fact that it followed that little taste of the more delicate soubise). No complaints, however, about my Seared Sea Scallops (w. poblano rajas, garlic-ancho sauce and smoked maitakes). The scallops were done perfectly and the sauce set them off well.

Dessert is not included in the prix-fix. We were already rather full and so just got one to share: Garnet Yam Cake (w. salted maple creme, pecan-praline mousseline, rosemary brittle). Rather good.

For a look at what we ate and drank, launch the slideshow below. I apologize for the poor quality of the photographs; it was dark in the restaurant and I was too preoccupied to pay full attention to my camera settings. Scroll down after to see how much it all cost and for thoughts on service.

For all of the above plus a glass of a very nice syrah we paid $285 or just about $142/head all-in (Alma does “inclusive pricing”, which means that tips are not expected). Not a cheap meal by any stretch of the imagination but par for the course in the Twin Cities these days.

As I said above, we are actually due to eat at Alma again very soon: a week from this weekend in fact. My next Twin Cities report, however, will be from the other end of the price spectrum, encompassing two meals eaten at Grand Szechuan—one a week after this one in January and the other last week after we returned from our travels. That’ll go up in a week. My next restaurant report this week will be of a meal several months before this Alma meal even, in Japan last summer! That’ll go up on Friday.