Hey, look, I’m behind schedule again with the week’s restaurant reports! What a surprise! But I’m less than two days late. Please remember: this is not my job; you’re lucky I post at all. You’re welcome.

This week’s restaurant report comes to you from Minneapolis, from Bucheron. We ate at Bucheron for the first time last summer and I immediately added them to my “Once a Year” tier in the 2025 edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation. Unsurprisingly, it was one of the places I wanted to go back to for sure this year. And so it came to pass. We returned a couple of weekends ago with the same friends we’d eaten that first dinner with. And it was another excellent meal, though with some non-food hiccups that may be more meaningful to point out now that Michelin is coming to Minneapolis. Read on to see what I’m on about. Continue reading →

Bucheron opened last year on the corner of Nicollet and 43rd in South Minneapolis and quickly garnered local and then national acclaim. They are currently up for a James Beard award for Best New Restaurant (in the entire country). That they should have gotten all this attention is not surprising. While the restaurant is not directly a part of the Gavin Kaysen Restaurant-Industrial Complex, the owners and other key figures are graduates of it, having worked at Spoon & Stable, Demi and Bellecour (and doubtless other properties as well). When you have a certain pedigree, attention is guaranteed. But a restaurant still has to deliver on the promise of that pedigree. One year on, on the basis of our dinner there this past weekend, I can say that the promise is being kept. We had a very fine meal. Details follow. Continue reading →