Tag Archives: European Cuisine

Brasserie Zentral, One Year On

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Gnocchi
It’s been just over a year since Brasserie Zentral opened and to mark both their first anniversary and the traditional asparagus season in Europe they presented a special “Spargelfest” asparagus menu for all of May (I’m not sure if the menu was fixed throughout the month or if dishes rotated in and out).

As we enjoy asparagus and, more importantly, enjoyed our previous meal at Brasserie Zentral, when they’d been open for just over a month, we decided to finally go back. It was, once again, quite a nice meal on the whole and the promise of excellent asparagus was kept (this was particularly important as I’d had some not very inspiring white asparagus at Heyday a couple of weeks prior at a work-related dinner).

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Brasserie Zentral

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With just a day to go here is your Twin Cities fine dining report for May.

Brasserie Zentral is a new entrant in the revitalized downtown Minneapolis restaurant scene, born of the same team that owns and runs Meritage in St. Paul. Where Meritage is French the cuisine at Brasserie Zentral is a modern(ish) take on central European food, with the emphasis seemingly on Austria (or at least the Austro-Hungarian empire circa 1910). If your notion of Austrian food, like mine, is largely drawn from The Sound of Music and specifically “My Favourite Things”, you will be pleased to know that their menu features crisp apple strudel but perhaps less pleased to learn that their schnitzel is presented sans noodle. But, on the whole, you are likely to enjoy what you eat. That is to say, we had a very nice dinner there last week, a month or so after they opened (which seemed like a reasonable amount of time to wait before going–they’ve already received a fair bit of positive buzz though). Continue reading →