We welcomed ourselves back to Minnesota a few weeks ago with a big lunch at Grand Szechuan. The estranging effects of three months away are not so easy to shake off, however. Well, now that we’ve eaten dinner at Alma we’re truly back in Minnesota. Note: while the title of this post says “Winter 2024”, we ate there this past weekend, and not even the most pessimistic Minnesotan would say that April is winter. It’s just that this was part of their winter menu cycle; the switch over to spring is about to happen in a week or so, we were told. Well, whatever the season, a meal at Alma is a good thing; and this meal was a very good thing. Continue reading
Tag Archives: New American Cuisine
Restaurant Alma IX, Winter 2023 (Minneapolis)
For my last Twin Cities fine dining report of 2023, I have for you another dinner at Restaurant Alma, our favourite high-end restaurant in Minnesota. We ate there on two previous occasions this year (in the fall and in the spring). And, of course, back in February I did a pop-up Indian dinner with them in the Cafe Alma space. I mention this last to remind you that while I was already on record well before that with my high opinion of the restaurant, at this point I am obviously a “friend of the house”. As far as I can make out, we’re not treated any differently now than we were before but you should feel free to make whatever adjustment you see fit to account for possible bias in my estimation of our meals there. For, yes, it’s true: I am about to give you the details of another excellent dinner. Continue reading
Herbst (St. Paul, MN)
Herbst opened on Raymond Avenue in St. Paul in May, just before we left the country for the summer, and I started hearing almost immediately from people who said I should eat there. The early reviews from the professionals were also positive but grade inflation in Minnesota being what it is, I place more stock in the recommendations from blog readers and friends. I put it on the list for when we’d be back in town but a measured review in September from Jon Cheng at the Star Tribune—the one local food critic who doesn’t seem to think the job requires being a booster—took the wind out of my sails a bit. I decided to give them a couple more months to hopefully fully hit their stride. And so it wasn’t till this past weekend that we finally ate there. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
112 Eatery III (Minneapolis)
We ate at 112 Eatery last spring after a gap of several years and, unsurprisingly, enjoyed our meal very much. So much so that we resolved to not go years again between visits. We’d taken our boys with us to that dinner and it was perhaps their favourite adult restaurant meal out with us in the Twin Cities last year. And so when I asked the missus where she wanted to go for her birthday this year, she plumped for a return to 112 Eatery, with the boys joining us once again. I am happy to say that this was yet another very good meal at the restaurant. Herewith the details. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
Tenant X (Minneapolis)
Since getting back to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, after a summer away, we have been slowly getting back to our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities metro. I’ve already posted a report on our lunch at our favourite Mexican restaurant in the Cities: Homi in St. Paul. Here now is a report on dinner at one of our favourite fine dining restaurants in the Cities, Tenant. We ate dinner there a week ago Tuesday. It was our second meal there this year and our tenth overall. We particularly look forward to eating at Tenant in the summer—especially on account of one genre of dish that reliably shows up in the summer, and only in the summer. And so as our stay in Ireland came to an end, this was the first reservation I made. I am very pleased to say that the meal did not disappoint us at all. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma VII, Spring 2023 (Minneapolis)
Our dinners at Alma last spring, summer and fall were among the highlights of our dining out in all of 2022. If we hadn’t been gone in the winter, we would have eaten there again. No surprise then that we showed up again to eat their current spring menu. Of course, in between the dinner last fall and this one came their invitation to me to do an Indian pop-up with them—which went off quite successfully (I’d like to think) at the end of February. I note/remind you of this at the very outset to foreground the fact that whereas until the end of last year I was just a very big fan of their cooking philosophy, I am now a little more entangled with them and my critical detachment is doubtless at least a little strained. There was no special treatment at this dinner, no comps of any kind—but if you choose to view my enthusiasm for this meal as contaminated, I will understand. For yes, we very much enjoyed this dinner as well and I don’t really have any criticisms in what follows. Except maybe that the root vegetable pavé, the picture of which on Instagram spurred me to make this reservation, was no longer on the menu. Them’s the breaks. Continue reading
Tenant IX (Minneapolis)
We ate at Tenant thrice last summer (reviews here, here and here). We’d hoped to make it there again at the end of the year before heading off to Los Angeles and India, but it never happened. And so I was happy on return from India to score two seats at the counter for a Saturday at the end of March. As this is my ninth review of a meal at Tenant, you will not be surprised to hear that we are big fans of their playful takes on fine dining, delivered in the form of a “surprise” six-course menu (you find out what each course is when it’s brought out to you). Dinners there have a familiar rhythm at this point—we usually have a good sense of the kinds of dishes we’re likely to get in different seasons. But given how much we like it, familiarity in this case only breeds enjoyment. Continue reading
Spoon and Stable IV (Minneapolis)
We went two and a half years between our first and second meals at Spoon and Stable, and three and a half years between the second and third. We ate our fourth meal there, however, only a little over a year after the third. That third dinner was eaten on their sidewalk at the end of October last year. This was a December meal though and there was no outdoor seating and no question of our wanting to sit outside. We were scheduled to eat there with friends but they ended up having to punt. We considered cancelling and then seeing if we could cut the reservation down to a table for two. In the end, we decided to stick with the table of four and take our boys along with us for their first look at the true high-end in the Twin Cities. A good decision too as the meal was very good and we had a great time together. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma VI, Fall 2022 (Minneapolis)
We somehow managed to go four and a half years between dinner at Alma in the fall of 2017 and our dinner there this past April; but now we’ve already eaten three dinners there this year and I think that makes us even. Yes, we went back this weekend for a second dinner in two months. And no, it wasn’t to eat once again the menu we’d liked so much in August. Social media is to blame. The restaurant posted a lovely picture on Instagram of locally foraged mushrooms that they said were on the current menu and I went to look at what else was on there and a few minutes later we had a reservation. What can I say? I am very impressionable. Anyway, I am very glad we did make the reservation because this was one of our best dinners there (I know I say this after every meal at Alma) and one of the best dinners we’ve eaten anywhere recently. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Tenant VIII (Minneapolis)
This is my second review this month of a meal at Tenant but it’s not my second review of a meal eaten at Tenant this month. Try saying that three times fast. No, my previous review was of an outing to Tenant in early July. This meal, on the other hand, is of a meal eaten this past Saturday and represents my attempt to become current with at least my Minnesota meal reviews. It took some doing to get to this meal. We were originally supposed to eat there on the Friday of the prior week. But it transpired that the menu had not yet turned over since our dinner in July and so they very kindly got us in a week later. And then the ongoing reconstruction of Bryant Ave. led to an issue with water mains and they had to close at short notice on Friday. Thankfully, they managed to squeeze us in the very next day and so here I am with a report on possibly the best meal we’ve had at Tenant in a year. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma V, Summer 2022 (Minneapolis)
Our last meal at Alma, in early April this year, had unaccountably come four and a half years after our previous dinner there. I noted then that it was unlikely to be more than four and a half months till we were back again and for a change I am not a liar. We went back for dinner this past weekend, just a little short of four and a half months since the last. And I’m very glad we did. Our dinner in April was very good, but this one was even better. This might be because Alma serves a seasonal prix fixe, and late summer in Minnesota offers chefs far more to work with than the early spring—keep in mind that Alma’s sourcing is local/regional. Even if that’s not the reason, I would highly recommend going to eat this menu before it shifts in the fall. We liked it so much that we’re almost tempted to go back and eat it again. Continue reading
Tenant VII (Minneapolis)
Turning a menu over every six weeks is no easy task for a restaurant. I suppose it’s easier if, like Tenant, the restaurant is small and serves only a set menu every night. Of course, Tenant doesn’t turn the whole menu over all at once: new dishes are introduced one or a few at a time till finally the whole is transformed. And it’s also true that this discipline would have been ingrained in the proprietors from their long tenure at Piccolo which also had a similarly restless menu. Nonetheless, it cannot be easy. Difficulty of conception and execution of new menus aside, it’s a canny move. This because it encourages those who particularly like their approach to come back often to try dishes that they might not otherwise encounter again. And so it is that we—who rarely go back to the same restaurant twice in the same year—find ourselves back at Tenant over and over again. We ate there in June before leaving for our travels; we ate this meal in July after coming back from our travels; and in less than two weeks we’ll be eating there again. If the next meal is as good as this one was we’ll be very happy indeed. Continue reading
Tenant VI (Minneapolis)
Tenant was the first restaurant we dined indoors at after the pandemic started. That was back in July of 2021. At the time things were threatening to look up on the pandemic front and we’d begun to think hopefully of a return to something approaching normalcy. Then the delta wave hit…and soon we were not eating in again. Just when we got started again there was omicron… When we finally got comfortable with the idea yet again at the start of the spring, Tenant was one of the first places we’d hoped to return to. But between the need to make reservations more than a month out and the need to cancel the first set of reservations I was able to make, it was not until the end of May that we got back there. It was both a happy return to a familiar space and a new experience of the restaurant for us. Details follow. Continue reading
112 Eatery II (Minneapolis)
After our lovely dinner at Alma in April we decided it was time to go back to our old favourites in the Twin Cities more often. And so I immediately made a reservation for dinner at 112 Eatery, a restaurant we like more than the number of times I have reviewed it would indicate. It was the first fine dining restaurant I ate at in Minnesota, having been taken there for dinner when I was interviewing for my job (at which point I think it was just over a year old). And when we arrived in Minnesota it was one of the places we ate at most frequently. But when I started reviewing restaurants on the blog the urge to chase novelty meant fewer visits to old favourites. Our Alma meal reminded me of the folly of this practice and I am very glad it did: we had a very good meal at 112 Eatery as well. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma IV, Spring 2022 (Minneapolis, MN)
It has somehow been four and a half years since our last meal at Alma. I cannot really explain this. Yes, there’s two years of the pandemic in there, but even two and a half years between meals at what has always been one of our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities is hard to justify. Well, it may have been four and a half years since our last visit but it’s not likely to be more than four and a half months before we go back for our next dinner. Before we’d even got to the end of our dinner there this past Friday, the missus noted that we should really try to eat their next menu as well and I was in ready agreement. This was one of the best meals we’ve had in the Twin Cities recently and—from top to bottom—one of the best meals at Alma that I can remember. Herewith the details.
Sooki & Mimi (Minneapolis)
As you probably know, Sooki & Mimi is the new restaurant from Ann Kim of Young Joni fame (she won a Beard award for her food there). You probably also know that it is one of the buzziest restaurants to have opened recently in the Twin Cities. The buzz really picked up two months or so ago when the New York Times included it in a list of the most exciting restaurants in the country or some such. You see, here in Minnesota we are so confident in our identity that we manage to both tell the New York Times they know nothing when they say things about us we don’t like and to fall all over ourselves in excitement when they offer the slightest bit of praise. Well, we are famously a very emotional people here in the upper midwest and it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that we can be so volatile. Continue reading