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. Continue reading →

In my post, The Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation, which ranked restaurants by how many times in a year we’re likely to eat there, Alma was the only restaurant I had in the “Several Times a Year” tier. And so it should be no surprise that with less than four months gone in the year, I am posting my second report on a meal eaten there in 2025. The first was of an excellent dinner in January. That meal featured a change in how Alma’s presentation of both pricing and the menu structure. Last year a meal cost $95/head with an obligatory 21% hospitality charge added to the bill. Now a meal costs $115/head but this is an all-inclusive price with no further expectation (or ask) of tipping. And while you’re still paying for a set number of courses, the opening course of “snacks for the table” and the closing dessert courses are now the only ones in which no choices are made by diners. The three larger intervening savoury courses feature a choice of two dishes. This is a distinction without a difference for the missus and I when dining there as we share everything anyway. Which means we ate the entire menu on this occasion as well and so I can tell you from direct experience that the current early spring menu—which we were told will continue for another 2-3 weeks—was excellent as well. Continue reading →

[A reminder: my regular restaurant reports are now being posted on Wednesdays, not Tuesdays.]

My first restaurant report of 2025 was of a couple of lunches at Hoa Bien in St. Paul. Those meals were, however, eaten in 2024. With the missus off in Los Angeles by herself through the first week of the year, we didn’t go out to eat in Minnesota for the first time till this past weekend. I am glad to report that we managed to start the year off very well in gastronomic terms, with dinner at our favourite fine dining restaurant in the Twin Cities: Alma. As it happens, Alma is also doing something new in 2025 and we ate a very early iteration of it. Read on to find out more. Continue reading →

My term starts on Monday which means summer is truly about to end. But in a way summer already came to a close at the end of August for it is then that Alma served their last bowl of chilled corn soup for the year. Despite this soup having been a recurring staple at Alma since they opened in 1999, we somehow ate it for the first time in September 2022. We utterly loved it. We ate another version in September 2023—this one was also very good (even if it wasn’t chilled). We were planning to go back this September to eat it again but seeing repeated mentions of it on Instagram, I was not able to wait and we grabbed a table for Saturday, August 31. And it turned out to be a close call: our server informed us that it was the last weekend of the late summer menu featuring the corn soup! This means this is an even lower utility restaurant report than my usual: you couldn’t go eat this menu at the restaurant if you wanted to. Anyway, the soup was outstanding and the rest of the meal was not far behind. Here are the details. Continue reading →

A couple of days after we returned from California at the end of June, I received a WhatsApp call from my mother in the morning, and that is how the missus and I learned that it was our wedding anniversary. This is an annual event: the next time we remember on the day of—or even a week prior—that it is our wedding anniversary will probably be the first time. But as it was a signifcant’ish number (21), we decide to try to go out and mark it with a nice meal, even though we’d been eating out pretty much every day for the previous two-and-a-half weeks. Our first choice, of course, was Alma. We couldn’t do that evening but I was able to grab the last table for two in the dining room for the day after (a Saturday). We arrived happy to eat their still new summer menu. And it did not let the occasion down. Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

I’ve reviewed two previous dinners at Alma (one from 2014 and one from 2015). As I’ve said previously, before Piccolo became our favourite high-end restaurant in the Twin Cities, and a place we returned to again and again, Alma used to be the place we ate at most often. Now, of course, Piccolo is gone. And so, when the missus’ birthday rolled around earlier this month, we decided to go back again to Alma, for our first expensive meal in the Cities since Piccolo closed and we left for London. This was also our first meal there since Alma closed and reopened late last year after an extensive remodel. Continue reading →