Taher to move Forepaugh’s to dining forefront

With new ownership, the old St. Paul staple undergoes building and menu renovation. The building’s historic characteristics and paranormal activity remain intact, however.

Forepaugh’s Restaurant sits tucked away in Irvine Park, a leafy historic neighborhood in downtown St. Paul that gives off an air of old money and refined restraint. Housed in a Victorian mansion-turned-restaurant, the building began its reign as the home of local businessman Joseph Forepaugh, his wife and their two daughters in the late 1800s.

My first response after someone mentioned that they’d had brunch, dinner or a bump there was to say, “I always forget about that place.” The second thing that invariably would come up if the conversation extended a bit beyond that moment was to talk about another item of interest that wasn’t on the menu—the reputed slice of the paranormal that populated the place. Rumor has it that Forepaugh had a head for business and an eye for the ladies. His roving ways led him to strike up an amorous relationship with a maid named Molly, which needless to say his wife was none too happy about. She demanded the affair come to an end and that’s where things got all star-crossed. The story goes that Forepaugh walked to Irvine Park and killed himself with a revolver. (Some say it was for love of Molly while others claim it was due to unfounded anxiety about his fortune.) That same night, Molly hung herself from a chandelier in the house.

In a nod to its historic roots, the restaurant showcased many of the furnishings and other touches of days gone and was a perennial favorite among locals for its atmosphere, traditional French menu and champagne brunch. However, after a long and lustrous reign, positive talk about the restaurant and its ghosts had been replaced by comments that the place and its menu had become tired.

The old gal has been given new life by Bruce Taher, president and CEO of Taher, Inc. A truly self-made man, he immigrated to this country at the age of 19 and got a degree in economics followed by an MBA. To help with his school costs, he worked as a dishwasher and ended up building an independent food service business that provides meals in cafeterias and corporate kitchens, such as Blake and the State Capitol. He just added restaurant ownership to his list of accomplishments within the past year, and it appears that he’s going to be successful at that element of the business as well.

Taher purchased Forepaugh’s in April, adding it to his portfolio of three other restaurants, including the Wayzata Eatery and Wine Bar, Nordeast Bakery in Minneapolis and St. Louis Park’s Alaska Eatery. At Forepaugh’s, he completely renovated all four floors, updated the intimate dining rooms, enhanced the bar and completely redid the kitchen. The enhancements were made with an eye on snagging local attention and luring top talent to the restaurant—a critical element of the renovations considering his goal of turning Forepaugh’s into a frontrunner on the local dining scene. The result is a beautiful, multi-functional building, complete with modern amenities, including Wi-Fi access (perfect for power lunches), all still housed in a quaint, authentic Victorian mansion.

Perhaps the most critical component of making the restaurant a destination is the hiring of chef Donald Gonzalez, a former sous chef at Jean Georges Vongerichten’s Chambers Kitchen, who trained under heavy-hitter Thomas Keller at the French Laundry and did a serious palette-tuning stint as a saucier at the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. In short, the kind of resume that usually brings with it mad skills in the kitchen, and the menu reflects that with items like grilled corn soup with pickled jalapeno shrimp poppers, and striped bass with baby artichokes, tomatoes, cranberry and fava beans and pistou fume. Gonzalez’s concept with Forepaugh’s is a culinary celebration of all the distinct cultures that have melted down to become American cuisine, which he has dubbed the new American cuisine. The menu will change seasonally.

The new Forepaugh’s opened at the end of July and will be in full swing by the time the Republican National Convention hits St. Paul.