Changing spaces
By Mike Mitchelson

There are few careers in which a 33-year-old person can declare they’ve worked two decades. But the restaurant is a unique place. Andrew Lilja, executive chef of Il Vesco Vino in St. Paul, has done just that, starting his restaurant career as a dishwasher at age 13. He worked his way up and into the kitchen through high school at St. Paul’s Highland Park. By then, Lilja had discovered a potential career and an outlet for his creativity. So, he worked his way through many of the top Twin Cities restaurants: W.A. Frost, I Nonni and Cue, most notably. “I don’t have the formal (culinary) education, but I’ve worked under some of the best,” Lilja said. “Filippo Caffari at I Nonni, and (Heartland’s) Lenny Russo.”

Caffari was a butcher in Rome before becoming a chef. “He’s old school, and I learned a lot of butchery skills from him,” Lilja said. “He brought me up to a different level; he’s something else,” adding that he attributes much of his “broader knowledge” to Russo. “He’s encyclopedic.”

Lilja had two tenures with Russo, the first at W.A. Frost. The second, Russo recruited him from I Nonni to open Cue. “I had no reason to leave I Nonni, because I was really happy there and Filippo and I got along really well,” Lilja said. “The only reason I left is because the Guthrie was a big deal, it was getting national press, it was a brand new, huge, cool building and I wanted to be part of that whole thing.”

Russo left after one year to return to his restaurant Heartland. Lilja stayed on, and soaked in all that he could. “It’s a meat grinder there,” Lilja said. “It was a good experience, the corporate stuff. I learned a lot of that.”

It’s that experience that made Lilja an attractive candidate to head Il Vesco Vino after opening chef Walter Buffalo left the restaurant. Lilja worked as the executive chef at the Downtowner Woodfire Grill in St. Paul, recovering from the Cue experience, when he received a call last year from owner James Risimini.


Il Vesco Vino redux

Sometimes a location can be perfect but the setting, not so much. Selby Avenue east of Dale in St. Paul has, in the last decade, turned into a restaurant row of sorts, and the 19th century, red-bricked mansion was known since the mid-1990s as home to the Vintage, a fine-dining restaurant that had its ups and downs during that timeframe. In 2006 that mansion became Il Vesco Vino. It appeared a great fit; an elegant location paired with an experienced restaurateur in Risimini on a street that received a lot of dining traffic.

And…it worked, but not quite as expected. In addition to serving upscale Italian fare, Il Vesco Vino attempted to tout itself as a casual wine bar, where customers could sit in the casual, main floor bar area, order drinks and small plates at accessible prices. But trying to sell a casual idea from such a regal outpost proved difficult. There were also logistical problems with layout: the kitchen was on the second floor of the mansion. Getting food to first floor—and especially patio tables in summer—was a problem, Lilja said. “From the second floor to the far end of that patio, it was a constant battle to get food to the table hot even with plate covers.”

It was also, of course, a large space to fill and with the historic building came other inefficiencies. Long story short, when the opportunity to came to move, Risimini took it, leaving one historic area for another—West Seventh Street, about two blocks from the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul (The building has recently housed Chico Chica and Patio). Lilja and the restaurant staff shut down operations at the mansion in January, reopened in the new space in one week.

Simply switching storefronts brought about immediate difference—not necessarily a different clientele, but a setting that invited people off the street on impulse. The central dining area contains a large bar, and Lilja created a menu to go with it—small plates at an inexpensive price point, built for sharing—Italian items with a bar twist, such as calzoncini, which Lilja described as mini, deep-fried calzones. All pasta dishes are available in half portions.

Several entrees were also made more accessible, such as chicken parmigiano and spaghetti and meatballs. But opportunity remains for Lilja to flex his chops. Traditional Italian specials and a tasting menu allow for Lilja to use relationships he’s built with local producers. “Italian food is really conducive to the farm-direct stuff in the summer,” he said. “It slides right into the cuisine. They’ll have rapini, tomatoes and peas, and it works really well with the seasonal stuff. And in the winter you do more braises. That’s what I like about it.”

The kitchen in the new location allows for the needed flexibility. “Before, I was cooking in a closet,” Lilja said. “I couldn’t fit more than two guys on the hot side of the line. “No matter how busy we got, there was only two guys. Here, I can fit six or seven guys on the line if I need to, which makes execution easier, I can get food to the table faster, the quality is better because they’re not getting killed, they’re not so busy they can’t handle it.”


Looking ahead

As the restaurant heads deeper into 2009, the goals are mainly to get the word out about its new functions in the new location—for instance, it’s open for lunch. The new location also allows for Lilja to prepare the restaurant’s wood fired, brick-oven pizzas year-round—at the previous location, the oven was built on the patio, and therefore only available for use during the warmer months.

The new location also has indoor bocce courts—the playing surface constructed authentically with crushed oyster shells—and versatile outdoor patio. “This building in general has a lot of advantages,” Lilja said. “The location, the patio is huge and beautiful, and it’s the same quality food at a better price point. And it’s a little more casual atmosphere.”

With the restaurant is running smoothly, a grass-roots advertising campaign is in the works, including flyers to downtown businesses and e-mail blasts. For Lilja, it’s about fine-tuning operations and achieving the consistency needed to be a great restaurant—something, given his experience, he knows how to achieve with his staff. “I’m pretty good with people, I don’t fly off the handle very much, I’m pretty level headed most of the time—for a chef,” he said, laughing. “I’m pretty organized, I make sure everything’s executed well. I like to source. I like to find ingredients. It’s (about) making everything right, and making sure the dish is the same every time you come in here.”