With spring, a potluck of optimism

The ground thaws, new restaurants open, proof that there is still life and reinvention in the industry.

It’s potluck month, with a smattering of news coming from all over the Twin Cities. Spring has sprung (or at least a little taste of it has) and with that there is a small taste of the optimism that still exists within our world.

Restaurants still open, sometimes by new owners who worked in the very same spot’s previous incarnation before it closed. It’s news that demonstrates that even in lean times with crunched credit, neighborhoods will support good ideas that are well executed and that local restaurant barons know good chefs when they see them and swoop in to support them as well. It’s news that shows that sometimes good, talented people — not just vapid, mercurial ones — get their shot at 15 minutes of fame. I’m not saying that the worst is behind us, but I am staking a claim in the newly thawing ground that says that literal and metaphorical bloom and renewal can be seen on our local restaurant landscape. Welcome, spring.


The Six Degrees of D’Amico

The very first feature that I ever got to write was a family tree about chefs who started their careers in the D’Amico franchise and gone on to propagate their own great restaurants in the Twin Cities. At the time, it seemed every swinging kitchen door you scratched at, you found a chef who’d honed their skills in a D’Amico kitchen and then gone on to influence kitchens or open formidable restaurants of their own. I couldn’t help but think of that when I read news about the ever-growing empire of Tim McKee and Josh Thoma, both chefs at the former Azur. First, it was the news about the new Barrio in St. Paul. That was quickly followed by word that McKee will be juicing up the menu at Cue. Not to mention, J.P. Samuelson (another former D’Amico chef) found a home in the Solera kitchen after closing his eponymous restaurant last year.


Ready for a close up?

Speaking of J.P., sounds like Andrew Zimmern might not be the only chef glamming for the cameras for much longer. A few months back Zimmern posted news about the nationwide open auditions on his blog, andrewzimmern.com. The follow up news that hit this week, according to Minnesota Monthly’s Dear Dara blog is that two local chefs, J.P. Samuelson and Vincent Francoual, have been asked to take a run at Top Chef.

Seems like the camera would love either one of them and that audiences would too. I mean these are chefs’ chefs. By the time you read this, the new season’s line up should have been announced. Now, if only they’d go looking for someone else to fill Padma’s shoes.


Everything old is new again

Matt McArthur, who recently opened Cheeky Monkey Deli in the former Zander location, is another of the chefs spawned from great local kitchens of the days of yore, having been behind the line at both Goodfellows and Zander Café. Getting the lights back on in this space shows faith in the neighborhood’s ability to support solid, comfortable local dining venues, and if the crowded tables are any indication, it was a good bet.

News of another opening came from chef Alex Roberts who set rumors to rest this month with the official announcement that he’s bringing the flavors of Brasa across the river to St. Paul. He’ll be opening a second location of his popular—and tasty—rotisserie in mid-May in the completely overhauled Italian Pie Shoppe location at 777 Grand Ave., meaning that I’m less than five miles away from slow-roasted pork and creamed spinach with jalapeno. Hopefully, I’ll ride my bike down when the urge hits.

Last, but certainly not least, the latest tidbit circling the local blogosphere (specifically Girl Friday’s newsy pages) is that Don Saunders, who closed Fugaise in mid-March after just under four years, will be taking the helm of several of John Rupp’s properties. First up, bringing his own particular flair to Stout’s Lodge, the Adirondack-feeling getaway in Wisconsin. Even more exciting to me, St. Paul-o-phile that I am, is that his next task is getting the restaurant and bar in The Commodore Hotel opened up. The hotel’s Art Deco bar was designed to look like a chi-chi cocktail lounge aboard a glam old ocean liner. Given that the hotel was once the home of both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, seems like it’s a potential hot spot for future literati.