Great ‘Tastes’ cooking for good causes, and kitchens in the news: D’Amico and Om

CHEERS TO OUR CHEFS…all over town. A double-header, September 13 salute to two “Tastes” in one weekend just reinforced my belief that we sure get a lot of “Minnesota Nice” from our local chefs right there in the Twin Cities—and I’m glad. I love those hard-working folks in the restaurant kitchens who are feeding us six days week, then actually donate their time to come back to the kitchen on the seventh day for charity. As the old saying goes, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and I suspect Minnesota chefs are well trained and disciplined in ways to combat heat. They prove it over and over ’cuz they can be found cooking in their kitchens up to seven days a week many, many times throughout the year, just to help others.

The downtown Taste event was the Fifth Annual Taste of the Nation five-course dinner hosted at the glamorous Graves 601 Hotel with 18 restaurant chefs participating. A benefit for Share Our Strength, the format for this event has always been a unique setup with tables of 10 guests, assigned their own hands-on chef. Each chef prepares a one-of- a-kind, five-course meal at an adjacent cooking station, and wines are also paired with each course. This year was another sellout, with great chefs donating their time for the 18 tables coming from the likes of 20.21, Heidi’s, the Dakota, Cosmos, W.A.Frost, Café Ena, Mystic Lake, the Marsh and the new D’Amico Kitchen, to name a few. Our own James Beard Award-winning chef, Tim McKee, also participates, and this year he had four tables of chefs from his flagship venue La Belle Vie to Solera the new Barrio and Sea Change.

I had an opportunity to attend the first year of these dinners back in 2004 when the format was first hosted by the original Graves 601 and Cosmos chef, Seth Bixby Daugherty, and I recall the royal glow you feel from an evening with this very attentive service. This year, Grave’s Chef de Cuisine Hakan Lundberg helped coordinate the event, and I raise a glass to toast him and the father-and-son hotel owners, Jim and Ben Grave, who opened the property just six years ago in 2003, and have always offered this elegant setting for the event. I hear the dinner and silent auction brought in $50,000 for Share Our Strength. Bravo!

Across town on the same Sunday a first (hopefully annual) foodie fundraiser, Taste of Art, was under way for a good cause. Hosted at the Doubletree Park Place Hotel, this walk around art and food event was set up as a benefit for the Partnership Resources Inc., an organization that provides workforce training and teaches artistic skills to disabled individuals. Co-hosts for the event, and adding real “Taste” to the art auction, were the chef members of the American Culinary Federation’s Minneapolis. Their portion of the evening’s proceeds were earmarked for the ACF Scholarship Fund. More than 400 guests strolled the two party ballrooms and hallways where hundreds of artworks were up for auction and fun food tables were spread with unique themed samplings from Italian pizzas and pastas and carving tables serving roasted meats to a chocolate fountain and Bananas Foster station. The chefs also brought out a salute to the State Fair, complete with mini donuts. Doubletree Executive Chef Chris Dwyer told me more than 30 area ACF chefs and culinary students joined his team in the kitchen, and they spent the weekend preparing this festive food display—all very creative and inviting, I might add. They even set up one of those tempting mashed potato martini bars where we could choose our own toppings in a martini glass. One of the guest chefs, Tim Ristow, corporate chef at Timber Lodge Steakhouse, set up his own State Fair salute, adapting their new tenderloin bruchetta menu item into some steak-on-a-stick items for the guests, including the emcee, WCCO TV’s Jason DeRusha. How hungry were you Jason? Good Question.


SPEAKING OF KITCHENS…the classic comfort word “kitchen” has worked itself back into our vocabulary with a lot more meaning than just going to grandma’s house or stopping by the old corner diner. Witness the smooth turnover of the Jean George Kitchen at Ralph Burnet’s Chamber’s Hotel into the new D’Amico Kitchen—now defined as casual Italian dining. The hotel will no doubt benefit by the D’Amico fan base through this transition. Even after nearly three years with Jean George (they opened in October 2006) the basement dining room really never developed a following. Richard and Larry D’Amico on the other hand, have had over two decades of fans beginning with their various restaurants across the Twin Cities (and recently in Florida).

In the new D’Amico Kitchen, they brought the dining room back upstairs to the lobby level. Looks like this busy corner at 9th & Hennepin will be a perfect spot for the future. The Chambers classic white, window-walled street level setting is stunning and the courtyard is more inviting than ever with the addition of umbrellas and cabanas, too.

They say the new menu will extend a casual, contemporary Italian concept and feature dozens of items, including “small plates” priced from $8 to $12 with D’Amico Cucina Chef John Occhiato heading the kitchen. And the new GM is also a familiar, friendly face—Ann Grant, previously at their sister operation, Lurcat. D’Amico Kitchen will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner in the 110-seat dining and lounge, but mark Sparkling Friday Happy Hours on your calendar too— ’cuz then they offer $5 champagnes and champagne cocktails to the mix. Cheers!


OM IS THE NEWEST KID ON THE BLOCK…opening last month in the Minneapolis Warehouse District. Located at the corner of First Avenue North and Fourth Street in the old home of Nate’s Clothing. This is an elegant, exotic transition one could not have expected. It’s a fabulous, two-level space, with an upper level lounge/bar and lower level dining room with an open, two-story atrium and a huge crystal chandelier and staircase to a small fish pond below. They say the name Om means “Absolute, ultimate state of peace.” Hummm? Not so peaceful on the hustling, bustling opening night, methinks, but it will bring lots of “oohs and aahs” ahead as new people discover this space, which opens daily at 4:30 p.m.

This chef-driven operation finds the Om team headed up by old friends GM Randy Norman in the front of the house (who has over 30 years in the business, 12 years in Minneapolis with Capital Grill, Bellanotte, R.Norman’s and Seven) and in the kitchen, the multi-talented Indian cuisine/curry expert/teacher/author Chef Raghavan Iyer. They say the goal is to bring global flavors to the local community by introducing a modern approach to Indian cuisine and they have dubbed Rag the “Culinary Engineer.” I love it!

Iyer is the perfect man to design a menu for an Indian restaurant and, boy, are we lucky he lives here, too. In case you don’t know, he is an internationally-awarded cookbook author and culinary educator, born in Bombay, who has lived in Minneapolis for more than 20 years. He is a two-time James Beard Award finalist and a Julia Child Award winner for Cooking Teacher of the Year. His most recent cookbook, “660 Curries,” has been featured in National Public Radio, The New York Times, Boston Globe and Food and Wine Magazine.

Watch for a menu that will feature “bold and distinct flavors that showcase the unique blend of cuisines found throughout India.” Iyer says he will use locally-grown seasonal produce and herbs to prepare his sauces, spice blends, and desserts daily. They say they are committed to providing quality and affordability, too, and I think the new Tuesday Happy Hour really proves it. Cocktail prices are already in the friendly $7 and $8 range, but it was delightful to see their e-mail blast welcoming us all to a “wonderful $2 happy hour, which is available everyday, seven days a week, from 4:30-6:30 p.m.” Wow. Let’s see: That means I’m covered! Tuesdays at Om and Fridays at D’Amico. Cheers and namasté! (See party pics on our FSN Blog, too.)