Portraits by Shelly Mosman
Co-founder of Parasole, Phil Roberts, right, is a titan of the modern Twin Cities dining tradition, while Lenny Russo, left, is one of the preeminent chefs of the next wave.
Damsels, knights, and knaves in castles throughout our northern lands have polished their chalices with merry expectation for this month’s return of Game of Thrones. Its return made us wonder, what if that epic story was rooted here, in the great kingdoms of our mighty kitchens? Read on, dear reader, and see.
Local legend tells that the kitchens of bygone eras were founded by royalty especially skilled in the arrangements of fine fare and dazzling the eyes and palates of local barons with feasts of great abundance. The House of D’Amico. The House of Parasole. Dominions with long-forgotten names like Goodfellows. Today, the descendants of these mighty bloodlines conquer far-flung lands, from Wayzata to the North Loop to the most good and saintly of Pauls. For those modern feast-makers wise and brave enough to query, great surprising truths will be revealed in this, our fastidious survey [well, as fastidious as we could be in this amount of space—so not exactly “exhaustive”] of the inner-workings of the vast civilization that’s come to be known as the Twin Cities dining scene. We speak of the Nobles, the mighty piers to which so much of our contemporary restaurant milieu is anchored. And there are the Queens, who have pursued with fierce integrity and fiery vision the dream of a more perfect dining world. Our Knights fight with derring-do to keep us in the spotlight of the world’s culinary pageant, while the Potion Masters enchant and beguile with their alchemical wizardry.
And so we say unto you: Hear ye, hear ye, all ye lords and ladies! Behold this proclamation and proceed through these pages to encounter these, our emperors of edibles, our countesses of comestibles, and our lords of libations (flowing banners and trumpeting horns optional).
The restaurant scene we see around us today in the Twin Cities was born of several noble houses whose importance cannot be overstated. Some great kingdoms were birthed by brothers, others by friends, all of which begot offspring who have thusly transformed the city with their mighty knives.
WA Frost
Since opening in 1975, it has been St. Paul’s grande dame, supporting a generation of new farmers and new chefs from the coasts. —Lenny Russo, Russell Klein, Wyatt Evans, Leonard Anderson
Porter & Frye
For a moment, the next generation of chef stars cooked shoulder-t0-shoulder in a kitchen helmed by Steven Brown. —Doug Flicker, Mike Brown, James Winberg, Tyler Shipton, Erik Anderson, Jamie Malone, Landon Schoenefeld, Sarah Master, Joan Ida
Solera
Daring to take on a whole building outside the downtown skyways, Tim McKee and Josh Thoma’s three-story tapas bar was a national leader in Spanish food and sherry, drawing young chefs looking to cook in a different idiom. —JP Samuelson, Daniel del Prado, Tyge Nelson, Michelle Gayer, Sameh Wadi, Jorge Guzman
Faegre’s
One of downtown Minneapolis’s first American cafés in the contemporary style. And, yes, same family as Faegre & Benson. —Lenny Russo, Alexander Dixon, Lowell Pickett, Ken Goff
Loring Cafe
Bohemians, ballerinas, and attorneys mingled in the grotto hand-wrought by maestro Jason McLean. —Lenny Russo, Steven Brown, Zoë François, Doug Flicker, Patrick Atanalian
La Belle Vie
Arguably the most important contemporary fine-dining restaurant in the history of Minneapolis, the house that Tim McKee and Josh Thoma built was where the elite came to ooh and aah. —Jack Riebel, Mike DeCamp, Don Saunders, Sean Smalley, Matt Bickford, Adam Eaton, Jim Christiansen, Michelle Gayer, Adrienne Odom, Laurel Elm, Diane Yang, Niki Francioli, Tyge Nelson
Ann Kim and Kim Bartmann
Ann Kim, left, rules a kingdom that is just getting started, while Kim Bartmann, right, reigns over an ever-growing empire.
This bold group of visionary chefs and restaurateurs is the spiritual compass that directs our kingdom ever onward to culinary glory.
Paul Berglund and Jorge Guzman
Paul Berglund, left, has led The Bachelor Farmer to glory while Jorge Guzman, right, won praise during his time at Surly.
A cunning collection who have slayed metaphorical dragons to achieve the highest esteem in the global culinary pageant.
Jamie Olson and Chris Montana
Jami Olson, left, is a potion master on the rise. A bartender at Lyn 65, she didn’t come up through one of the traditional orders, but is making no less of an impact. Chris Montana, right, is a similarly situated outsider, having entered the scene for the first time when his distillery, Du Nord, debuted.
This rogue brood of mystics has transformed simple feats of bartending into an enchanting and beguiling world of alchemical wizardry that has changed Twin Cities cocktail culture.
