Chef Stewart Woodman is Back in the Kitchen at Lela

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Photography by Ashley Sullivan

Sweet pea agnolotti at Lela

Sweet pea agnolotti with a righteous swath of chili paste.

The dish in front of me was striking. Delicately assembled sweet pea agnolotti topped by shards of crisped pancetta and crusty frico chips formed the centerpiece. Micro greens and pine nuts were casually strewn about. A swath of smoky, spicy Calabrian chili paste painted the side of the plate. Spice-seekers will  be lit up after dragging those little pasta pockets through that chili paste. Those looking for something more tame might either take a brief fiery dip or none at all and still enjoy the purses that yield a plush sweet pea and ricotta center and a toothy edge. The dish puts the option in the hands of the eater, and I think that’s significant for Stewart Woodman. 

Chef Woodman at work. 

Chef Woodman has been on a long road, with twists and turns, accolades and defeats. Culinarily, he was at the top of his game at Heidi’s in south Minneapolis. After a fire destroyed the restaurant, it moved to a space on LynLake, only to close in 2012. Woodman and his pastry chef partner and wife divorced, and he sought employment in bigger organizations, as chefs often do once they pass through the fire of ownership. Some of the brightness in his cooking was lost to the chains and hotels he worked for—and perhaps to his own demons as well.

So when he came back to town to take over as executive chef of the beautiful but rudderless Lela, which had opened adjacent to the Sheraton Bloomington, I thought, “Good, let’s see what’s cooking.” Either he would make a perfunctory menu of hotel food and collect a paycheck until something better came along, or he might attempt to push a hotel kitchen into a statement-making menu that couldn’t support the Bloomington locale. Or he could let go and see what’s next. So far, he seems to have chosen that last option.   

At Lela, Woodman’s pastas best show off the bright side of his cooking. There’s that transcendent agnolotti. And a perfectly executed braised lamb on inky black pasta. It’s earthy and soft with a rich bite that’s unexpected and comforting. His vegetarian Bolognese was one of my former obsessions, and there are hints of that innovation here in the classic version. The heft of the sauce and the richness of the veg perfectly support the meat. I could have eaten a bowl of the sauce alone. 

Overall, there were relatively few stinkers. Most of the crimes—a well-cooked but flavorless steak sandwich, for one—were due to underseasoning, which is more of a team execution issue. More indicative of my Lela experiences are safe dishes that absolutely belong in a hotel-adjacent restaurant: lobster deviled eggs, tuna tacos, and the like. But the wins are found in dishes that sound safe but have a sophisticated wink and a clear upgrade of ingredients. Your turkey panini has a Brussels sprouts slaw, your blue crab cake a vibrant “red goddess” dressing and pancetta.

Lela opens up a side of Woodman that perhaps wasn’t accessible in the past. There was always a certain foodist price of admission for enjoying plates at Heidi’s that maybe put up a barrier for the average eater. But not at the more populist Lela. That agnolotti isn’t meant to challenge you; it’s there to feed you while opening you up to something new. It’s less about the plate and more about the eater, without sacrificing the polish and refinement that have come to define Woodman’s cooking. He may have been on a long and windy road, but for the moment, we’re hoping the chef has found a home.