Ever since La Belle Vie closed, there has been a La Belle Vie-sized hole in our collective hearts. After all, this space has been the most important fine-dining restaurant space in the city in the modern era, as I learned doing a deep dive into its history for a review of the last tenant, the underwhelming 510 Lounge. Or wait—do I mean hole in our hearts, or something else? I strongly feel that generations of us learned to celebrate our big moments in life raising a glass at the exact point on the map of 510 Groveland, and like homing pigeons we want to get back in to that roost! Heart, roost, whatever it is, it's coming back baby—with a new spot by one of its longest-serving former chefs.
Mike Decamp at La Belle Vie
Chef Mike DeCamp
Here's the deal. Mike DeCamp cooked at La Belle Vie for some nine and a half years, starting as little more than a child at the side of LBV's chef-owner Tim McKee. In fact he was so young he earned the nickname many still know him for, YC, for Young Chef. DeCamp left before LBV closed, to join Jester Concepts and run the fine Italian spot Monello, which at first I was ambivalent about and a few years later found had grown into something spectacular. Jester of course came to prominence with the twins of the finer North Loop restaurant Borough and its underground cocktail palace Parlour. DeCamp helped put those two on firmer footing, created a snack menu that made Constantine, the very sexy bar underneath Monello, more than a drinking destination, and oversaw the expansion of Parlour into both the Target Center and St. Paul. Since Jester hired DeCamp and bar star Jesse Held to oversee the twin strengths of the empire, namely food and cocktails, the company has grown into a major player in the Twin Cities. But they haven't really had a marquee top-of-the-heap statement restaurant—until this fall.
That's when we get a new Jester Concepts restaurant at 510 Groveland, run by Mike DeCamp and Jesse Held. The current front-runner name is P.S., a play on post-script, as a nod to La Belle Vie. The idea is for a sort of modern steak spot—something like Burch Steak or Bavette's in Chicago, with a menu of big proteins like steaks, salmon, or pheasant and the option to add various side dishes. They will bring back the lounge with its own menu, along with a few nods to the old LBV favorites, including the legendary lamb burger. The former formal dining room will be modified, removing the wall that formed that odd long, wide hallway, but taking it out in such a way that the glorious Edwardian crown moldings remain untouched as a second bar will be built. Overall, if you're very familiar with the old space, I'd say that in total the lounge is going to revert largely to how it was during the LBV years, albeit with a few small modifications. They're keeping the row of booths newly built along one wall, and adding a half-wall in that odd little room by the ladies bathroom. The main dining room will feel more transformed, with the addition of said second bar, plus added booths, and an ADA accessible bathroom in the former coat room (yay!). The windows back there are going to get a stained-glass sort of treatment to block out the Hennepin/Lyndale interchange madness right outside, and to create a darker, candle-lit feeling. The kitchen will remain essentially unchanged: "I know how it all works. I know how to fix it too," DeCamp told me.
He added that he toured the space within the week that the last restaurant announced they were closing. "I think this space is beautiful. I'd just like it to be a restaurant again. And when I think about my life, without this space I don't know what I'd do, or who I'd have become. I love this building and I'd like more people to come in and experience this space."
Target opening? November. I know! Of this year. By Christmas the La Belle Vie shaped hole in our city should be papered over by some sort of post-script—a holiday present to us all.
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