Coming Soon: The Return of Heartland?!?

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Photo by Tom Thulen via Lenny Russo

Lenny Russo

Chef Lenny Russo at Dragsmith Farms

Ever since legendary Heartland closed in 2016, there has been a Heartland-shaped-hole in this market, mainly because no one is willing to be an utter pain-in-the-neck about strict locavore-ism like chef and owner Lenny Russo was always happy to be. Remember that menu? It was nuts, truly insanely, over-the-top local, with almost nothing sourced from more than 300 miles away, specially bred heritage hogs, Minnesota-sunfish in the ceviche, and backyard black walnuts in the nocello. Russo redefined and set the standard for what local cuisine could mean in our beloved North. Losing Heartland was a body blow.

Which is why it's such a shock and delight to hear that it will be back in all but name on May 10! 

Here's the deal: Russo was recruited with an offer he couldn't refuse, to take over the ninetwentyfive (925) restaurant at Wayzata's Hotel Landing. He signed on in February. "I told them; you're a boutique hotel, you need a story, a reason to be a destination. People are coming here to experience this iconic lake. No one goes to [Italy's] Lake Como to eat Chinese food—so why are we serving halibut and arctic char and not our local fish?" And that's the conversation that has led to this astonishing announcement: The 925 restaurant is going to close April 30th, and reopen on May 10th as essentially a reboot of Heartland in a bold play to become the metro's premiere northern lake-fish restaurant. 

"Walleye out of Red Lake, ciscoes from Lake Superior, I'm working with a new native American fishery operating out of Bayfield that can get eelpout—which they call burbot. It's going to be the exact same local philosophy we used at Heartland," Russo told me. "We'll sell my cookbook at checkout, I'm working with my foragers, we're putting bison on the menu, and rabbit, and we'll have vegan morel dishes from my guys and vegetarian agnolotti with sheep's milk ricotta from Shepherd's Way, and they don't make much ricotta but they'll make me some because we go way back." Russo told me the names of some of his former cooks from Heartland he's got offers out to now in further efforts to get the band back together. A sneak peek at some of the coming 925 menus sure look like Heartland menus. Check out a dinner menu below: 

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Another exciting development is that bar star Trish Gavin, lately of the Hewing and one one of the top mixers in town, has signed on to lead the bar program—a local gin martini after a day on the lake sounds like quite the Wayzata weekend. Russo says that when the restaurant reopens on May 10th it will have a more resort-like, lake-feel, as well as a full Trish Gavin bar program and a full Heartland-on-the-lake menu, with of course breakfast, lunch, and room service. 

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Photo by Tom Thulen via Lenny Russo

White Fish Gravlax at Heartland

White Fish Gravlax

Congrats to all! This seems like a truly important development in Twin Cities food. Up till now someone who wanted a really good fish experience taking advantage of our clean and bountiful local lakes and rivers had to drive a couple hours North during the summer to someplace like the wonderful but still far-off Dockside Market. The idea that we could have this right on our own Lake Minnetonka feels so good. It also feels right to have Lenny Russo back in his kind of kitchen, with his never-say-can't drive. With Gavin Kaysen's Bellecour just down the block Wayzata is looking like a national-class weekend getaway for foodies. Is 2018 the year the food glitterati discover eelpout? It suddenly seems possible. 

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