Photos by Dara
P.S. Steak
Moody interior, with stag's head silver bucket of feathers
Welcome to 2019, time to kill your idols? That's the question any long-time restaurant-goer in the Twin Cities must ask, stepping over the threshold of 510 Groveland, the restaurant space that is to Minneapolis what Carnegie Hall is to American musicians who practice, practice, practice.
Why, in my brief time on this earth I've been inside this vaunted, historic space when it has been: The old 510, just post giant Klaus Mitterhauser (and after founding mother of Minneapolis locavorism Lucia Watson had departed to do her own thing), then after that and for a decade the biggest restaurant to date in Minneapolis, La Belle Vie, then after that a different 510 (I wrote a big history lesson to go along with that one). Last year when we broke the news that La Belle Vie's longtime chef de cuisine, Mike DeCamp, would return to his La Belle Vie footprint with a restaurant called P.S. Steak the whole thing began to feel a bit like all us Twin Cities food-lovers are the facile Matthew McConnaughey character in Dazed and Confused, when he says he keeps getting older, but the girls keep staying the same—except the girls that keep staying the same in this analogy are the dining room and lounge at 510. You know? We keep getting older, and there keep being new restaurants at 510 Groveland, that are more or less the same as they ever were. I mean, the historic moldings don't change, the historic light fixtures don't change, the martinis and old fashioneds and Cabernets change a little bit—right?
Anyhoo, I trooped up the historic steps a few nights after P.S. Steak threw open its doors, determined to ... what? See if it was any good, get the déja vu out of my system, grapple with the monster known as time, all those things. Why wouldn't I review it as I would any other restaurant? Good luck, this place is heavier with history than any restaurant in the state. That said, here are the first-bite answers I'd want answered if I was a food-interested Minnesotan.
dark bar
The new back bar
Did they mess it up?
No! It was hard to imagine how Jester Concept's renovation would bring back a new dining room bar, but it works. See that pic above? Those are the reservable "Steakhouse Bar Seats" where you sit at the new dining room bar and order from the steakhouse menu. The back room renovation has taken the space from its chilly Versailles-meets-MoMA vibe to something new that's sort of Ravenclaw-meets-Eyes-Wide-Shut-for-a-drink, and it feels sexy, it feels new, and it feels good. The front part, the Lounge, is about as close to the last iteration that it's like one of those Highlights circle-the-difference games to figure out what's different. And that bench used to be a couch with a back! In short: No, they did not mess it up.
P.S. Steak
Denver-cut steak
How's the food?
Evaluating the food the first week a restaurant is open is a fool's errand, and this week I was that fool. Restaurants are really working out their systems and figuring out how to execute things when they just open, and in my experience you pretty much always walk out with one of two instincts, either a place seems promising, or it seems un-promising. Folks, P.S. Steak seems promising. Which is to say it was uneven, but had some glimmers of greatness: A Denver-cut steak was exquisite, I'm not familiar with this chuck-cut but it was juicy, tender, beefy, and really craveable. The steak-tartare was beautiful, little morsels of rare beef delicately assembled and surprisingly flavored with a great number of fresh house-pickles. On the other hand, the pork schnitzel was dry and prettier than it was tasty, and I could not make heads or tails of the raw onion salad, which I imagined would be various things, but was a bowl of raw onions that seemed in search of an everything-bagel-and-lox platter. The two cocktails I tried were each beautiful, their version of the historic and much-neglected-hereabouts Clover Club was fresh, bright, and just a bit of gorgeous in a glass. When I go back I'll be especially interested to try dishes like the linguine with clams, after having experienced chef Mike DeCamp's pasta triumphs at Monello.
P.S. Steak
Pork schnitzel
Is P.S. Steak suddenly among the most expensive restaurants in town?
You know, that was kind of a surprise! With a naked steak on a board galloping skyward from $50, appetizers in the high teens, and extremely appealing add-ons like a $35 king crab leg, please know that P.S. Steak is definitely in your high-roller category, a smidge cheaper than king-of-all-steaks Manny's, and right in the mix with obvious finer-steakhouse-to-beat Burch Steak. When it seems that the town is in a spend-less-eat-a-sandwich mode, what does this mean? I don't know. Please place a flag here, to remind us all of the need for further inquiry.
P.S. Steak
Raw onion salad
Should you go?
You should totally go. If you've been looking for something new to do, if steakhouses are your bag, if La Belle Vie used to be your groove: Absolutely, go. Just prepare yourself for a bit of déja vu, that sense that you've seen something before that you haven't, and it's opposite, jamais vu, the feeling that something is new when it isn't. Between those two you can get a really nice cocktail and a really good steak. Whether it's a great restaurant equal to its heritage, we'll have to wait a few weeks for it to find its legs.
P.S. Steak
Clover Club cocktail, with gin, raspberry, white peppercorn, rosemary, lemon, and egg white
P.S. Steak, 510 Groveland Ave., Mpls., 612-886-1620
