Chef Shuffle at Grand Café

What does Erik Anderson's departure mean to the Grand Café?

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This story kicks off in an unexpected way. We finally have a chef in a three-star restaurant, but that restaurant is in San Francisco. Chef Erik Anderson has taken over the kitchen at San Francisco's Coi, widely recognized as one of the best restaurants in the country, and recent recipient of a third Michelin star. 

What does this mean for Minneapolis and the Grand Café, which Anderson and chef Jamie Malone opened together six months ago? 

I guess first it means emotions: Of course, Minnesotans must have complicated feelings when a hometown hero departs, even for great opportunity. Anderson certainly is such a hometown hero, he got his start at the dearly departed Auriga with Doug Flicker, won a Food & Wine Best New Chef in America at Sea Change with Tim McKee, he then left town and made national headlines at Nashville's Catbird Seat with another son-of-Auriga, Josh Habiger. When Anderson and Jamie Malone, also awarded Food & Wine Best New Chef in America, also for Sea Change, had announced plans for a Champagne-focused Minneapolis spot called Brut, it felt like a food fairytale, complete with a royal wedding. But what was actually going on was less like a fairytale and more like life—in reality the two parted romantically as a couple long ago, and Brut fell through. 

"I want us both to come out of this shiny and happy," Jamie Malone told me on the phone. "A couple of months ago we decided this is a small restaurant and probably too small for two chefs. Erik started looking, and of course the opportunity at Coi is perfect for him. We both support each other, and even if Brut was still on the table I'm not sure I'd want to do it, because I’m in love with the Grand Café and this is where I want to be. There's a sort of life in here between the walls, I think you feel that as soon as you come in. Brian Eno talks about ambient music as something that doesn't demand your attention, but rewards it. What I always envisioned here, and what it's becoming. I think for Erik, a 3 Michelin star restaurant, that’s what Erik does. That makes sense for him." 

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Erik Anderson has taken over the kitchen at Coi from his friend, Matthew Kirkley, who departed in order to train full time for the 2019 Bocuse d'Or. "Obviously running a 3 Michelin star is something you can’t say no to. I mean, Matthew Kirkley has 3 stars, I have zero, but it's an incredible opportunity," Anderson told me. "I met [Coi's owner and founding chef] Daniel Patterson a couple years ago, he flew me out here a few months ago, and we spent a few days cooking together and talking—we get along great. The plan is I'll be cooking Coi's greatest hits until January, when we take a winter break, and when we come back, it will be my menu." As to the Grand Café, says Anderson, "Jamie and I are obviously very close, and it was a hard decision to make personally, but I think it's important that people support that restaurant—I think it's the best restaurant in the Twin Cities." 

With these twists in the tale, what does the future of the Grand Café look like going forward? Malone says that this winter will see the restaurant growing into itself even more. She's rolled out an Early Bird special of dinners from $14, with a wine pairing—casual offerings like chicken pot pie and a fine beef meatloaf. "Simplicity just fits here," Malone told me. "My vision from the beginning was to strive to make the most refined food possible, and I think we can do that and also reach more people." To that end she plans to start using the large vintage bread oven for big cuts and whole animals, to serve family-style. "I'm thinking of it like a French hunter's foods—muscular and rustic, but elegant. Paté en crouté is a good example, taking ingredients that are sort of byproducts and making a beautiful, indulgent thing."

Some more innovations we can expect from the Grand Café: Sunday afternoon oysters and Champagne, as well as ham and sherry, ferried through the dining room on pretty carts. The restaurant has a new general manager, Nikki Klocker, who has career-changed from running a surgery center. "She’s amazing," says Malone, "a very artistic person, and really good at taking care of staff and guests." Expect Klocker to oversee the debut of a new cheese cart, and perhaps more tableside dishes like a côte de boeuf, a rib roast carved in the dining room. Malone tells me that this holiday season is going to see a return to simplicity in desserts, particularly cake and ice cream, with a different cake every week. Much at the Grand Café will stay the same, bar-star Marco Zappia is still making his signature Vermouths, sommelier Bill Summerville continues to oversee the wine program, and chef de cuisine Alan Hlebaen is still assisting Malone in the kitchen.

As to the end of the fairytale fantasy that attached to the Grand Café's opening, Malone confesses that she probably should have been the face of the spot from the get-go. "I’ve always enjoyed hiding behind Erik because I don’t like the attention being on me, but that was probably a misstep," she told me. "I do really want to stress it always has been a Jamie Malone restaurant, it was my original vision from day one, and in the end I think it worked out in the best possible way, because Erik and I both just found things that are more fitting for us."  

Is that a better ending than a typical fairytale wedding, Minneapolis? An ending with a hometown heroine going into the sunset with her own French restaurant where she makes paté en croute, is sovereign over a big oven for whole animals, engages a new general manager who's good at managing, and gets a new cheese cart, and weekly new adventures in cake? 

It's what we're really getting, and life is better than fantasy, right?