Photo by Eliesa Johnson
How many restaurants are there in the USA with two—count ‘em, two—Food & Wine Magazine top new chefs at the top? Minnesota’s about to get one, now that chef Jamie Malone (Food & Wine best new chef of 2013) has resigned from Sea Change, where she was chef de cuisine, and plans to join Erik Anderson (Food and Wine best new chef 2012) one of the chefs behind the national sensation of Nashville’s Catbird Seat. This new restaurant will open in Minneapolis if all goes well sometime in 2015. Replacing Malone at Sea Change will be her longtime sous chef Ryan Cook; head chef of the whole shebang, Tim McKee, sent out a press release today saying he expects it to be an easy and steady transition.
Malone and Anderson met on the line during Porter & Frye’s brief glorious opening season, and have cooked together often, including at Sea Change, where Anderson hired her as his sous when he knew he would be resigning to leave for Nashville to open Catbird Seat.
“We’re starting to work on our own place together,” Anderson told me. It will be called Brut, after the designation for dry Champagne. In addition to the bubbly there will be some amount of classical French cooking taking place, Anderson said. “We’re looking in the North Loop. We’d like to keep the atmosphere as casual as possible, but the food as refined as possible. Something like what we did at Catbird, we want people to be able to wear a T-shirt and jeans, or come in on a nice date. Whatever people want to do, the food will remain the same.” And, about that name? “We will have a really nice bubbly menu.”
Can’t wait till 2015 for your double top-chef resto? Fear not! Starting Aug. 8 Malone and Anderson will be doing Brut pop-ups at the now-shuttered Lynn on Bryant. The plan is for 4-course meals for $60, with an option for $20 wine pairings.
How can you get tickets? Follow the brand new Twitter handle @BrutMN.
