Photo by Derrick Koch
Chef Sameh Wadi
When Sameh Wadi decided last December to close his upscale restaurant, Saffron, it was the end of an era. After 10 years it was still the Twin Cities standard bearer for creative Middle Eastern food. Sure, we still have his global mashup World Street Kitchen for all the yum yum bowls we've come to crave, and his wickedly fun Milkjam Creamery has no shortage of fans (and lines during peak ice cream weather). But the general feeling was: what's next for such a young and talented chef?
Would you be shocked to learn that he's accepted the role of Culinary Director of Seven?
Yes, that Seven, which has historically been followed by words like Steakhouse Sushi Ultralounge and Skybar, and has had a reputation based more on glitz and shtick over quality of food. WHY, you're thinking, would Wadi want to have anything to do with that place?
In a way, he's paying it forward.
Seven was sold at the end last year. Embattled David Koch is long gone, and the new owners are real estate guys Ken Sherman and Ro Shirole. They could have closed it, dismantled it, leased it, any number of scenarios, but instead they want to make it better. That's where Wadi comes in.
"Ken Sherman was my first landlord at Saffron," Wadi told me. "Ten years ago he took a chance on me, a young kid. I signed the lease on my 23rd birthday. Without Ken, there would have been no Saffron, and no WSK, no Milkjam, nothing."
Sherman approached Wadi around the same time that Saffron was closing, and promised that major changes were afoot. Wadi took off for some well-earned vacation time in SE Asia, but when he came back, he could already see some of the changes that Sherman had made and it convinced him that they were serious about making the restaurant mean something more to the local dining scene. "They came in and paid people who hadn't been paid, they set a lot of things right that were being ignored on a basic operational level."
Splitting his time between his other operations and Seven, Wadi's first objective is to overhaul the steakhouse. Now you're thinking: From hummus and tagines to steak and taters, really?
"A lot of people don't know this about me, but my first cooking job was in a steakhouse," Wadi says. "At 18 I was learning everything I could from a steak place that used to be open in downtown Minneapolis. In fact, Saffron's menu is modeled after a steakhouse. Take away the mezze and tagine, and you had options for a protein with a sauce that you could mix and match with your sides. It's what I knew, and how I liked to eat! I want to eat something delicious and have my choice of what to put with it."
Wadi says they'll start focusing on really great ingredients and balance. "We'll still have a Caesar salad, but it will have all the right flavors and acidity it should have, with anchovies, and it will just be executed very well. You should see the steaks they've already started getting, they are amazing cuts of very high quality." The sushi bar and rooftop (which is 2.5 times the size of Saffron!) will be tackled next.
I wish I could write to the excitement in his voice. Wadi's just thrilled to be able to help save this restaurant and give it new life, especially for the guy who helped him build his own empire. I'm looking forward to watching this evolve and, honestly for the first time in years, to dinner at Seven in the future.
