The Restaurant at Someone's House

by

Underground restaurants don't last very long once we get excited about them, which is why I'm shy to give them press. Soon after I loved up 320 Northeast, the 2015 in-home dinner club hosted by Matt Kappra and Megan Sheridan, the city secret-shopped them and shut them down. 

But in this age of the pop-up, can we finally have these nice things? I continue to think that dinner in someone's home with a bunch of random people is one of the great nights to be had. We're redefining restaurants all the time now, this seems like a disruption that could reconnect souls on a very cool level.

It feels like the answer might be in scale and support. Last weekend I attended a dinner at Chez Bill, which is the Uptown home of local wine pro and sommelier Bill Summerville. He's been hosting dinners large and small for a few months as part of the global Eat With network. 

It's like the Uber of restaurants. Eat With connects eaters to dinners, cooking classes, and food tours all over the world, hosted by locals. If you're going to be in Rome tomorrow, you might choose to have dinner at Paolo and Michela's apartment overlooking the Tiber River where a five-course tasting menu with wine will cost you around 66 Euro. Feels like a great way to start exploring the city, right? Sitting among other explorers or locals who can give you some real low-down?

It worked just like that on Saturday night. A woman from Israel who is in town on a freelance work assignment booked a dinner at Chez Bill and ended up sitting next to me. We are now friends, as I sent her texts about where to find a dress for her brother's upcoming wedding and directions to the Parlour burger. 

Dinner itself, couldn't have been lovelier. We showed up and were greeted with a spritz cocktail and small bites in the living room, where a warm fire was lit. Mingling with the other 13 guests, I found out that a foursome had done an Eat With dinner in another city, but this was their first locally. Another group of friends had experienced a Bill Summerville wine tasting in the last year, and were eager to hang out with him again. 

As we sat down to the beautifully set long table, Bill presented a sherry with the first course of lobster bisque and talked about what to expect over the evening. 

In his home's kitchen, Ingrid Norgaard was cooking and plating the food. She's a young cook around town, and is currently working at Lowry Hill Meats, which makes it easier for her to do some dinners with Bill. Though, it's not always her, sometimes Bill has other friends cooking with him, Tim Pearson has cooked and helped at many of the dinners. Beyond that silky beautiful soup, we had winter citrus, a radish-laden plated salad made rich with tonnato dressing, a family-style bowl of polenta topped with poached eggs and shaved black truffles (Bill provided the shaving flourish at the table which spurred many a social post), and a generous hunk of lusty pork belly with almond milk potato puree that was served by Ingrid. The evening went on, longer than I had stamina for. People swapped chairs to start new conversations, there was dancing by the firelight at some point, and an apple tarte tatin with a salt-thyme-lavender cream stole the end of the night.

All of that, for $84 per person. Most of that goes to Chez Bill with a portion going to Eat With, which does all of the ticketing, coordination, and holds insurance for the hosts. It's not like Bill is turning his place into La Belle Vie, but I had to wonder why a successful wine guy would want to open his house up to a bunch of strangers for dinner, over and over again, "I miss it, I miss this aspect of the restaurant business: the people, the fun, the bonding, meeting strangers. It's like having a cozy, little restaurant with one seating once a week."

I would direct any of you to book those last four seats available for the next dinner this Saturday. And so on. I can't promise you'll have the same experience as I had (and isn't that a kicky game of chance?), but if you come with an open heart and mind, ready to meet new people, giving as much of yourself as you expect back, I can't believe you won't. There's something about the intimacy of being in someone's home that allows you to let your guard down, and relax a little, you're all in it together.

Now I get it, Chez Bill is almost restaurant quality because of the industry veterans running it. But there are a few other locals using the Eat With platform to host dinners, and maybe you'll find the one that vibes best with you. Of course there are still some old-school underground dinners happening in town, though I'm still worried about too much noise for them. Scherzo is one that I have heard about from a few friends, and they have a number of tables ready for booking this season. 

I would love to champion more dinners like this, and I hope that we can. I did reach out to the 320 Northeast kids, and they are toying with starting something else up again, but nothing in the immediate future. While I don't think these private dinners could overtake the restaurant industry and replace it in the Uber or AirBnB fashion, I do think that it would be a nice addition to the mix. Here's hoping the city agrees.  

Mpls.St.Paul Daily Edit

Sign up for our daily newsletter.