Doug Bigwood courtesy of Octo
Octo Fishbar Lobster Roll
Lobster roll from Octo Fishbar, with miso, Japanese pickles, and furikake
Remember last June when I reported that Tim McKee, Minnesota's first James Beard Award winner who has helmed seven of Minneapolis' significant restaurants —La Belle Vie, Solera, Smalley's, Barrio, Sea Change, Masu, and Libertine—was taking on the old Heartland space to launch Market House Collaborative, but there were a lot of questions outstanding? Sit down, friends. A lot of them just got answered.
Photo by Amber Proccancini
Meyer Lemon Shaker Pie at Salty Tart
The Salty Tart Comes to St. Paul!
This is such a happy day. The Salty Tart, our terrific gem, our oft James Beard nominated pastry chef, our former Charlie Trotter pastry star, Michelle Gayer is opening a big bakery in the former corner marketplace of the building. This means so many things. Cakes, croissants and bread for St. Paul, but also for the restaurant, Salty Tart desserts and breads for the lobster rolls, po'boys, and so on. Please recall that Gayer was once the pastry chef for La Belle Vie, between Adrienne Odom and Diane Yang, so this is a longstanding friendship and work collaboration come to fruition. Yay! I could not be happier about this, what a great day for St. Paul Farmer's Market shoppers and bakery fans everywhere.
Doug Bigwood courtesy of Octo
Octo Fishbar Seafood Pozole Verde
Octo Fishbar Seafood Pozole Verde
Introducing Octo Fishbar
The casual fish restaurant McKee plans has a name and a chef: It will be called Octo Fishbar, octo because it's McKee's 8th restaurant opening, and also for the octopus reference. This 90 seat restaurant will occupy most of the interior of the building, for anyone who remembers the old Heartland space, spanning the area between the kitchen and old bar, which has been reconfigured and slid a bit east. Executive chef will be Shane Oporto, lastly of The Lynhall, and chef de cuisine will be Niki Heber, lastly of Pajarito. General Manager will be longtime McKee associate Lorin Zinter. Cocktails will be created by Erik Eastman of local drinks company Easy & Company. If you're thinking to yourself that's quite an all-star team, you're right. I got to hear about some of the dishes this dream team has been dreaming up, and friends they sound so good: A lobster roll with Kewpie mayo and miso with Japanese pickles, a seafood pozole verde with all kinds of shrimp and mussels served with a lovely tray of radishes, limes, and so on. Soft scrambled eggs with tiny baby squid in chorizo fat, and so much more. A clam bratwurst, ground with pork. Clam brat! Say it! Torn bread in an uni butter. Roast bok choy in a bagna cauda sauce with soft poached quail eggs and lardo. There will also be straight-ahead seafood sourced direct from McKee's buy-in to the fish wholesaler The Fish Guys, so there will be whole boiled lobsters, special MSC sustainably certified Australian Skull Island prawns that run 6 to a pound—so very much more. "It's kind of unfair," McKee told me. "I can just look into what's being caught around the world, yes I want that." But what about people who only eat steak? Good question.
Introducing Peterson Craftsman Meats, the Butcher Shop
Minnesota burger obsessives have gotten used to seeing the Peterson Farm Limousine beef name-checked, it appears again and again as the meat on some of our most awarded, tastiest burgers. You see where this is going. There will be a stand-alone butcher shop in the space which is a collaboration between Peterson son Andy Peterson and McKee. I say collaboration because it will be that, with chef-made sausages created from Peterson meats on offer in the restaurant and the butcher case, as well as Peterson supplying meat for Octo Fishbar.
And that's not all. It's going to happen before Halloween.
Scheduled Opening: October 10th.
Except Salty Tart, which will take a little longer. Want in? They're hiring for all positions. Want in but in the ordinary way, by paying your money? Not even two months. Can't handle the wait? Content yourself gazing at the beautiful work of local muralist Erin Sayer, who will be making a jellyfish mural for the interior of Octo. Pretty, pretty! St. Paul look at yourself in the mirror, aren't you looking good this year? You sure are.
