Inside Demi alum's new south Minneapolis restaurant Bûcheron

It's not the single, plush banquette that wraps the entire dining room — nor the bar made of wood reclaimed from the benches that used to line that same space — that excites Adam Ritter most about his elegant new restaurant, Bûcheron.

It's not the hunter green accents, the mirrored backsplash, or the bathroom wallpaper that looks like fuzzy plaid. It's not even the rare gas-fired robata grill in the kitchen, with layered shelves for aromatics that will infuse meat with flavors of the seasons.

It's the basement, a place no guest will see. The bright space has white wood-paneled walls embellished with a life-size Macho Man sticker, shelves filled with cookbooks from Ritter's ample collection, and soon-to-be-hung posters of his culinary icons: Paul Bocuse, Joël Robuchon, Douglas Keane and Marco Pierre White.

That out-of-the-way staff cave, where he hopes to inspire cooks on their journey to becoming chefs, is clearly Ritter's pride — one of many — as the former Demi chef de cuisine launches his first restaurant with his wife, Jeanie Janas Ritter.

Bûcheron opens Jan. 9 in Minneapolis' Kingfield neighborhood. The snug 38-seater is inspired by the Parisian "bistronomy" movement, where restaurants elevate simple bistro dishes with high-level gastronomic technique, allowing chefs to get a little less fancy, a little less fussy, and a little more in touch with the ingredients.

"Chefs who have worked in three- or two-star Michelin, higher-end restaurants are taking a step back," Ritter said. The restaurants with the awards and the artful, postmodern plating are "delicious," he said. "But now we need to make it something that's more mindful, just simple and cooked well." In other words, said Ritter, "no tweezers."

It's the first time in years he'll be putting down those proverbial tweezers.

Ritter grew up on a farm outside St. Cloud, one with a big oak tree. He left at age 18 to travel and cook, going to Los Angeles for culinary school, and then to Las Vegas to work under Robuchon. He and Janas Ritter met there, and left together for Northern California, where Ritter cooked with Keane, and Janas Ritter worked in front-of-the-house operations. Next was Singapore, where they both worked in some of the most influential restaurants in the world, Restaurant André and Iggy's. They relocated to Chicago, before settling in Minneapolis, where Ritter got a job at Gavin Kaysen's Spoon and Stable, and Janas Ritter at Kaysen's now-closed Wayzata restaurant Bellecour.

When Kaysen opened Demi, his groundbreaking, 20-seat tasting menu restaurant, he brought on Ritter as chef de cuisine. "He's an incredibly talented chef, he's a great cook, and he's got a great palate," Kaysen said.

Demi's format is unique; guests sit at a rectangular countertop, facing the chefs. For those doing the cooking, hospitality became as much a part of the job as the food, something Ritter "took in a very positive way," Kaysen said.

"Chefs tend to hide in the back," Ritter said. "It's really important for chefs to develop that [skill] talking to guests like we did at Demi, learning to be like Gavin."

Meanwhile, at Bellecour, regulars could count on being greeted by Janas Ritter's beaming smile. She formed such strong bonds with customers, some even came to her and Ritter's wedding. "Your guests become your family," she said.

The intimate Bûcheron will be a place for those kinds of interactions. Chefs can peek into the dining room (and vice versa) through an enlarged window from the kitchen to the bar, and they'll be tasked with bringing their own dishes out to the tables and speaking with diners.

The couple "have a really good, genuine sense of hospitality," Kaysen said. "It feels to me like they're going to give us something we haven't seen before."

Bellecour closed in 2020, besieged by the pandemic, and Janas Ritter became operations director for Cooks of Crocus Hill (now the expanding Cooks | Bellecour). During Ritter's tenure at Demi, the restaurant garnered four stars from the Star Tribune, and was a finalist for a prestigious James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in the country.

Now with a place of their own, Ritter and Janas Ritter are turning their attention from the national stage to the local.

"When we talked about doing this for the longest time, it was, 'Neighborhood. We want neighborhood,' " Ritter said. They couldn't believe their luck when they found an available space in their own.

Parents of two young children — Jack, 3, and George, almost 1 — they were on a walk earlier this year in their Kingfield neighborhood during Janas Ritter's parental leave when they came across a vacant property. It had once belonged to the first restaurant they had dined at together in Minneapolis: Revival. The building had just been sold to a new landlord. Janas Ritter reached out, and they were touring the space the next day.

"It just felt right from the beginning," she said. "It was so serendipitous."

And as restaurant veterans, now with a young family, they have a chance to build it according to their own vision.

They've designed Bûcheron as a family-friendly workplace, one with consistent schedules and four-day workweeks.

"It's a hard industry, but those are ways that we make it livable," Ritter said.

The dining room, radically remade from its Revival days (and Corner Table before that), feels spacious and welcoming, with more bar seating than its predecessors, and waiting areas that don't butt up against tables. Bûcheron is the French word for "lumberjack," and the space, designed by Christian Dean Architecture, feels like the kind of place Paul Bunyan might take a date.

"We were at an antique store looking for things and there was a massive black bear," Janas Ritter said. "Adam sent a picture to our designer. He was like, 'Too much?' "

And then, of course, there is Ritter's menu, which takes its cues from a refined Demi-style tasting, yet is flexible and customizable. It has five sections that can be mixed and matched a la carte, including a dessert list that's given to guests upfront, so they can plan the whole meal at once, with wine and cocktails.

Iowa Berkshire pork, trimmed into perfect rectangles, comes under a tangle of apple and Brussels sprouts, with dollops of cashew purée and a pork jus blended with Spanish blood sausage. For a take on tortellini en brodo, Ritter fills the pasta with a silky celery root purée and pours over it a broth made from acorns gathered on his parents' farm. There's a colorful beet salad with marinated sheep cheese and teff crackers, and a petit plateau of chilled and raw seafood that serves just one or two.

"One of the things we love when you go out is a shellfish platter, but so often it seems like this massive commitment where you spend $200 and get more shellfish than you can eat," Janas Ritter said.

"Classic, but playful," Ritter described it. "I like eating that way."

He is making dessert, too, a skill he refined when Diane Moua was Demi's pastry chef. Look for a craveable sticky toffee cake with gianduja cream and mandarin sorbet.

Ritter knows comparisons to his former workplace will be inevitable.

"There's a lot of pressure at Demi. It's expensive. Everyone hears it's the best restaurant in Minnesota. Everything that comes with it before you sit down to eat, and then you have to deliver on that," he said. "Here, there's still pressure. But, just make great food, right?"

Where: 4257 Nicollet Av. S., Mpls., bucheronrestaurant.com
Hours: Bûcheron opens Jan. 9; reservations open Dec. 13. Hours will be from 5 to 10 p.m., Mon.-Sat.
Familiar faces: Joining co-owners Adam Ritter and Jeanie Janas Ritter are two other Demi alums. Cory Western is the chef de cuisine, and Tyler McLeod is general manager. Will Gobeli is the bar lead.