Inside north Minneapolis’ natural wine bar, where the only constant is change

The thing about natural wine is that it’s always evolving.

The natural yeasts inside the bottle keep the party going, meaning what the wine started can be completely different once the cork is popped. By extension, it makes sense that Bar Brava, Minneapolis’ first natural wine bar, is often in flux, evolving and adapting just like the bottles it is inspired to stock.

“When we first opened, I had a business partner,” said owner Dan Rice. “We were only open three months before the pandemic hit.”

Rice first found a love of natural wines while working in finance in New York City. He had studied business and found success in the field, but soon found his passion for the work dwindling while another interest had taken root. It came in a cloudy bottle of wine produced by people who put as much care into farming the land as they did the good stuff in the bottle.

“Call it a quarter-life crisis,” Rice said.

After a dream trip traveling, drinking and soaking up knowledge, he was ready to embark on a new adventure. He moved back to the Twin Cities, partnered with chef Nick Anderson to open a wine and tapas bar in a historic building in a neighborhood ripe for a new era.

Bar Brava opened at 1914 Washington Av. N. in Minneapolis in late fall 2019 and was forced to close months later because of the pandemic. But it was open long enough for those who get excited about hard-to-find, small-produced wine to get really fired up about the place — and subsequently miss it. Eventually, a few small parties were hosted, and a new sandwich start-up borrowed the kitchen to launch Marty’s Deli. It was an inkling of things to come.

As the pandemic’s grip began to subside, the bar reopened, but the business partnership between Rice and Anderson wasn’t in great shape. In July 2022 Bar Brava announced it would temporarily close. The Spanish tapas menu and full service would leave with the departure of Anderson.

“It was painful, but ultimately the right and good thing,” said Rice. He looked to Paris for inspiration, specifically the buvette Early June, which acts as an incubator for young culinary talent. Bar Brava would open its space to fresh culinary talent looking for something between a short event popup and a restaurant startup. This paved the way for its first big success: Khue’s Kitchen.

Chef Eric Pham began as a one-man ghost kitchen, working to create his vision of a restaurant. Word quickly spread about his cult-status fried chicken sandwich and playful take on bar food. After a year at the wine bar, the plan worked. Pham is creating his dream restaurant in a permanent home on University Avenue in St. Paul.

“When Eric left in February, we lined up a bunch of chefs to see who would work well,” said Rice. Which brings us to today.

Torsk is the work of chefs Sydney Reuter and Axel Pineda, who just happen to be best friends who worked at Fika, the restaurant inside the American Swedish Institute in south Minneapolis.

“I know people look at me — a big brown guy — and wonder,” said Pineda. “But, I grew up in Owatonna with a single mother. I spent a lot of time over at my friend’s house eating pickled herring and pickled eggs. This is the food I grew up with.”

“I have Norwegian ancestry,” said Reuter, who’s originally from Austin, Minn. “We made lefse for the holidays. But a few years ago, I got to travel to Norway and fell in love with the food.”

Torsk is the Norwegian word for cod, and like that versatile fish, the menu can take several different forms, depending on the chefs’ inspirations.

One such dish is the Cajun fried smelt ($14). Pineda was working on recipe inspiration in Tofte, Minn., when he happened upon freshly caught smelt at a general store. Back at the cabin, he fried them up and fell in love. “These should be on every bar menu in Minnesota.”

Bar Brava also regularly hosts wine takeovers, inviting makers to pour all of their varieties. Torsk will lean into the opportunity to create dishes that pair with the wines. That’s how a Portuguese sandwich ($17) ended up on a Nordic menu — a winemaker brought in a whole lineup of wines from Portugal.

Other dishes of note: puffed-up potato bacon dumplings ($14), savory, hearty and the best of all comforts in one dish; a plate-sized pork schnitzel with sliced capers and frisee ($19); and a Basque cheesecake laced with lingonberries ($11).

Working as a two-person team in a restaurant, without all the demands of restaurant ownership, has been a labor of love for the Torsk team. Although they aren’t saying they would pass up the opportunity to someday have a permanent home.

Now, they’re just having a lot of fun, serving flavorful food that speaks to the region and their souls. “It’s how we want to cook and what we love to do. Just let the ingredients dictate what we’re cooking,” said Reuter.

“It’s one of those things where 1+1=3,” Rice said of Torsk’s food and the natural wines he’s pouring.

In fact, the Torsk pairing is going so well, they’ll likely stick around a full year. And then, who knows what comes next? Likely a new evolution.

“I will say, it’s a lot better to drink wine than crank on spreadsheets all day,” said Rice.

Bar Brava, 1914 Washington Av. N., Mpls., 612-208-1270, barbravamn.com. Open 5-10 p.m. Tue.-Sat.; kitchen closes at 9 p.m. Follow Torsk on Instagram at @torsk_mn.