Piccolo chef Doug Flicker to run new Walker Art Center restaurant

More details have emerged from the Walker Art Center about the museum's new restaurant.

The big news: It's going to be run by chef Doug Flicker, he of four-star Piccolo (4300 Bryant Av. S., Mpls., 612-827-8111, piccolompls.com) and casual, summer-only Sandcastle (4955 W. Nokomis Pkwy., Mpls., 612-722-5550, sandcastlempls.com).

"It's an amazing venue, and I'm super excited," he said.

With an early December opening in the works, there are few concrete details, menu-wise. Still, this much is certain: Flicker will be serving dinner six nights a week.

"It's all still in the infant phase, but I do know that it will be totally different from Piccolo," said Flicker. "The night menu will be very vegetable-forward. They're also installing a beautiful rotisserie, so we'll be making great use of that."

Lunch will be served, counter-service style, Tuesday through Friday, and it will land somewhere in the soup-salad-sandwich universe.

"It will be fast and simple, but complex and delicious," he said. "We'll do different things at different times of the day."

There'll be weekend brunch, too, along with a separate bar menu.

The other news is the reveal of the restaurant's name. It's Esker Grove.

Let's break this down, shall we? An esker is a winding embankment of earth and other deposits, formed by glacial meltwater; it's a reference to the restaurant's hillside site. As for grove, it's a nod to the stands of honey locust trees that will shade the restaurant's patio.

The 94-seat restaurant and bar are centerpieces of the museum's new glass-walled entry pavilion (designed by Minneapolis architectural firm HGA), part of a $23.3 million construction/landscaping project.

The dining room will include a 40-foot wall that will showcase art on a rotating schedule ("It's going to be a great crossover between food and art," said Flicker), and the 60-seat patio will offer views of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the downtown skyline.

Esker Grove will be the Walker's fourth restaurant since 2003, when the long-running Gallery 8 closed.

Wolfgang Puck's Asian fusion-focused 20.21 opened in 2005 and ran for six years. It was followed by Gather, a D'Amico & Partners venture. D'Amico departed earlier this year and was replaced by Culinaire, the Dallas-based outfit that's also behind Sea Change at the Guthrie Theater and Fika at the American Swedish Institute. (When Esker Grove opens, Gather will become rental space, and a bar for the adjacent theater.)

"The Walker hired Culinaire, and Culinaire hired me," said Flicker. "It's similar to Tim and Sea Change."

That's chef Tim McKee, who has been overseeing the Guthrie's enormous first-floor restaurant — and its chef de cuisine, currently Ryan Cook — since 2009. Flicker will also manage a chef de cuisine, a local hire whom he can't yet name.

Flicker knows the area well; his Auriga was a Lowry Hill neighbor for a decade, until it closed in 2007.

"It's nice to be back in the old neighborhood," he said.

Upton 43 (4312 Upton Av. S., Mpls., 612-920-3406, upton43.com) has been hailed as one of 21 of the country's best new restaurants by Eater.com national critic Bill Addison. Find the details at strib.mn/21best.

Bon Appétit has named St. Genevieve (5003 Bryant Av. S., Mpls., 612-353-4843) one of the country's 50 best new restaurants (find the story at bonappetit.com). The magazine will whittle that list down to 10 on Aug. 16.

Afar magazine has selected Broders' Pasta Bar (5000 Penn Av. S., Mpls., 612-925-9202, broders.com) as one of the "12 best places for pasta around the U.S." Find the story at strib.mn/pasta.

Read full reviews and other restaurant news at startribune.com/dining.