Restaurants of the year
Six new or relocated dining spots that made a big difference in 2010.
August 17, 2012 at 8:56PM
Big things are happening inside tiny Piccolo. It's not going overboard to invoke the word "visionary" when considering what chef/co-owner Doug Flicker has accomplished since he opened the restaurant in February. The menu's 16 or so choices are designed to encourage and facilitate a build-your-own degustation experience, with Flicker giving locally accepted tastes a much-needed boot in the backside. Smoked eel, tripe and other menu rarities blossom under his fertile imagination and technical prowess; he is, after all, the chef who turned scrambled eggs and pigs feet into the year's most talked-about dish.
Co-owners Mike Brown and James Winberg snared the foodiscenti's attention during their talked-about tenure at Victory 44, but they secured their adoration -- rightly so -- when they became their own bosses. An unlikely address (sleepy downtown Robbinsdale) and an even more unlikely premise (chef-driven flights of fancy at fast-casual prices) makes this fun-loving, trend-setting gem all the more remarkable and unabashedly enjoyable.
After years of working for others, how great is it to see chef Landon Schoenefeld running his own show? For once, the phrase "rethinking comfort food" isn't boring diners to tears. On the contrary. Schoenefeld's vivid imagination, strong technical know-how and clear vision are forging a long list of ingenious and admirable all-American classics.
A ridiculously roomy new Lowertown setting -- it's across the street from the St. Paul Farmers Market, the world's most appropriate address -- has given chef/co-owner Lenny Russo his dream platform. Now locavores -- or anyone who cares about good food -- can enjoy multi-course splendors in the serene dining room, refuel in the comfy and casual lounge, celebrate in several private-event rooms, and shop and snack in butcher shop/bakery/greengrocery. Bravo.
In many ways, 2010 was the Year of the Suburban Diner, and there was no better example of the burbs' newfound dining riches than this latest from the D'Amico empire. This Italian-inspired pro deftly caters to the demands of its buttoned-up office park environs, but also injects some much-needed energy, style and cooking skill into a corner of the metro where those qualities are sorely lacking.
Like most mortals, restaurateur Jim Ringo fell in love with the City Center's historic Art Deco space at first sight. In a noble act of civic generosity, Ringo reopened the glitzy 1930s glamourpuss, enabling another generation of Minneapolitans to revel in its Fred-and-Ginger fabulousness.
