After a too-long absence, a full-service restaurant is returning to the Walker Art Center.
Esker Grove, located at the museum's just-opened Vineland Place entrance pavilion, is set to debut on Dec. 13. The restaurant is the work of Culinaire, the Dallas-based culinary giant behind Sea Change at the Guthrie Theater and Fika at the American Swedish Institute.
Lunch will be served Tuesday through Friday, and dinner will be served daily. Weekend brunch service will begin Jan. 7. Lunch will include sandwiches (an eggplant tartine with preserved tomato, a grilled cheese made with apples and pungent rachlette), couscous with lamb sausages and pine nuts, smoked sturgeon rillettes and red rice with preserved mushrooms and rotisserie-roasted vegetables.
Dinner will feature spit-roasted sturgeon, honey-glazed lamb shoulder, a dry-aged New York strip steak, a celery root tart and a farro and endive salad.
Chef Doug Flicker (Piccolo, Sandcastle) is overseeing the operation, which will be managed on a day-to-day basis by chef de cuisine T.J. Rawitzer (Masu Sushi & Robata, the Third Bird), beverage manager Jon Olson (La Belle Vie, Icehouse and Bradstreet Craftshouse) and general manager Kim Tong (Piccolo).
The restaurant will feature an annual commission of a new art work; the opening work is a collage (pictured, above) by Duluth artist Frank Big Bear.
