Appetites: The most anticipated restaurant openings in the Twin Cities for 2018
While the narrative surrounding the Minneapolis-St. Paul restaurant scene at the end of 2017 focused on the rash of restaurant closings, there is much to look forward to in 2018 according to Mpls.St.Paul Magazine restaurant critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl.
She joined Tom Crann for Appetites on All Things Considered this week to talk about the most anticipated restaurant openings in 2018.
"No food stories could cut through the excitement around the Super Bowl, but now that it's well in the past we can get a sense of what the rest of the year looks like, and it's pretty exciting," said Moskowitz Grumdahl.
Here are three restaurants to look forward to according to Dara:
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Woodfired bagels and house-smoked fish at a yet-to-be-named deli from the Mucci's and St. Dinette crew: chef Adam Eaton, owner Tim Niver, GM Laurel Elm.
Why it's important: People in the Twin Cities are really wanting a better bagel, see the rise of Instagram bagel star Rise.
The former owners of St. Paul's grass-fed steak house Strip Club have become St. Paul superstars, with linked restaurants that include Saint Dinette, Mucci's, Bar Brigade, Delicata Pizza and the Como Pavilion's forthcoming Spring Cafe.
This group has really unlocked how folks in the Twin Cities want to eat, and it's largely about casual foods done in an elevated style.
Open: June
Pearl & The Thief from Justin Sutherland. Sutherland is really going to be a star, and he's bringing a personal take on low-country and American gulf-coast seafood to Stillwater in whiskey-focused Pearl & the Thief.
Why it's important: Sutherland's a huge talent who cooks with both precision and feeling, and this is his first personal menu. The shorthand is the Husk of the North, but we'll see.
Open: May.
Rebirth of Heartland from Lenny Russo in Wayzata.
Heartland was one of the most important restaurants we ever had, and no one has been pushing locavore food as imaginatively since it closed on the last night of 2016. Shockingly, Russo has taken over the food program at the Landing in Wayzata (the new $65 million hotel) and will be bringing back Heartland in all but name.
Why it's important: It might look to someone not in the system that locavorism is something simple that grows of its own volition — in fact no, it takes a person to follow every question about how we eat to its ultimate source, and it takes a person to not take no for an answer, over 30 years. Also, this is going to be the metro's premiere river-and-lakefish restaurant, which we desperately need.
Open: May 10