OPENERS
COMPILED BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES
NEW DINING DIGS
Sea Change wasn’t the only new
restaurant to open its doors
amidst a struggling economy;
several others took the leap
and made a splash. While
McKee opened Sea Change,
his partner Thoma opened Bar
La Grassa, an Italian spot in
the Warehouse District, with
112 Eatery (and James Beard
nominated) Chef Isaac Becker
at the helm. Though the closing
of D’Amico Cucina saddened
many local diners, the quick
announcement of the opening of D’Amico Kitchen at the
Chambers Hotel lessened the
blow. The Irish king himself,
Kieran Folliard, already the
owner of three favorite pubs
in the Twin Cities, spread his
wings to St. Louis Park and
opened Cooper in the city’s
new West End shopping and
entertainment development.
Bombay native Raghavan Iyer
opened Om, an elegant,
multilevel Indian nightlife spot,
in the former home of Nate’s
Clothing in the Warehouse
( a look back )
THE BEST OF THE MIDWEST
Perhaps the biggest dining news
(or just plain news) of 2009
came in June when our very
own Tim McKee—probably one
of America’s most hard-working men, who, along with Josh
Thoma, is the brains behind
La Belle Vie, Solera and Barrio
in Minneapolis and Smalley’s
Caribbean Barbeque and Pirate
Bar in Stillwater—won the
James Beard Award for Best
Chef in the Midwest. For once
the honor skipped Chicago and
came to the Twin Cities and the
restaurant community couldn’t
have been more thrilled. In July,
on the heels of such an accomplishment, and if he wasn’t
already busy enough, McKee
opened to great fanfare and
critical acclaim the Twin Cities’
first sustainable seafood restaurant, replacing the Guthrie
Theater’s ground floor Cue
with Sea Change.
Saying
Goodbye
to 2009
District. Phil Roberts and
Parasole Restaurant Holdings
are also at it again. However,
instead of creating a brand-new
space, they closed down Figlio
in Uptown and reopened a
couple months later as
Tim McKee Kieran Folliard, Cooper
Northstar Commuter Rail
CHANGES IN TRANSIT
The past year saw some big
steps made in how we get
around downtown Minneapolis
and the outlying metro area.
Mid-October confusion arose
when both First and Hennepin
Il Gatto, another Italian restaurant. The list goes on and
on, including Ginger Hop and
Northeast Social in Northeast
Minneapolis, Loring Kitchen &
Bar in Loring Park, Brasa and
Real Meal Deli in St. Paul, and
several others.
avenues were converted from
one-way to two-way streets in
an effort to calm traffic and
place more people at the doors
of businesses. Marquette and
Second avenues were beautified
with new sidewalks, lampposts
and trees, while an extra bus
NORTHSTAR PHOTO COURTESY OF METRO TRANSIT; KIERAN FOLLIARD PHOTO BY TODD BUCHANAN
