A Modern way to dine

Every week, the Modern Cafe sells somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 pounds of pot roast.

"I've tried to take it off the menu," said co-owner Jim Grell. "But people start screaming, so it's staying."

Phew. Few Twin Cities restaurateurs can boast a signature dish so similarly exalted. For nearly 15 years, the Northeaster everyone shorthands to "the Modern" has been cranking out fist-size hunks of barely pink, slow-cooked beef, so lovingly braised to mouth-melting tenderness that it cascades apart at a fork's slightest pressure.

There's more: tantalizingly caramelized roasted carrots, ultra-creamy mashed potatoes and a heart-unhealthy dollop of sour cream wickedly laced with tons of freshly grated horseradish. In a word, Wow.

It would be easy for the kitchen to take such a mortgage-paying stalwart for granted, yet this supreme meat-and-potatoes combo never tastes like a rote obligation. Even on a sweltering summer's day, when the very last words I want to hear are "pot roast," it remains utterly comforting, the dining equivalent of visiting your mother. Well, only if Mom is as gifted a cook as chef Phillip Becht.

Because he labors in such modest surroundings, Becht doesn't have the high profile that he might enjoy elsewhere, an oversight for one of the city's culinary luminaries. Nothing against his talented predecessors -- first Mike Phillips, now at the Craftsman, then Scott Pampuch, who went on to create Corner Table -- but under Becht's nearly seven-year tutelage, the Modern has never been better. Becht subtly nudges the boundaries of his tightly focused menu in engaging new directions without putting a dent in the Modern's likable aversion to formality or its hugely appealing blue-collar diner roots. The kitchen has no pretense when it comes to its limited technical prowess. Instead, the cooking avoids obvious razzle-dazzle in favor of a visceral integrity.

Beyond predictable

Case in point: chicken breast. Yawn, right? Wrong. It's an exercise in the glory of simplicity, starting with bone-in Amish chicken that's barely dredged in semolina before hitting first the stove and then the oven, where it's lovingly basted to achieve maximum juiciness. If you've ever wondered what chicken should taste like, then dig in.

With his killer meatloaf and dressed-up chèvre-dried tomato-mac-and-cheese, Becht could write the book on contemporary American diner fare (less impressive are the too-fatty short ribs and a greasy, one-note pork chili), and his standouts really stand out. Best is the aptly named "big bowl," a massive jumble of shrimp, clams, beans and the kitchen's sublime orange- and coriander-flecked pork sausage. He also doesn't shy away from heat, enlisting the secret powers of a beat-up wok to work its magic by tossing crisp green beans and grilled tofu with an unapologetically fiery sauce improvised from Korean red pepper paste and house-made vinegar. If only all vegan cooking tasted so good.

Salads are so fresh they give the impression that their contents were rushed, via police escort, straight from Riverbend Farm in Delano directly to the plate. Becht knows to barely stand in the way of their flagrant wholesomeness, tossing lush Bibb leaves with a mellow, old-school lemon-buttermilk blend and finishing it with avocado and bits of bacon-like chorizo, or jazzing up delicate mixed greens (including subversively spicy mustards) with a bracing sherry vinaigrette.

A springtime take on split pea soup has a heart-on-its-sleeve honesty. It's a meal in a bowl, a cool pool of pale green loveliness that surrounds a butter-drenched crouton, a paper-thin ribbon of truffled Italian ham and a few judicious drizzles of a lively mustard seed oil. Young rapini's stubborn chewiness is dissipated on the grill while being infused with a welcome bit of smoke. Even a plate of pickled cucumbers, carrots and peppers is more than it seems; Becht should think about canning his ginger-kissed bread-and-butter pickles and getting them on supermarket shelves everywhere.

Lunch break bonanza

Like its evening counterpart, there's nothing extraneous about the lunch menu. It revisits a handful of dinner entrees (pot roast, naturally), adds a few others (including the aforementioned mac-and-cheese) and inserts a few sandwiches, including a superb burger, a hoagie stuffed with stewed pork and cool green salsa and a monster of a meatloaf sandwich.

It's safe to say that value-conscious dining gets its due, and then some, at the Modern. I'm hard pressed to name another Twin Cities restaurant that hums along with such sure-footed ambition yet manages to hold its top prices to $10.75 (lunch) and $17.50 (dinner). No, those are not typos.

If every day is bargain day at the Modern, then Tuesdays resemble a Wal-Mart-style price rollback. The birthplace of the local half-price wine movement has moved on from that now-ubiquitous promotion ("It had run its course," said Grell), replaced with a pair of $5-by-the-glass pours of whatever intriguing red or white is being phased off the list. There's also an ever-changing $10 pasta entree. A few weeks ago Becht was finishing rotini with bacon, kale, potatoes and a splash of cream, a satisfying, beautifully balanced exercise in frugality that still managed to taste like a splurge. Wait, that pretty much describes every Modern meal.

The weekend breakfast menu is similarly special, with plate after plate of affordable, well-executed, no-frills scratch cooking: nicely knobbly biscuits studded with green onions and blanketed in a hearty sausage gravy, a stick-to-the-ribs hash that gives a.m. customers a crack at that pot roast, and layers of black beans, crispy tortilla strips and eggs finished with a vibrant salsa. The plus-sized pancakes are exceptional, hazelnut-brown on the outside, light and tender on the inside; inexplicably, they're served with a dreary maple syrup substitute instead of the real thing. Why bother?

The limited dessert selection follows in the savory menu's modest and soul-satisfying footsteps. An apple crisp could serve as a role model for its genre. Coffee panna cotta was so luscious it could stand in for one of those "Twilight" starlets, and a mint-kissed chocolate pot de crème, spooned into a coffee mug and topped with a scandalous dollop of thick whipped cream, radiated uncomplicated goodness. The exceptional bread basket is sourced from Rustica.

All in the family

Grell and his wife, Patty, have carefully maintained the well-preserved bones of their restaurant's 1940s neighborhood diner origins (old-timers will remember its original tenant, Rabatin's Northeast Cafe). Still, a few modern-day touches -- a green-and-maroon tile floor, witty artworks by Minneapolis printmaker Jenny Schmid -- keep it from descending into Periodpieceland.

The droll and accommodating Grell (ask him how he is, and he'll invariably reply, "I'm nice," and deliver it with a semi-believable expression) seems to be forever working his dining room like a rented mule. Fortunately, he's backed by a dream-team wait staff, including veterans John Gerlach and Janet Lewis, two of the most diligent, least flappable pros in town. Note to potential servers everywhere: If you want to learn how it's done, carefully watch this crew go through their paces, and take notes. Oh, and order the pot roast.

Rick Nelson • 612-673-4757