Restaurant reviews: Modern Cafe improves on the classics

By Jeremy Iggers, Star Tribune

Last update: June 2, 1999 - 11:00 PM

The owner of the Modern Cafe in northeast Minneapolis has opened a more ambitious and expensive sister establishment -- Chet's Taverna in St. Paul. The offshoot is a very fine restaurant, but the original may be truer to its owner's original vision -- imaginative cuisine in simple surroundings.

I don't actually believe that the Modern Cafe's chef and co-owner, Jim Grell, gets up every morning and asks himself what he can do to make the chefs at most of the Twin Cities' high-end dining establishments look bad. But I can't dine at the Modern Cafe without being reminded of what is missing from so much of the local dining scene:

Grell and his kitchen team actually know how to cook.

There is no great skill involved in slapping a filet mignon on the grill, or serving up a lightly seared slice of sushi-grade tuna with a trendy citrus sauce for $25 a plate. What takes talent is to take a cut of of meat as humble as pot roast or Swiss steak and turn it into something memorable for under $10.

When Jim and Patty Grell took over the old Rabatin's Cafe in 1994, they had the great good sense to leave the classic '40s malt shop decor intact, and to create a cuisine that complements it. Their menus have always offered classic American diner fare side-by-side with trendier dishes such as penne pasta with red peppers, peas and chicken ($6.75 for lunch) or duck confit and basil cakes ($5 as a lunchtime appetizer, $9.75 as a dinner entree).

Grell's renditions of the American classics aren't just as good as the originals; they're better -- made with a skilled chef's attention to quality. And his renditions of the trendier dishes have a hearty simplicity that stays true to the traditional diner cooking style. The chicken ragout over polenta, a lunch special, may be more complex than the usual chicken and dumplings, but at its heart, it is still comfort food.

The only steak on the Modern's menu is the Swiss steak, slowly braised and served in a roasted tomato and rosemary sauce with roasted Yukon gold potatoes and a green olive butter, ($9.50) and it has more flavor than any porterhouse or ribeye I have had in recent memory for two or three times the price.

The nightly specials show off the kitchen at its best. Grell, a veteran of D'Amico Cucina and Giorgio's, has the talent to transform cheap cuts of chicken and pork into a remarkable country pate ($5.75 for a generous portion, served with capers, diced tomatoes and tossed field greens) or to take a few pennies worth of potatoes and flour, a few ounces of portobello mushrooms, corn niblets and some fresh sage, and create a dish of delicate potato gnocchi in a flavorful mushroom sauce ($9).

Desserts include a classic apple crisp, served a la mode, as well as oatmeal raisin cookies, a flourless chocolate cake, and daily specials.

The wine list offers an eclectic assortment of varietals, mostly from California, ranging from a Marietta Old Vine Red from the Sonoma Valley ($21) to an Oliver Caldwell 1996 Zinfandel for $60. Monthly wine tastings are in the works; call the restaurant for details. The Modern now has a few sidewalk tables, shaded by umbrellas.

Creative cuisine

If you could create a topographic IQ map of the Twin Cities, 1648 Grand Av., St. Paul, would stand out as one of the peaks. The Hungry Mind isn't just the Twin Cities' best bookstore -- it's a major hub of local intellectual life, and a regular venue for readings by writers of local and national renown.

For the Table of Contents, housed in the front of the bookstore, that translates into a culinary challenge -- to create a cuisine that can hold the interest of some of the Twin Cities most sophisticated and well-traveled palates. Chef Chris Stevens meets the challenge with an eclectic menu that runs the gamut from an appetizer-sized house pizza topped with roma tomatoes, red onion, fresh basil, fontina, mozzarella and provolone $5.95) to a grilled beef tenderloin served over smoky bacon and black beans with ancho pepper demi-glace and red onion marmelade ($24.95).

I wasn't thrilled with everything I tried, but the batting average is impressive. My favorites include the sesame roasted duck breast ($19.50), served medium rare and accompanied by sauteed spring vegetables and a lively rhubarb sauce and a nightly fish special of very fresh escalar, a firm white ocean fish, served over a bed of mango puree with sauteed snow peas, black fungus and red peppers. The fettucine, tossed with with braised rabbit, red onions, fresh English peas and oven-dried tomatoes($13.95) was refreshingly light and cooked perfectly al dente.

Less successful dishes included an appetizer of crawfish, crab and shrimp in doughy wonton skins ($8.95), minced so finely that the textures of the ingredients disappeared, and a dessert of flaky dry phyllo purses that encased a wild rice and cherry custard ($5.75).

Better bets from the dessert list include the chocolate brule (like a crusty chocolate cheesecake, $5.50) and the French Toast Poundcake thing, ($6.00), wedges of cake sauteed in butter and topped with dollops of mascarpone. The cafe now has a very simple brick outdoor patio, shaded in the evening.