Chef Russell Klein and his wife Desta pose in their Meritage restaurant in St. Paul. Meritage. Chef/co-owner Russell Klein fully embraces his Gallic restaurant roots (the native New Yorker trained at the French Culinary Institute under Jacques Pepin, and an influential early job was at La Caravelle, one of Manhattan�s legendary French kitchens), and that�s a gutsy move in a town not exactly known for its Francophilian ways. But he�s also not locked into a rigid brasserie model, casually inserting dishes that reflect his whole life experience.

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