What can D'Amico and Sons do at the Walker Art Center that Wolfgang Puck couldn't? That's one of a few questions hovering over Gather, the eclectic new lunch-driven bistro that opens Thursday in the old 20.21 space.

Gather comes with some advantages. The Walker is an internationally known art destination, and in addition to the former 20.21 dining space, the full package includes room for a casual cafe and summertime outdoor grill. But it comes with challenges, too. The restaurant is difficult to access from the street, and 20.21 long wrestled with striking a balance between serving accessible food and pleasing a high-end clientele.

The new direction seems a bit more casual and less Asian-inflected. The menu includes a grilled cheese sandwich, a turkey burger and buttermilk-marinated chicken. Local vendors contribute cheese, turkey, produce and morels, but the relatively short menu also includes halibut, tuna, Virginia ham and Montana beef. Lunch entrees range around $9-$16, and dinner is a small-plates menu mostly in the $10 range.

Chef Josh Brown has been with D'Amico 14 years, since age 19. But his roots in food start way out West -- in Havre, Mont., where he grew up. Brown's family lived in town but spent weekends on the family farm.

"It was a wheat farm, but it also had cattle and chickens, things like that," recalls Brown. "We had about three acres of gardens. There's 14 of my family members, and we'd go out there every spring and plant everything from radishes and beans and peas and turnips and corn and strawberries and potatoes and kohlrabi, and every weekend we'd go out and maintain the garden. And it's something where here [at Gather], we're using so many fresh ingredients that it brings me back to my childhood."

So the goal is simple and approachable?

"There's nothing on the menu that's scary," he affirms. "We have everything from a fantastic grilled cheese that'll bring you back to your childhood to a short-rib banh mi."

"One day we sampled probably 45 grilled cheese sandwiches, and we had like 15 cheeses," says Brown. "The Prairie Breeze cheddar just melted really nice and creamy."

Gather's tomato soup had a luxurious mouthfeel, beyond the typical diner version of the dish.

"We do a couple things to make it a bit more adult than a classic tomato soup," says Brown. "We take garlic and basil and fry it out in olive oil -- we let it cook for about 45 minutes at a really low temperature so the basil gets crispy and the garlic starts to roast a little bit."

A little wine and San Marzano tomatoes help take the soup to the next level, as does the reintroduction of the olive oil to the soup.

The Heavy Table and Peace Coffee are teaming up with more than a dozen local purveyors of beer, coffee, baked goodies, cheese and more on Friday to present the first ever North Coast Nosh. (6:30 p.m. Fri. $12 Peace Coffee Cafe, 3262 Minnehaha Av. S., Mpls.)