A year-and-a-half after it closed, Devil's Advocate is back.
The downtown Minneapolis restaurant and bar shuttered in April 2017 at its former S. 10th St. location to make way for development. Owner Erik Forsberg planned to relocate the restaurant to Dan Kelly's Pub, on S. 7th St., but that move never materialized.
Other than a 10-day teaser during the 2018 Super Bowl, Minneapolis has had to live without the formerly meatball-centric restaurant far longer than expected.
"Indeed, it has been a long time, but we finally made it," Forsberg said.
Last month, the restaurant relaunched with a largely pizza-and-pasta-focused menu, along with ample vegetarian choices, in the former Masa space in Target's Nicollet Mall headquarters (1070 Nicollet Mall, 612-354-7735, devilsadvocatebar.com).
"The remodel was a little more difficult than we anticipated," Forsberg said. "We wanted to try to recreate as much as we could of the same feel, but going from a 100-year-old historic building to a very modern glassed-in corner space in a 10-year-old building is very difficult to do."
The new space gives the restaurant a chance to "elevate" the scratch dishes it always made, Forsberg said. Pastas are housemade, pizzas are "artisanal," and sandwiches and salads dominate at lunch. The restaurant's own farm in Otsego provides greenhouse-grown microgreens, edible flowers, mushrooms and more.
The focus on veggies was practical, said Forsberg, who also owns Erik the Red near U.S. Bank Stadium.
