Change is good. At least it is at three Minneapolis restaurants, where replacement chefs are shaking up familiar menus.
A grand transitionBen Pichler met his friend and fellow chef Jon Radle when the two were working at Solera. When Radle landed at the top spot at Grand Cafe, he recruited Pichler to join him and, for nearly three years, the two teamed up against the hardscrabble challenges of running a small restaurant. "I think I saw him more than my wife," Pichler said.
After Radle's death in April, owner Mary Hunter promoted Pichler from sous chef to executive chef. A tough way to land a job, surely, but it's not taking away from Radle's legacy to say that Pichler is doing admirable work, continuing the restaurant's reputation as a neighborhood cafe that draws far more than a within-walking-distance clientele.
Here's why: The affordable, tightly focused menu remains seasonally sharp and skillfully rendered. The dinner menu's canapés -- I love that underused word -- remain, a plate of constantly changing small bites that could be roasted beets spooned into endive or gravlax on tiny toasts. They come six to an order, and they're a lovely way to start an evening.
Flatbread makers everywhere could learn from Pichler, who feeds egg-enriched pizza dough through a pasta roller until it's paper-thin, fries it until crisp and then lavishly tops it with farm-fresh ingredients before finishing it in the oven.
Instead of settling for yet another beet-chèvre salad, Pichler inserts the complementary flavors of fennel, hazelnut and orange. A gazpacho started with cucumbers and green grapes, and the beautiful pale-green results were coolly exhilarating and slightly sweet, with subtle heat undertones.
Pichler's best dishes take full advantage of his yearlong stint behind the counter at Clancey's Meats & Fish in Linden Hills. Rabbit hindquarters were braised in chicken stock and white wine until fall-apart tender, a texture that played nicely against chewy Swiss chard and sweet carrots. A cold-smoked pork chop, rubbed with coriander and herbs, was so juicy it melted in the mouth like a soft-serve cone on a sweltering August day. For vegetarians, Pichler filled triangle-shaped ravioli with lemon, basil and ricotta and serves them in a pool of fennel broth, a vastly appealing summer dinner.
Other pluses: At weekend breakfast, it's all about the biscuits smothered in orange-smoked paprika-pork sausage and bourbon gravy. The wine and beer lists are affordable and interesting. The funky setting, with its mismatched furniture and eclectic art, is a tad shopworn but charms nonetheless, particularly at night, when the intimate spaces exude an affable warmth.
