Nightlife: Nick and Eddie the new Loring hotspot

Nick and Eddie seems like a funny name for a restaurant where none of the owners is named Nick or Eddie.

It's all about carrying on tradition, said Doug Anderson, who calls himself Nick and Eddie's "curator." The hip new bar overlooking Loring Park is named after a famed New York restaurant where Anderson worked in the '90s. He's tried to replicate its coolness, even having the old spot's owner oversee some of the construction.

"He washed the place with his DNA," Anderson said.

Nick and Eddie also harks back to an old Minneapolis institution, the New French Bar and Cafe, which before it closed in 2001 was one of the nightspots that sparked the Warehouse District scene. If the jocks were hanging out at the Loon, then the New French was ground zero for boho artists and musicians.

"The New French was like a clubhouse for me," said Anderson, a former punk rocker. "It was great. No pretense."

To bring that feeling back, he's staffed the bar with friends from those days. Behind the bar you'll find Dave Foley (of the band Things That Fall Down), Lori Barbero (Babes in Toyland), Paddy Mulloy (Skull Fuck) and Todd Trainer (Shellac).

Yep, this place is like a big comfy couch for aging rockers. Note the "comfy." With its two-story ceilings and full-length windows onto the park, it's a great place to come and unwind after a long day.

People are already talking about the bar's eclectic mix of music, pumped through a state-of-the-art system.

There isn't a large cocktail list yet, but a couple of signature drinks are worth trying. It being spring, I'd go for the refreshing Vodka and Ting cocktail, made with a Jamaican grapefruit soda.

On the food side, everyone is talking about the gnocchi -- tiny pillows of fluffy awesomeness. Also try Keith's Burger, named after a New York guy who liked his burger on an English muffin. And then there's the butterscotch pudding, a sundae cup filled with gooey madness by Anderson's pastry-chef wife, Jessica. (She's actually co-owner with an old buddy of theirs, chef Steve Vranian.)

Anderson is trying to make Nick and Eddie a party spot for art events. Saturday, there'll be an afterparty for "Patti Smith: Dream of Life," a documentary on the music legend playing at the Minneapolis-St. Paul film festival. Anderson plans to show archival footage of great Minneapolis bands from the '80s and '90s on three screens.

Like the New French, he wants the new restaurant to be a place "where nobody is going to raise an eyebrow at you. You can be whoever you want to be here."