Remember when Nicollet Mall was once the city's preeminent retail address? Here's another reason why it has evolved into downtown's Eat Street: the Oceanaire Seafood Room (50 S. 6th St., www.theoceanaire.com) has traded 12-plus years at its original location, deep within the Hyatt Regency Hotel, for the street-level former home of the M&S Grill, at 6th Street and Nicollet Mall.
The spiffy new restaurant, which is currently serving dinner daily starting at 5 p.m., will kick off its weekday lunch service Jan. 30.
Speaking of the Hyatt (1300 Nicollet Mall), the hotel is undergoing a $25 million renovation that includes a remake of its in-house restaurants.
The hotel's mammoth lobby is being gutted and reformulated to include a bar (complete with massive stone fireplace) overlooking Nicollet Mall, as well as a breakfast-lunch-dinner restaurant and a grab-and-go deli. A May opening is planned.
Coming this spring
George and the Dragon is going into the building that has replaced the burned-out former home of Blackbird and Heidi's Minneapolis, at 50th St. and Bryant Av. in Minneapolis.
Co-owner Fred Navarro is encouraging soon-to-be customers to think "public house," and not "pub."
"'Pub' is a word that gets used too often," he said. "We want to create a place for the neighborhood, where families and friends can get together. We want to offer interesting things to drink, and we want to make regular food and make it great."
Navarro and his spouse Stacy are no strangers to the restaurant business; both are longtime vets of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant empire's Mall of America outposts (Tucci Benucch, Twin City Grill and the Magic Pan). Catering to the neighborhood is important: the couple and their 8-year-old son Paco live six blocks from the restaurant.
The Navarros are promising scratch-made "pub classics and family recipes," ranging from fish and chips, mac-and-cheese and bangers and mash for the former and a five-spice braised pork shoulder with garlic green beans and a fried egg for the latter.
The 64-seat restaurant and bar, which will feature reclaimed Minnesota-lumbered black walnut and white oak, should debut in April.
Oh, and the name? "George is the patron saint of England, so that's the public house tie-in," said Fred Navarro. "But it's also the name of a Kandinsky print in our house that we've always been fond of."
The Year of the Dragon
Big Bowl (Galleria in Edina, Rosedale in Roseville and Ridgedale in Minnetonka, www.bigbowl.com) is celebrating Chinese New Year through Monday with special menu items (shrimp and chive dumplings, Cantonese-style lobster), a dice game where dine-in customers can have the number they roll deducted in dollars from their tab (Friday only) and a free gift draw (Sunday only). Be sure to purchase the bar's special blood orange ginger ale; proceeds up to $5,000 benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
On Friday and Saturday, Rice Paper (3948 W. 50th Street, Edina, www.ricepaperrestaurant.com) will mark the festivities with a multi-course $30 menu. Items include a green papaya salad, lemongrass-marinated beef in cucumber cups, shrimp over grilled bok choy, beef lettuce wraps and chocolate-almond meringues. Reservations: 952-288-2888.
