PRIME TIME for new beginnings

Smoke signals in Stillwater

Here's a bit of unsolicited business advice to Smalley's Caribbean Barbeque and Pirate Bar owners Tim McKee and Josh Thoma: Find a way to bottle the delectable wood-smoke fragrance that wafts from the restaurant's kitchen vents and over downtown Stillwater. You'll make millions.

They won't need to spend a dime on advertising because that pimento wood perfume is a far more effective marketing strategy than a lifetime supply of those super-sticky website pop-up ads. Even following an enormous dinner at the Dock, several desserts at Savories and a post-gluttony Sauternes at Cesare's, no sane person could resist the tease of that seductive scent.

Chef Shawn Smalley is putting a blackened stamp on pork ribs and chicken, and insinuating that smoky goodness into pork shoulder, beef brisket, shrimp and sausages (most under $14), serving it on plates, in sandwiches and as combo platters. Appetizers ($5.50 to $11) include corn fritters, fried green tomatoes, crab cakes and jerk-style chicken wings. Sides ($3.50) range from cornbread with jalapeño-honey butter and chile- and bacon-laced mac-and-cheese to roasted sweet potatoes and creamy cole slaw. A luscious Key lime pie tartlet and a coconut flan top the dessert roster ($7 to $8.50).

The former BT Doyle's (and, prior to that, Esteban's) has cleaned up rather nicely, with the two-story dining room still sandwiched between a patio on one side and the kitchen and bar on the other. Name something the Pirate Bar and the temptation is to plaster the place in Jack Sparrow tchotchke, but that impulse is, thankfully, nowhere to be seen. Best of all, the bartending staff mixes a tasty list of looky cocktails ($6.50 to $10), made from a rum list as long as Johnny Depp's arm.

423 S. Main St., Stillwater, 651-439-5375. Open 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; bar open to 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Another Guthrie destination

It took first-time restaurateurs Nuntanit Charoensit and Kong Tiyawat to take advantage of what seems to be a prime dining location. The storefront kitty-corner from the Guthrie Theater now hums with their new Kindee Thai Restaurant.

That's Charoensit, a Bangkok native, cooking with her crew behind a great-looking copper-lined bar (the warmly contemporary room -- with prime Guthrie views -- was designed by Thai architect Jiroj Ittiwetchai). Charoensit is cooking the food she said she grew up eating: ground chicken seasoned with mint and lime and rolled into lettuce cups, delicately battered and fried hard-cooked eggs, spicy soups laced with galangal and kaffir lime leaves, super-spicy rice noodles, several curry variations and a few vegetable stir fries -- all served with an eye toward good looks and clean, bright flavors. Top price is $14, and beer and wine should be on their way.

719 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis, 612-465-8303, kindeethairestaurant.com. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday.

43rd and Bryant cooks again

Ah, the hopeful restaurant business. The cozy former home of the My-T-Fine Bakery/Cafe -- and before that, Amie, and before that, Mary Martha Catering & Deli -- has been reinvented once again, this time as Cafe Agri. Chef Dan Alvin, an Ecopolitan vet, is writing menus that emphasize vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free fare, made with locally sourced ingredients.

"Once the season gets going, we'll be sourcing just about everything locally," he said. "We just need some sun."

Despite the lousy weather, Alvin seems to be managing just fine. He was serving lettuce wraps filled with earthy mushrooms and a pumpkinseed purée, roasted Roma tomatoes stuffed with a Minnesota-made mozzarella, a very pretty raw beet salad with mint and date accents, scalloped yams, tempeh topped with sautéed leeks and one freshwater fish, Wisconsin-raised trout with roasted root vegetables. Starters are $6 to $8 and entrees run $10 to $16. Organic wines and beers will be available shortly, and Alvin is kicking off brunch this weekend. Pray for clear skies.

4300 Bryant Av. S., Minneapolis, 612-822-3101, www.cafeagri.com. Open for dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; open for brunch 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

A baker is back

Michelle Gayer is multitasking up a storm at her new bakery. In just one 10-minute time span the one-woman speed demon was working the cash register, frosting cupcakes, dipping sugar-coated almonds in chocolate, carefully placing a half-dozen rhubarb-oatmeal bars into a cardboard box, extolling the virtues of her triple-chocolate brownies to a customer who seemed wary of their $2.50 price tag (a steal, by the way), and laughing. Always laughing.

The Midtown Global Market is fortunate to have landed Gayer, formerly of the Franklin Street Bakery, not just for her prodigious gifts as a baker, but for that gutsy, infectious guffaw. The Salty Tart may be modest in square footage, but it's full of ambition, evident in its ever-expanding daily selection.

On that afternoon last week my eyes immediately landed on little square chocolate shortbread sandwiches filled with bittersweet chocolate ganache, tender sugar cutout cookies iced in springtime white and green, super-moist coconut macaroons, chewy orange-chocolate meringues, golden cornmeal-rosemary cakes and those fantastic rhubarb bars.

"Thank goodness we opened in time for rhubarb season," Gayer said. "Can you imagine having to wait another whole year?"

For these beauties? Absolutely not. Squares of golden puff pastry topped with roasted tomatoes, thin Parmesan shavings and chives were clearly aimed at lunchtime appetites, as were delicate brioche crowned with tangy caramelized onions. Coming soon: sandwiches, a drill Gayer got to know very well during her tenure at Trotter's To Go. That's the quick-service branch of Charlie Trotter's, the top Chicago shop where Gayer worked to great acclaim as the pastry chef.

"You know I'm all about the savory," she said, with a laugh, of course. "I'm just waiting for my bread oven to arrive." So are we, Michelle, so are we.

920 E. Lake St. (Midtown Global Market), 612-874-9206. Open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.