Ready for Tex-Mex? Martina owners unveil new restaurant

The team behind Martina, the four-star Argentine-Italian restaurant in Linden Hills, has gone Tex-Mex.

Tex-Oaxacan, to be exact. Colita, which opened Tuesday, is bringing the cuisine of this southern Mexican state to the Armatage neighborhood of south Minneapolis.

Chef Daniel del Prado, formerly of Minneapolis' Bar La Grassa and Burch Steak and Pizza Bar, follows up his acclaimed Martina with his latest venture in a former service station (5400 Penn Av. S., Mpls., 612-886-1606, colitampls.com).

On the entirely gluten-free menu are moles and raw seafood; creamy corn elote and whole blue prawns, and tortillas, painstakingly made to order from imported Oaxacan heirloom corn ground by hand with stones. One section of the menu is devoted to smoked meats, a nod to del Prado's first plan for this to be a barbecue restaurant. Del Prado's vision is for diners to order a variety of dishes and share.

Along with José Alarcon's recently opened Centro and Popol Vuh in northeast Minneapolis, and Ann Kim's plans to open a taqueria in the former Lucia's space in Uptown Minneapolis, Colita is part of a wave of Mexican eateries opening in the Twin Cities.

"You have to cook food that you like to eat," del Prado said in an interview last week. "I didn't want to do the traditional, what people think of as Mexican food. I wanted to play with that. I needed a focus, and that's where Oaxaca came in. And then it was like, where do I come into the menu?"

Buenos Aires-born del Prado sprinkled the menu with influences of his own Italian heritage, like in a layered tostada blanketed in cheese and dusted with cracked black pepper, cacio e pepe style.

Behind a circular bar that juts into the windowed dining room, Marco Zappia is crafting cocktails that all have a fermented element.

"It's a new paintbrush I'm working with," Zappia said. "There's a tang. Not umami, but when you think of a botanical, it changes when you ferment it. There's a really cool complexity to it."

Displayed in front of a living wall are glass vats in which he ferments the drink ingredients, some traditional and others rarer in Minnesota. A Negroni mixes mezcal with fermented Campari and an otherwise straightforward Old Fashioned is made with fermented water, sugar and bitters (made more stunning with an ice cube etched with a meat tenderizer). Served in a dried hollow gourd, the pink Trevino highlights pulque, a spiced liqueur made from agave nectar. Another drink, Five Suns, utilizes the yeast in Minnesota birch bark. The Naked Dani is an Instagram-worthy showstopper; the tequila-based cocktail is topped with "salt air," or foam, with a little yellow rubber ducky afloat.

The emphasis on ferments is not only new to the Twin Cities. Zappia believes Colita to be the only bar program integrating ferments to this extent. Anywhere.

With Martina going strong and Colita opening, del Prado is already thinking about his next venture. "I love Wisconsin," he said. "I love going to a dive bar in Wisconsin. So we might have something to do with that. Not a dive bar, but a supper club, but super well done with good ingredients. Maybe."

"I'm out here hunting right now, but my mind is always on pho," he says into the camera on his phone for a video he'll later post to his restaurant's Facebook page (Pho Lodge of MN).

An unusual combination of Vietnamese soup with a North Woods vibe, Pho Lodge opened last weekend at (1935 Beam Av., Maplewood, 651-773-2003).

"My wife and I enjoy the great outdoors, and we just wanted to bring that kind of concept into a pho atmosphere, where people can come in and enjoy a nice bowl of hot pho and also have that feeling like they're in their own log cabin or cottage out in the woods," Lo said.

Though it may seem like an odd combination, hunting and pho have always gone hand-in-hand for Lo. He learned his signature recipe after a hunting trip in Montana and Idaho. A buddy took him to a restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, and he was dumbstruck by that particular steaming bowl of soup. A month later he returned to the restaurant and studied under the chef for 10 days to perfect his skill.

After a stint in Green Bay, Wis., Lo and his wife, Vah Thao, decided to try their hand in the Twin Cities. Minnesota couldn't be a better fit. They transformed a run-of-the-mill strip mall eatery into an Up North-themed lodge by blanketing the walls in barn wood from Wisconsin and hanging real mounted deer heads and fish that he and his friends had shot or caught in their hunting travails. "Most are donations from friends who don't have room in their houses," Lo said.

After 20 years serving up Italian red-sauce classics in Eden Prairie, Campiello has revamped (6411 City West Pkwy., Eden Prairie, 952-941-6868, campielloedenprairie.com).

The D'Amico-owned restaurant has finished a major remodeling, adding an open kitchen, more bar seating, a slew of local taps to go in that bar, and overall modernization of the decor. Gone are the faux paintings of Italian countryside on red walls all around the dining room. (They're only in the bar now.) Instead, white walls, globe lights and a window-lined nook for private dining brighten the whole space.

"With the 20th anniversary this year, it was time to update and make it pretty again," said Ann Grant, the restaurant's general manager.

A new menu complements the new look. Fried eggplant with bufala mozzarella, grilled prawns with ricotta salata, and a porchetta sandwich are new additions. They join old favorites like balsamic-glazed short ribs with spaghetti. A new drink menu features more than a dozen cocktails with Italian flair, like the From Italy to Cuba, a rum and seltzer splashed with Campari.

Target Center (600 1st Av. N., Mpls., targetcenter.com) debuted its new eats for the upcoming Timberwolves season. For the second year, chef David Fhima, of the new Fhima's restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, is curating the menu. New items available to arena-goers include Fhima's gooey grilled cheese, served unadulterated with Gruyère, mozzarella and provolone or with a slather of shakshouka (Moroccan-spiced tomatoes); chili from Loon Cafe; three custom-blend wines from Chankaska; and dessert from Yogurt Lab. These dishes join last year's offerings of the Parlour burger, the walleye sandwich from Lord Fletcher's, and SotaRol's sushi burritos.

More new dishes will be found street-level at Cargo Food Authority, a new restaurant from Brian Ingram, former COO of New Bohemia and Seventh Street Truck Park, in the previous Hubert's space (600 1st Av. N., Mpls., cargofoodauthority.com). Shipping containers will line the restaurant, each serving up different fare, food hall-style: tacos, wings, pizza and pan-Asian. The restaurant is slated to open Nov. 7.

La Doña Cervecería in the Harrison neighborhood of north Minneapolis is serving up Latin-style brews in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse (241 Fremont Av. N., 612-315-4613, dameladona.com). The brewery and taproom come complete with a fútbol turf in the parking lot. Expect some lively matches at the grand opening on Oct. 20, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., along with music, tacos and pupusas courtesy of Qué Tal Street Eats, a Salvadoran food truck.

A former Famous Dave's in Normandale Village turns into NorthStar Tavern on Oct. 20 (5101 W. 98th St., Bloomington, facebook.com/northstartavernmn). The "upscale casual and family-friendly" eatery, according to a release, will feature 24 taps, pizzas and a menu of "customizable handhelds" — a mix-and-match burger menu with eight protein options, including Asian-spiced salmon and buffalo.

The corner of 66th and Penn in Richfield is about to get a reboot. Coming in late October to a former Bruegger's is Frango Diner (6600 Penn Av. S., Richfield, frangodiner.com). And a Dunkin' (known until recently as Dunkin' Donuts) is slated for the opposite corner.

Town Hall Brewery (1430 S Washington Av. S., Mpls., 612-339-8696, townhallbrewery.com), one of the Twin Cities' oldest craft breweries, is celebrating its 21st anniversary. Tonight's "throwback" event closes out a week of festivities with founder Pete Rifakes behind the bar serving up beer at throwback pricing.

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