Malone, Anderson to team up in North Loop
Once again, the North Loop is proving its position as the Twin Cities' hottest stretch of restaurant real estate.
This time, be on the lookout for Brut, the collaboration between chefs Jamie Malone of Sea Change (806 S. 2nd St., Mpls., www.seachangempls.com) and Erik Anderson.
"Not everything is all together or in place yet, but it's something we have been working on for a while," said Malone.
The couple haven't nailed down a specific North Loop site just yet, but they've definitely targeted the neighborhood.
"It's where we live, and we want to stay here," said Malone. "We want this restaurant to be what we do when we retire [Malone is 31, Anderson is 41]. We want to be working in the community where we live, where we are a part of. We don't want to work at a place that we're driving to every day."
As for the food, "We want to keep it classical, French-style cookery," said Malone. "Right now we're thinking a shellfish type of thing, but we're really waiting until we find and secure the space, and that will dictate how we do things."
Size-wise, they're aiming at roughly 80 to 100 seats in the dining room, along with an emphasis on a roomy bar. "We want to make the bar very casual, a place you can go a few times a week and have snacks, a glass of wine or maybe a cocktail. Not so expensive that it feels like an occasion."
The Brut name is a reference to the dry-to-the-taste sparkling wine and chosen, Malone added, "because we both love drinking it," she said with a laugh. "We think it goes well with a lot of the food that we want to cook. And there are lot of interesting sparkling wines from around the world, lots of things that aren't super-accessible — at least right now — in a restaurant setting."
