St. Paul’s Meritage to spin off a steak frites restaurant

The Midwest loves its meat and potatoes. Slap on a French name and call it steak frites, but it’s still meat and potatoes at its core, says Russell Klein, chef-proprietor of St. Paul’s Meritage.

That might explain why the dish — seared beef cooked till rosy with thin-cut fries by the heaps — is still the most popular seller at his long-running restaurant.

“Everybody loves steak frites,” Klein said. “I mean, literally, I look out in my dining room. There are nights I’ll get a table — like a six-top — and there’ll be four steak frites."

Klein is betting that love affair will carry on as he plans to launch a new restaurant almost entirely around the dish.

“It’s a totally diverse thing,” Klein said of steak frites’ appeal. “Everybody understands it.”

The concept is intentionally narrow. Steak Frites by Meritage will offer a prix fixe menu that starts with warm bread and house salad, served family-style, a choice of steak or mussels, unlimited fries and ice cream sundaes — all at a “reasonable” price point, he said. There will be a vegetarian option, Klein added.

Klein doesn’t have a timeline yet, though he hopes it will open in 2026. Nor does he have a location, but he did say he is eyeing the suburbs. East or west? “Yes,” he answered.

The pop-up menu is $32. And yes, those crispy fries are bottomless. They are also a source of pride for Klein.

“Of all the sort of, quote-unquote, fancy things we do, the fries are the hardest item that we produce to get consistently excellent results,” he said.

The only difference between the dish at the St. Paul flagship and the new spinoff is the cut: the hanger steak is too expensive for the targeted price point, so Klein is planning to use a culotte steak from Creekstone Farms.

“It’s a really high-quality product and really flavorful,” he said, “but just a different cut.”

While it might become the Twin Cities’ first steak frites-focused spot, the Meritage spinoff is part of a growing national and international trend. The 65-year-old Paris bistro Le Relais de Venise has opened locations in London, Mexico City and New York, serving a streamlined prix fixe menu with steak and fries. The Washington, D.C.-based chain Medium Rare that is growing across the U.S., and had even talked, at one point, about opening an outlet here, features the dish as well.