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Dining With Dara: Eating History

Posted at 6:49 AM on January 26, 2011 by Steve Seel
Filed under: Dining with Dara


The Current's food and dining authority Dara Moskowitz-Grumdahl paid us her weekly visit this morning. Take it away Dara:

"In the current issue of Minnesota Monthly, I reveal my sudden great love for The Inn, in downtown Minneapolis.

"The Inn is a new restaurant by the owners of the grassfed steakhouse the Strip Club, in St. Paul; the chef is Tyge Nelson, he's a La Belle Vie and Barrio veteran, and just a very precise cook - his cod is crisp as a potato chip, tender as tears, and could go as an illustration in the encyclopaedia beside the note: The perfect way to cook cod. But what I like even more about the restaurant is the way the place references our Minnesota past: Tyge Nelson makes Lake Superior herring using his family recipe, there are a couple ingenious sort of Scandihoovian cocktails - made with Aquavit, a scallion syrup, and the like. There are all sorts of comfort foods on the menu - but the comfort foods of around 1910, when Minneapolis had twice the population it does now, and half of downtown was an open-air food market catering to immigrants from everywhere who wanted the freshest and best of everything straight off the train. In researching this piece I learned all about a Minneapolis character named Fish Jones, who had a fish market close to the big post-office in downtown Minneapolis, a fish market where he kept a bear chained up outside, and he was known for stunts like pushing a baby carriage full of monkeys through the streets. He founded Minneapolis' first zoo, where the Basilica is, and eventually was persuaded to move it to Minnehaha Falls; his house still stands there, it's the butter yellow one, and is actually an exact, two-thirds scale replica of the poet Longfellow's house. Which is weird, and awesome. As Minneapolis itself seems to have been long about 1900. Why would you possibly go to a fish market with a bear chained up outside? Life before television...

"But you can go to the Inn, have some 1900-style comfort food like roast oysters, silky oxtail, and the like, and it's something Minneapolis has never had before, a connection to our real culinary past.

"Some other restaurants that have been open since the day of the telegram:

In downtown Minneapolis, Gluek's, which used to be owned by the historic beer brewery (back before Prohibition bars were often funded by individual breweries, so just like you'd have Caribou and Starbucks, you'd have Schell's Bars and Gluek's Bars in every neighborhood. One of the things Prohibition did was specifically ban these arrangements.) But Gluek's: Open since 1902! Or 1927 or 1990, depending on how you want to calculate it. And a darn good burger, and exquisite woodwork. The Monte Carlo, further north in the Warehouse district, claims to have been open since 1906-- a great martini bar and they have the best chicken wings in Minneapolis. Don't know what it is about them, just big, salty, perfectly crisp, exactly right wings.

"And then, the steakhouses: Jax, in northeast Minneapolis, and The Lexington, in St. Paul: Both these steakhouses opened essentially the hour, the minute, and the second that Prohibition ended, and have been continually operating ever since. Truth be told they have pretty historically accurate menus: In 1930's people didn't go out for herring, they stayed in for herring and went out for steaks. I love both those places, and think any fan of history should visit them: They're completely period perfect. Historic."

- Dara Moskowitz-Grumdahl

Read Dara's blog-tastic site at Minnesota Monthly, and don't forget about her book, Drink This: Wine Made Simple.


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