Riverside

Nick and Eddie
New Kids on the Block

1612 Harmon Place, Minneapolis
612-486-5800
nickandeddie.com

BY CARLA WALDEMAR

Call 2007 the Year of the Neighborhood Café, a 180 whiplash from the buzz-detonat-ing, designer-statement restaurants that take three digits out of your paycheck. It’s back to the simple storefront with a chef on the line—not on TV—making good on a modest menu that’s interest-ing but not intimidating and yes, affordable on a weekly basis. Hail to Heidi’s, Blackbird, Café Levain, Cafe Maude, Grand Café, Duplex and more, leaving no corner of South Minneapolis without frisee salad.

Oversaturated? I hope not. Because, just in time to end the year on another high note, along comes Nick and Eddie. It’s a step up (but not a big one) from the others of its ilk, closer to a club than a diner—situated mid-block and mid-demographic between glitzy Café Lurcat and Joe’s Garage—a swell hangout for sin-gles in the neighborhoods and an easy destination for the rest of us.


Doug Anderson (who launched, then sold, Bakery on Grand and Au Rebours) is the genius loci, naming it for his kids, installing his talented wife, Jessica, as the pastry chef and industry idols Steve Vranian in the kitchen and Scott Ida at the door.

The mile-high ceiling has been retained (so has the vintage terraz-zo floor, contributing in equal measure to the design and din). An L-shaped bar fronts the kitchen, backed by banquettes tucked into an alcove and a cache of tables beyond. Light bulbs do double duty as illumination and hanging art. But the main artwork is just beyond the broad glass façade—a drop-dead view of the pretty little park. It doesn’t get more romantic than that.

Unless you’re a foodie. Then prepare to fall in love with what finds its way to your table. Five apps and three salads ($4-8) get your palate limbered up. Slice into crisp potato pancakes served with a cool, winsome side of smoked whitefish salad (yin and yang) or crostini layered with ”chopped chicken liver,” says the menu. (It isn’t, as any Jewish bubbe would protest: It’s pureed into a smooth, silky spread.) Bits of bacon (Oi vey, warn bubbe!) dot the toasts, livened, too, with sweet-tart flavor bursts from pomegranate seeds and tendrils of spunky sprouts. De-lish.

Or choose grilled shrimp with avocado, mango and basil; borscht with duck confit and sour cream; or gnocchi swathed in cheese. Should you prefer a salad, consid-er the Belgian endive number, boosted with persimmons, water-cress and hazelnuts, or a composi-tion of spinach, chicken, butternut squash and tarragon.

Lots of beef amid the eight main plates ($12-18; Delmonico steak $35).

We loved, absolutely loved, the juicy, deeply-flavored beef cheeks, so tender a knife was a mere table decoration, served with parsnip puree, roasted beets and succulent slabs of mushrooms. Loved the duck, too, ruby-toned and moist, paired with a toss of wild rice, hominy, cubed sweet potatoes and sweet peppers—a lit- tle bland, but, more to the point, a separate entity that didn’t cozy up to the duck, like side-by-side strangers on a plane.

Our server proclaimed his passion for the “spicy steak,” served with mashed potatoes and collard greens. There’s also a pork steak and a roast chicken, served straight-arrow with swiss chard and fries. And a salmon, poached in cider—fine—then plated with spaetzle, brussels sprouts and sauerkraut. Sauerkraut? With fish? Could be the next new thing, but I’m not so sure ….

Breads and fluffy, old-fashioned Parker House rolls come from Jessica’s ovens, as do a couple of desserts (bargains at $5): an apple-cream cheese turnover, an irre-sistible chocolate ho-ho. (OK, I was the one who couldn’t resist; my companion retained decorum with a few perfunctory bites.) Right: an up-market revisitation of the cello-packaged treat, com-plete with flowing dark, dark chocolate and fresh-whipped cream. There’s also a tasty butter-scotch pudding that goes far to soothe the savage beast.

The café’s wine list is blessedly offbeat (Cabs and Chards are so yesterday), and as affordable as the menu to which it’s matched—just another good reason to love this place.