taste

When Le Meridien Chambers general partner Ralph Burnet promised something “fresh and exciting” for downtown Minneapolis, restaurant-wise, to replace the hotel’s recently departed D’Amico Kitchen, he delivered.

Get ready for Marin, the next project for Craig Bentdahl, owner of the health-conscious and wildly successful Mill Valley Kitchen (3906 Excelsior Blvd., St. Louis Park, www.millvalleykitchen.com).

“It’s a new concept, but it will have a shared philosophy with Mill Valley Kitchen,” said Bentdahl. “The cuisine is going to be nutrient-dense yet flavorful, farm-to-table and sustainable. There’s nothing quite like it downtown, We’re going to offer something authentically healthy but also sophisticated. We’re going to do our best to make it one of the best restaurants in Minneapolis.”

Mill Valley Kitchen chef Michael Rakun will helm the kitchen, as well as the hotel’s banquet and room service operations. With an opening date of early summer, there aren’t a lot of menu specifics, at least not yet, although this much is certain: the menu will follow the Mill Valley Kitchen practice of listing nutritional information and calorie counts for each item.

"Mill Valley is packed every day for lunch and dinner," said Burnet in a statement. "Clearly Craig has tapped into an unmet, underserved need in the local dining community, and we're excited to be able to introduce his new restaurant concept to our guests."

Marin will continue to occupy the same 9th-and-Hennepin street-level square footage as its predecessors. The space is getting a complete overhaul, with a design by Shea Inc., the Minneapolis firm responsible for the hotel’s original drinking-and-dining tenant, Chambers Kitchen, which closed in 2009. Shea also designed the great-looking Mill Valley Kitchen, and is responsible for the look of food-and-drink venues up and down Hennepin Avenue, including Lunds, Butcher & the Boar, Union and Rosa Mexicano.

“It will certainly be complementary to the hotel, but it will also have a distinct identity,” said Bentdahl (pictured, above). “We’ll be doing some things to warm the space up a bit. We’re making a substantial investment.”

Other changes: the lower level — the former Chambers Kitchen dining room — will be reconfigured into a lounge and private dining rooms. Expect to see changes in the hotel’s courtyard eating-and-drinking space, too.

As for the name, it’s taken from Marin County, the northern California district that is also home to the city of Mill Valley. It’s the second restaurant for Bentdahl. The former banker launched Mill Valley Kitchen in 2011.

“I’ve had an interest in downtown for a while, and I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity,” he said. “Ralph contacted me several months ago — he and Peggy [Burnet’s spouse] have been frequent diners at Mill Valley Kitchen — and I have a lot of respect for him, he’s a great entrepreneur. It’s really exciting to have this opportunity.”

D'Amico Kitchen is checking out of the Le Meridien Chambers hotel.

D'Amico & Partners, which has managed the hotel's food and beverage operations since mid-2009, is not renewing its lease, said company president Richard D'Amico in a statement.

"We've been in discussions with D'Amico and anticipating this transition for a while," said hotel general partner Ralph Burnet in a statement, adding that he expects to name a new food and beverage partner in the next few weeks, after details are finalized. "We plan to bring something fresh and exciting to the downtown restaurant mix. I think the Twin Cities dining community will be pleased."

D'Amico cited company expansion as a reason for the departure.

"We've opened three new restaurants in the past couple of years, and we're planning to open another new restaurant concept in 2013," he said.

The hospitality giant operates 20 restaurants in the Twin Cities and Florida, including Campiello, Cafe Lurcat and Bar Lurcat, Masa, D'Amico & Sons, Gather at the Walker Art Center, Mezzanine at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Parma 8200. The company's latest opening took place two weeks ago, its second Masa, located in Naples, Fla.

D'Amico Kitchen employees were notified late last week of the restaurant's closing.

The restaurant's last day of operation is Jan. 13. D'Amico Kitchen (pictured, above, in a Star Tribune file photo), which emphasizes contemporary Italian fare, opened in July 2009. It replaced the hotel's original restaurant, Chambers Kitchen, which was operated by star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The 60-room hotel, located at Hennepin Av. and 9th St. in downtown Minneapolis, opened in 2004.

You've only got hours to shop if you're still hunting for a Christmas gift. (Really, you still have shopping left?)

If you've got a cook with an attitude (think "more naughty than nice") -- or at least one that doesn't mind crude and rude in a sense of humor -- any of  three new books may strike a fancy. Two of them are by anonymous writers.

A reprint of Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" -- what's billed as an "Insider's Edition" -- is out with Bourdain's handwritten comments, though the notes are few, far between and generally not very insightful. A press release says that 50 pages are annotated. (That includes many lightweight comments such as the one at left.) The handwritten intro -- three pages of scrawl, would have filled less than a single page of type, so "annotation" is a bit of a misnomer. Still, his story of what he calls the "culinary underbelly" holds up amazingly well after 12 years, though a few historical references may be obscure to up-and-coming cooks who are unfamiliar to such references as Hunt and Liddy or Patty Hearst.

Bourdain's memoir of his time in the restaurant biz is always blunt, often crude and definitely opinionated. He set the tone for many other food memoirists that followed.

Tired of Anthony Bourdain? Then perhaps Ruth Bourdain may be to your liking. The anonymous Twitterer, a parody mashup of Anthony Bourdain and Ruth Reichl, has come out with a book, "Comfort Me with Offal: Ruth Bourdain's Guide to Gastronomy." The title is a takeoff of Reichl's memoir "Comfort Me with Apples."  The book is as irreverant and crude in its humor as Ruth Bourdain's 140-character (or less) thoughts found daily on Twitter. Let's just say that there's very little I could quote from the book for a newspaper blog. Who is Ruth Bourdain? Well, New York magazine and I (as reported a year ago) think it's Robert Sietsema, restaurant critic of the Village Voice.

Have a "Fifty Shades of Grey" fan on your list? "Fifty Shades of Chicken: a parody in a cookbook," may be the gift for you to present. This, too, has a pseudonym for an author, FL Fowler (who else?). The book offers vignettes of Miss Hen, a young "unexplored" chicken, at the mercy of Mr. Blades, the cook, who teaches her the pleasures of being whipped up for dinner. It is a one-note joke carried through 50 recipes, which include Mustard-Spanked Chicken, Hot Rubbed Hen, Extra-Virgin Breasts, Spatchcocked Chicken and many more that will make the occasional cook blush, with food porn pictures of the recipes, plus the occasional Chippendale shot of the cook.

Buyer beware: Choose carefully if you're gifting any of these books.

With yesterday's snowstorm, a warm and comforting Sunday supper felt just right, and what's more warm and comforting than stuffing?

This is a favorite recipe of mine, adapted from the 2006 edition of Allysa Torey's go-to Sunday supper cookbook. I've made it so many times that my well-worn copy's binding is cracked to automatically open to page 84. Many other pages (the crostini with goat cheese and tomatoes, the lemon-tarragon chicken, the summer squash-sweet corn casserole, the peach crumble) are similarly splotched with food stains and spills. That's always a good sign, right? 

I've made a few alterations to the recipe over the years. The major one is adding a few eggs, to bind the stuffing together and give it a richer bite (if you prefer your stuffing egg-free, increase the amount of stock to 2 cups). If I don't have the exact herbs on hand, I'll substitute others, although sage is a must. The chives in my refrigerator were looking pretty desperate, so for last night's iteration I tossed in marjoram and savory, and it was as good as always. 

(By the way, Torey calls it dressing, but this Minnesotan prefers stuffing, even though it's not getting anywhere near the cavity of a bird.)

I'll cop to using Jiffy brand muffins. Why not? They're inexpensive (I think I paid 63 cents per package at Lunds, and the recipe requires two boxes), and it mixes up in, well, a jiff. The package's instructions call for an egg and milk; we had some half-and-half in the back of the refrigerator -- it was a miracle that it hadn't reached its expiration date -- and I used that instead of the skim we always keep on hand. Note to self: Always do this.

I didn't have the foresight to bake the muffins on Saturday, so I dried them out a bit by crumbling them on a sheet pan and baking them for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. For bread cubes, I pulled some out of the freezer -- leftovers from Thanksgiving's stuffing-a-thon -- and gave them a nice toasted texture by baking them for 10 minutes, also at 350 degrees. 

I didn't do it last night, but sometimes I cut up bits of butter and toss it over the top of the stuffing before it goes in the oven. I usually add more herbs than the recipe calls for, as much as doubling the amount. Oh, and because the stuffing can run a little on the sweet side -- it's the corn muffins -- I occasionally flip the corn muffin/bread cube ratio. 

That's the thing with this recipe: It's forgiving. Last night, post-shoveling, we served it with roast chicken, and it was delicious. As always.

CORNBREAD-APPLE-PECAN STUFFING

Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Note: To toast pecans, place on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake 10 to 15 minutes in a 350-degree oven, until fragrant and lightly browned. Adapted from "At Home With Magnolia: Classic American recipes by the owner of Magnolia Bakery" by Allysa Torey (Wiley, $29.95).

4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, plus extra for pan

1 c. (about 1 medium) chopped yellow onion

1 c. chopped celery

1/4 c. freshly chopped chives

1 tbsp. fresh chopped sage

1 tbsp. freshly chopped thyme

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

4 c. coarsely crumbled corn muffins (about 8 to 12 from your favorite recipe, or from a muffin mix such as Jiffy), left out, uncovered, at least overnight, to dry

2 c. cubed white bread, left out, uncovered, at least overnight, to dry

1 1/2 c. (about 2 medium) peeled, cored and chopped Granny Smith apples 

1 c. coarsely chopped pecans (see Note)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 c. chicken or turkey stock

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter bottom and sides of a 2-quart baking dish.

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt 4 tablespoons butter. Add onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add celery and continue cooking for an additional 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat and stir in chives, sage, thyme, salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a large bowl and allow to come to room temperature. Add crumbled corn muffins, cubed bread, apples and pecans and lightly toss. Add eggs and chicken (or turkey) stock and toss until just combined. 

Transfer mixture to prepared baking dish, cover with aluminum foil and bake 20 minutes. Remove aluminum foil, rotate pan and bake until golden brown on top, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from oven and serve.