My wife and I spent an extended weekend in the Twin Cities for our 21st wedding anniversary earlier this year and for our Saturday night dinner we had a number of different options. One place that I had on my "Restaurants to Visit" list for a long time is a supper club-style restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis. I was showing it to my wife on-line and she thought that it sounded like it would be a great place for dinner. I made reservations for the two of us at the Red Stag Supperclub.
The Red Stag Supperclub is one of eight restaurants under the watchful eye of Kim Bartmann that includes Bryant-Lake Bowl (click here to see the Road Tips entry on that place), Barbette, Pat's Tap and Tiny Diner. Bartmann, a native of Appleton, WI who came to the Twin Cities to study at the University of Minnesota over 30 years ago, opened her first place - Cafe Wyrd - a small coffeehouse/bistro in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood. She took over Bryant-Lake Bowl in 1993 turning the run-down bowling alley into a hip place that featured bowling, live theater performances and blue collar beers with down-home food.
After turning Cafe Wyrd into the toney Cafe Barbette in 2001, Kim Bartmann was looking to do something completely different for a restaurant. Her sister Kari had joined her in her restaurant endeavors and they wanted to do something that reminded the sisters of their Wisconsin upbringing - a supper club-type restaurant like the ones they visited when the family would vacation in Northern Wisconsin. They looked at NE Minneapolis as the spot they'd like to put their restaurant and they found an old warehouse that used to house a mechanical contractor. Taking over the space and turning it into a restaurant took some planning and work. They were able to finally open the doors to the Red Stag Supperclub in the summer of 2007.
Pictured right - Kim Bartmann
Recognizing that restaurants use more energy than most small businesses - up to 40% of their monthly operating budgets are earmarked for energy costs - Kim Bartmann saw the need for a reduced use of water and power in her new restaurant. She started to turn her restaurants into more eco-friendly establishments by composting, recycling, and solar power. But with Red Stag, she went even further. With modern technologies in place to use less water, she also had contractors put in nothing but LED light bulbs effectively cutting down the power usage for lights by 90%.
In February 2009, Red Stag Supperclub was designated as a certified LEED restaurant, the first restaurant in Minnesota to gain the certification from the United States Green Building Council. LEED - also known as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - is a certification that is given to buildings, both commercial businesses and private homes, that designates them to be of the utmost in energy efficiency. In all, Red Stag uses 50% less energy and 70% less water than similarly sized restaurants.
We had made our reservations for 7 p.m. and we got to the Red Stag around 6:45. We pulled up to the building with the distinctive red stag deer hanging from the front corner of the restaurant and valeted the car. (see map) Since we were a little early, we sat the bar and got a drink.
The space that Red Stag inhabits is an interesting mix of melding the old industrial look with modern technology. Wood beams across the ceiling conceal the LED lighting, while large windows on the eastern and southern side of the building allowed the natural evening light to come in. Even with the abundance of wood throughout the dining area, it didn't seem to be that loud in there.
The kitchen area is in the back of the dining area of the restaurant. The open kitchen was bustling with cooks and servers orchestrating orders to get out to customers. Brian Crouch and Andrew Ernst are the co-chefs in the kitchen at Red Stag Supperclub.
We were shown to a seat in the back corner of the restaurant along the east side, near the kitchen. We were given menus and not long after that our server for the evening, Teresa, came over to greet us. I ordered up a bottle of the Liberty School cabernet for our meal.
When I think of a supper club, I think of steaks, chicken, seafood, relish trays and salad bars. While they do have steaks on the menu at Red Stag, they also have some pretty interesting items, as well. Instead of fresh walleye they have a cedar-planked golden trout entree. Instead of fried chicken they have a roasted half chicken served with herb-mashed potatoes. And instead of a salad bar, they had salad plates made with either raw kale or organic greens. But they actually did have a relish tray on the menu, one that cost $7 dollars with pickled vegetables and eggs. And on Friday nights they have an authentic Wisconsin-style fish fry.
We decided to start out by sharing a burrata caprese salad plate. It was a sliced preserved tomato coupled with fresh house-made burrata cheese - a combination of a mozzarella outer shell with stracciatella cream on the inside - along with arugula, fresh basil and topped with a green olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. Along with the burrata caprese salad came a bowl of leavened bread with a white butter bean spread infused with truffle oil and garlic. The taste of the cream burrata cheese with the tomato slices and fresh greens was heavenly. The leavened bread was also a nice little treat and while I was a little hesitant about the white bean spread, but I thought it was very good. It was a nice start to the meal.
Cindy got the schweinshaxe - a slow-roasted pork hock that was served with fingerling potatoes, roasted parsnips, kale and a kumquat preserve. The pork was tender and pulled away easily from the bone. It was a hearty and savory meal.
One thing caught my eye on the menu from the time that I first looked at it was the braised beef stroganoff. It came with beet tagliatelle pasta noodles, sliced mushrooms, charred onions, tart French-style cornichon pickles, and all sitting in a soured crême friache sauce. The beef seemed to be a little dry and overcooked, but it was still edible. The cream sauce helped moisten up the beef somewhat and gave it a good flavor.
Teresa tempted us with some desserts when we were finished with our meals. Anything with lemon and blueberries also reels me in and they had a dessert with lemon meringue as a base, a cookie crisp on top of that and another roll of lemon meringue on top. Blueberry compote came on the side of dessert. The lemon meringue was light and had a good citrus flavor. The compote was fresh and was a great compliment to the lemon taste of the meringue. By the time we finished the dessert, we were more than full.
I'm still a little mixed about my meal at Red Stag Supperclub. I thought the braised beef that came with the stroganoff was a little dried out from being overcooked. My wife thoroughly enjoyed her pork hock dinner, and we both raved about the burrata caprese salad that we started out with. The service all evening was prompt, professional and personable. The Red Stag Supperclub calls itself a supper club, but it's much more eclectic than many of the Upper Midwest supper clubs I've visited over the years. Sure, you can get a steak there, but when was the last time you could get Swiss chard ravioli or clam linguini with hand-cut pasta at a Wisconsin supper club? I rest my case...
Comments