Fresh Offerings
By Andrew Zimmern
My buddies at Parasole tell me that when Figlio re-opens in the late fall the new menu will have a memories section with stories and remembrances supplied by local notables. So prepare yourself for hearing all about some arcane menu item served in 1985 that Don Shelby, Sue Zellickson, Tom Kelly, and Sharon Sayles Belton wish could make a return to the new and improved Figlio. Anyone care to share their favorite off-color Figlio moment here with me now? Ever get lucky in the bathroom? See an out of town or home grown celeb do anything embarrassing? Lets’ hear it.
The Tour de France kicks off July 23rd at Meritage. No not that tour. Russ Klein is offering a culinary tour beginning with the coastal region of Brittney. Among the specialties offered that evening will be the famous Belon oysters of France. These are large, briny oysters famous world-wide for their clean, pure flavors. The rest of the tour schedule is: July 30th, Loire; August 6th, Burgundy; August 13th, Provence; August 20th, Bordeaux; August 27th, Languedoc-Roussillion; September 3rd, Rhone; and September 10th, Alsace. Even more fun are Meritage's Blind Wednesdays, which offer guests a unique way to taste great wines, test their knowledge, and have a little fun! Three 3 oz. pours of three anonymous wines will be offered for $15. Guests will be presented with four questions for each wine, and for every question answered correctly the guest receives 50¢ off the cost of the flight. For anyone who can answer all 12 questions correctly, the wine is free! Find more info here.
Jim Kyndberg has wound up working for Erik Harcey at The Kitchen in Stillwater, Harcey’s second restaurant (Victory 44 is the other). Glad Jim has a stove to stand in front of, he's a good guy and deserves a lot of applause for keeping his old place alive.
In other news of the absurd, Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano has a new daytime series, What Would Brian Boitano Make?, premiering Sunday, August 23rd at 1 p.m. ET/PT. Brian demonstrates his culinary skills and talent for one-of-a-kind entertaining:
The next installment of Bill Summerville’s Junior Gourmet Club is Wednesday July 29th at Heartland. Lenny is doing a killer menu and a kids' beverage flight to match. The August event will be a BBQ at La Belle Vie. These events are superbly done, the food is great, and kids love it. Reserve your place by calling La Belle Vie at 612-874-6440.
Speaking of LBV . . . according to a press release I got, Chef Tim McKee’s newest restaurant, Sea Change, opens at the Guthrie Theater on July 21. McKee has designed a core menu that focuses on sustainable seafood, highlighting fisheries that use environmentally responsible methods of gathering and farming seafood. The menu will also include a number of non-seafood items. In addition to the Sea Change lunch and dinner menus, McKee has created a three-course pre-theater menu as well as late night offerings of small plates and raw bar items. Design firm Shea, Inc., responsible for the interiors of McKee’s restaurants La Belle Vie, Solera, and Barrio, has re-designed the space and I am dying to see it for myself since the previous space was one of the coldest and most unwelcoming dining rooms in town. Online reservations and full menus will be available on the restaurant’s website.
This coming Sunday, July 19, American Express and Food & Wine are sponsoring a staged demo that will feature Stephanie Izard (Top Chef Season Four winner) along with Tim McKee at the Aquatennial Beach Bash, while on Saturday, July 25, Radhika Desai (Top Chef Season Five contestant) will join McKee at the Aquatennial RiverBlast. At both events, attendees can enjoy complimentary tastings, cooking demonstrations, and intimate Q & A sessions with the chefs. And exclusively available to existing Delta SkyMiles cardmembers and onsite applicants, Stephanie Izard and Radhika Desai will autograph and give away copies of the Top Chef Cookbook (while supplies last).
The Tour de France kicks off July 23rd at Meritage. No not that tour. Russ Klein is offering a culinary tour beginning with the coastal region of Brittney. Among the specialties offered that evening will be the famous Belon oysters of France. These are large, briny oysters famous world-wide for their clean, pure flavors. The rest of the tour schedule is: July 30th, Loire; August 6th, Burgundy; August 13th, Provence; August 20th, Bordeaux; August 27th, Languedoc-Roussillion; September 3rd, Rhone; and September 10th, Alsace. Even more fun are Meritage's Blind Wednesdays, which offer guests a unique way to taste great wines, test their knowledge, and have a little fun! Three 3 oz. pours of three anonymous wines will be offered for $15. Guests will be presented with four questions for each wine, and for every question answered correctly the guest receives 50¢ off the cost of the flight. For anyone who can answer all 12 questions correctly, the wine is free! Find more info here.
Jim Kyndberg has wound up working for Erik Harcey at The Kitchen in Stillwater, Harcey’s second restaurant (Victory 44 is the other). Glad Jim has a stove to stand in front of, he's a good guy and deserves a lot of applause for keeping his old place alive.
In other news of the absurd, Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano has a new daytime series, What Would Brian Boitano Make?, premiering Sunday, August 23rd at 1 p.m. ET/PT. Brian demonstrates his culinary skills and talent for one-of-a-kind entertaining:
“Brian's combination of off-the-wall humor and culinary inventiveness will be a revelation to viewers," said Bob Tuschman, senior vice president of programming and production for Food Network. “His clever recipes, infectious enthusiasm, and stylish ideas will inspire and entertain."I think the only way this show works is if the outrageously real life elements are allowed to play out. Think of the Will Ferrell ice skating movie meets Top Chef. Check out the Food Network's site if you want to get a sneak peak. FN needs some big fun shows and as dumb as this idea looks on paper, if the network avoids the talking-head-behind-a-cutting-board style show then it could have a cult classic on its hands. Take Boitano and have him make lunch for a Teamsters group. I would amp up the Bruno-ish elements on the show. There’s a concept!
The next installment of Bill Summerville’s Junior Gourmet Club is Wednesday July 29th at Heartland. Lenny is doing a killer menu and a kids' beverage flight to match. The August event will be a BBQ at La Belle Vie. These events are superbly done, the food is great, and kids love it. Reserve your place by calling La Belle Vie at 612-874-6440.
Speaking of LBV . . . according to a press release I got, Chef Tim McKee’s newest restaurant, Sea Change, opens at the Guthrie Theater on July 21. McKee has designed a core menu that focuses on sustainable seafood, highlighting fisheries that use environmentally responsible methods of gathering and farming seafood. The menu will also include a number of non-seafood items. In addition to the Sea Change lunch and dinner menus, McKee has created a three-course pre-theater menu as well as late night offerings of small plates and raw bar items. Design firm Shea, Inc., responsible for the interiors of McKee’s restaurants La Belle Vie, Solera, and Barrio, has re-designed the space and I am dying to see it for myself since the previous space was one of the coldest and most unwelcoming dining rooms in town. Online reservations and full menus will be available on the restaurant’s website.
This coming Sunday, July 19, American Express and Food & Wine are sponsoring a staged demo that will feature Stephanie Izard (Top Chef Season Four winner) along with Tim McKee at the Aquatennial Beach Bash, while on Saturday, July 25, Radhika Desai (Top Chef Season Five contestant) will join McKee at the Aquatennial RiverBlast. At both events, attendees can enjoy complimentary tastings, cooking demonstrations, and intimate Q & A sessions with the chefs. And exclusively available to existing Delta SkyMiles cardmembers and onsite applicants, Stephanie Izard and Radhika Desai will autograph and give away copies of the Top Chef Cookbook (while supplies last).
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Here's a little interesting fact about Figlio's: they are the only place in the metro where you can purchase an entire red velvet cake. Cupcake will only sell cupcakes, Wuollete won't do it, and neither will Lunds/Byerly's or even Kowalskis.
Makes getting ready for a birthday party kind of difficult, but the cake is worth it.
I wonder if local bakeries would do better if they offered red velvet cakes- entire ones, to customers for parties.
Anyway, I enjoy your blog, and thought I would offer that little morsel of information :)
-Katie
Posted by: creole wisdom on July 17, 2009 at 12:35 PM
For the record ... the Figlio "memories" are running on the current menu and will continue to run until Sept. 19th, our last day as Figlio.
When the new concept opens, it will have some of Figlio's popular favorites (calamari, ravioli), but it will stand on it's own, looking forward not back. Our new chef Matt Kempf is too talented to be saddled by 1984.
Posted by: Michael Larson on July 18, 2009 at 10:27 AM
Katie-
You can actually buy whole Red Velvet Cakes from Mission, and they're pretty good. :)
Posted by: Megan on July 18, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Andrew:
Thanks for the Junior Gourmet Club plug. Bill really needs to be applauded for his efforts in helping kids to break free from eating fast food.
In reference to that, we have never served a burger in the almost seven years that Heartland has been open; but we will be doing just that on July 29th. Granted, it will be a grass-fed beef burger with artisan cheese on a flax seed bun accompanied by roasted fingerling potatoes, plum catsup and Cedar Summit Farm organic chocolate milk; but it will be a burger nonetheless.
The kids will also be served a fresh fruit salad first course with house made watermelon soda and a fresh strawberry ice cream float with Michigan cherry syrup for dessert. In addition, they will be able to take home the plum catsup recipe so they can try their own hands at making that with their parents.
Instead of calling La Belle Vie, folks should call Heartland at 651-699-3536 0r 651-699-3538 for reservations. Bill was taking reservations while we were closed for our annual staff holiday, but we are back in the saddle now.
There are still about 20 spots open, and people should be prepared to secure their reservations with a major credit card since we are expecting a sellout. There is no penalty for canceling.
Thanks again for supporting the Junior Gourmet Club.
L.
Posted by: Lenny Russo on July 18, 2009 at 1:52 PM
My wife and I were eating at Figlio last summer. My wife went to the bathroom, and when she came back to the table, she could not stop laughing. Apparently, there was a woman in the bathroom drying her underwear and pants under the hand dryer. Needless to say, this half-naked woman was rather intoxicated.
Posted by: Matt on July 20, 2009 at 8:05 AM
I am already feeling the pain of a world without Figlio's white gazpacho with lemon dill ice cream.
Posted by: kelsey on July 20, 2009 at 4:37 PM
I was trying to type but just heard on the news that Bella Notte just closed. Times, they are a changing.
I know this is cheesy but my wife's and my first date was at Figlio so it will always have a special place in our palate. As good as change is, we'll still miss it.
I think it was the first place I had been that started serving the bread and olive oil instead of butter. They also taught us to put parmesan and pepper in that oil. We ate way, way too much bread there in the 90s.
Posted by: rob barrett on July 20, 2009 at 10:08 PM
For some reason Janet Jackson ate at Figlio in about 1990. Boring story, but true.
p.s. re the Tour de France: the coastal region of France is Brittany, not Brittney.
Posted by: jane on July 21, 2009 at 8:35 AM
Sea Change is much warmer and approachable than Cue.
Simple food done very, very well. We're lucky to have a chef of Tim McKee's caliber and vision in our city!
Posted by: Geri Wolf on July 21, 2009 at 12:22 PM
We had planned my friend's birthday party for weeks and were finally ready to begin the night with dinner at Figlio. Our party of 18 was seated and we ordered the first round of drinks ... then the second ... and then we were finally ready to order food. After the third round we were starting to get pretty hungry and were excited for the food.
Then the kitchen started on fire.
They evacuated Calhoun Square.
We ended up eating at Jimmy John's.
Posted by: Ellen on July 22, 2009 at 4:02 PM
After a few months of quietly dating my boyfriend, he finally introduced me to his best friend, and soon after the three of us went to dinner at Figlio. Part of the reason we had kept our dating quiet was because I am 4 years younger than my SO, and we didn't want to bring the unavoidable teasing and bad jokes into a budding relationship. So far his best friend had only cracked a few harmless jokes about my age, but it was only the second time we had met.
I heard really good things about the "School-lunch meatloaf" and I was in the mood, so I ordered it. I wish I had known it literally came out like a school-lunch, plastic tray, milk-carton, little dessert and all. As if I didn't feel young enough, Fliglio litterally made me the "elementary schooler" at the table.
Posted by: Megan on July 22, 2009 at 4:13 PM