112 Perfection

Sometimes the stars align. And to make it in the restaurant game, they usually must. A talented chef isn’t enough—Goodfellow’s closed last year with Jason Robinson at the helm. A great location wasn’t enough to keep Sidney’s on Hennepin in business. Great value won’t get you there—remember Aquavit’s $9.95 lunches?

But 112 Eatery remains packed long after the herds of grazing foodies have moved on to newer things. Isaac Becker and Nancy St. Pierre have managed to do what few restaurants in town ever do: Create a restaurant that’s the whole package, where value, great food, superb hospitality, and perfect ambience come together to create a spot you just have to be in. They are our restaurateurs of the year, in a year when the competition couldn’t have been stiffer.

The story began in 2004: Becker, now thirty-six, was chef at D’Amico & Partners’ Café Lurçat; St. Pierre, now forty-two, was a server at D’Amico Cucina. They’d met eight years earlier and married in 1997. “We had insurance, paid vacation. If it was slow, I could go home at seven,” Becker recalls. “But they weren’t gonna give me Jay’s job. [Jay Sparks is the company’s executive chef.] My mom found the space in a want ad.”

The Amsterdam Café had failed, and its owner wanted to get out—fast. “We knew we’d have to put everything on the line,” St. Pierre recalls. But she and Becker were lucky. The Warehouse District restaurant only needed a new oven, wallpaper, and some banquettes. And the seller cut the price when the duo offered cash.

112 Eatery is a tough restaurant to describe. Its American menu has lots of European influences, from French to Italian to the occasional Asian wink. There’s a burger, a fried-egg sandwich, and fries, but there’s also monkfish with chorizo, and escarole with anchovy and nutmeg (addictive, by the way).

“They told us we didn’t have a concept, we were gonna fail,” St. Pierre says.

“I wrote a menu of food that I wanted to eat,” Becker responds.

Becker is not an artiste, painting plates with his creativity. His food is robust, accessible, and there’s something for everyone. “I wanted a lot of choices, a snack and a beer or four courses,” says Becker. “We don’t like four-entrée menus.”

Ambience is another strength: 112 doesn’t feel like the typical new Twin Cities restaurant—overdesigned, with requisite fireplace, huge bar, and tapestry of wood and stone. It’s a narrow storefront with a tiny bar, a pressed-tin ceiling, wood floors, and an old-fashioned feeling that befits the Warehouse District. The room exudes warmth and comfort, but seats only fifty. Because it’s usually full, 112 Eatery has a vibe you can’t contrive.

Most fashionable restaurants have a couple of vacant but alluring college girls manning the front. If you leave unhappy, it’s no skin off their well-powdered noses. At 112, it’s owner St. Pierre who stands there. Because the space is small, if somebody’s not happy, she knows it and solves the problem.

“Most chef-driven restaurants don’t put as much attention up front,” Becker says, “But Nancy’s been in this biz for years. She knows how to make people happy. She’s honestly welcoming.”

One problem she can’t solve, though, is the inevitably long waits for a table. “We don’t play favorites,” St. Pierre says. “Everybody waits.” Even legal legend Peter Dorsey was spotted this fall eating at the bar because no table was available.

But 112’s diminutive aspect is integral to its success. It’s more alluring to dine in a busy restaurant, and “there’s the perception you’re always busy, because it only takes a handful of customers,” explains D’Amico & Partners’ Jay Sparks. “It’s also easier to cook for a small restaurant.”

Becker is in the kitchen every day, except Sundays (when 112 is closed), and Tuesdays—when he and St. Pierre stay home with sons, Klaus, nine, and Winston, one. “I had gotten tired of being a clipboard guy,” Becker says, recalling the Lurçat days. “But when I cooked at Campiello, you had to work a station, and I’d go home feeling great.”

Becker’s food is superb, simply rendered, with clear, bright flavors. The menu is studded with dishes that leave lasting impressions. Most every dish is fully formed and ready for prime time, one of 112’s points of differentiation.

“Isaac has it, and he had it when he came to work for us,” Sparks explains. “We look on our restaurants as businesses first and art projects second. There’s discipline involved. Issac has that. Of course, when your house payment and kids’ schools are on the line, you’ve got to be serious.”

Becker returns the kudos, crediting both his and St. Pierre’s training under the D’Amico tent for their success. “One thing I got from Jay is that the first challenge is to come up with something really good. Then you figure out how to do it at a profit and within the limits of your kitchen.”

Revenues are double what the couple budgeted, and their customers continue to surprise them. “I don’t like to have too many things over $20 on the menu,” says Becker, “and that keeps us busy. But I would never have guessed that it would be the young, late-night crowd that would be buying foie gras, steak tartare, and champagne. Our sales go up after 10 p.m.”

The small space has one downside: Even with double the projected revenues, “it can’t support us and an executive chef,” Becker says. That means he must be behind the stove almost every night, but, he says, “I can’t physically do it for another five years. So one of these days something’s got to change.”

Consider yourself on notice: You have less than half a decade to find a table at 112 Eatery.