R.I.P. Levain

Restaurant Levain served its last meal on December 31. There was no burial, just a stunning exit performance by Steven Brown (our Frugal Gourmet columnist) and his kitchen staff. Champagne was popped, and the restaurant that I believed had some of the best food and ambience in the Upper Midwest slipped away into the first snowstorm of the year. Along with it went any notions that we are a great restaurant town, an idea I was making emphatic arguments for a few months ago. We are becoming a good food town, but save the superlatives for a day when we can support all types of excellence, most importantly the versions that challenge our imaginations and palates.

For three years, Levain’s food had gotten better and better with every menu change, the service improved, and the room settled amicably into its own farmhouse comfort. When Thomas Keller came to town on his book tour, he asked me what one restaurant he shouldn’t miss. I sent him to Levain, as I did everyone else from Johnny Apple to Lidia Bastianich. They loved Levain, and so did every food writer and dining columnist in town. The problem was that my neighbors never went there, and people who couldn’t walk in during the restaurant’s first year assumed the restaurant was still packed months later and ate elsewhere. Prices went up with Levain’s costs, competition increased, and owner Harvey McLain chose to staunch the bleeding and close, promising to reopen in May as a casual bistro.

I have been warning for months that high-end national restaurateurs—from great steak houses such as Morton’s to 20.21 with its engaging Puck fare to the Jean-Georges juggernaut—were pressuring our homegrown high-end eateries like never before. And here is the evidence.

The Saturday before Christmas, Levain did “47 covers, after 120 the year before, and 148 the year before that,” McLain told me. “My guess is there are a lot of chairs at some very good restaurants that weren’t there two years ago.” True enough. La Belle Vie, 20.21, 112 Eatery, Corner Table, Masa, Cue, Chambers Kitchen, Mission American Kitchen, Town Talk Diner, and Cosmos all opened after Levain.

Levain needed a full staff of cooks to execute its menu. It was not a restaurant that could maintain its integrity through economies and cutbacks. “If we dropped our price in half, we would have reduced our income and still not gained customers.” McLain says. “We need to close and relaunch rather than stay open and go with a new chef.” Uh, Five tried that. Closed.

As Brown succinctly puts it, the Twin Cities  needs to figure out the art versus commerce dilemma. Scott Pampuch, Corner Table chef-owner, told me that in 2006 he got more press, attention, accolades, and awards than in all other years combined, and he still had less business.

Too many seats are available in good restaurants relative to the number of diners willing to support them. I think we’ll see more closings in the coming months, especially restaurants predicated on the idea that engaging the customer through food is paramount.

I have a great deal of respect for restaurateurs who can create winning concepts that endure and become a part of the fabric of a town’s food culture. From the Kozlaks to the Murrays to Dean Vlahos and the Parasole gang—they create nothing but success.

But from where I sit, it’s the eateries that practice the culinary arts and lead, inspire, and teach that make success possible for those who follow. There was a time when halibut, pesto, and heirloom tomatoes were exotic foods, brought here by the Levains of their era. And so we are poorer for Levain’s passing.