Five

Address:
2917 Bryant Ave. S., Mpls., 612-827-5555, fiverestaurant.com 

The Scene 
Now I know where all the fortysomethings in Coogi sweaters are hanging these days! Five is located in the old 5th Precinct police station in LynLake. Owners Stewart and Heidi Woodman and Buzzy and Toni Dachis hired Alternative Designs and BKV Architects to execute the monster makeover, which begs some questions: Why do all the rooms orient to the inside instead of the street? Why no window views? Downstairs, pinkish-purple lighting accents the first-floor Street Lounge, a large conventional bar set across from comfy seating. The second floor is subdivided into the 100-seat bistro and 40-seat dining room, which opened later. This review covers only the bistro.

Our Take
Stewart Woodman is a hydra—a creative, inspired chef who has a firm grasp of the modern aesthetic, but is a classicist at heart. For most guests, his “bistro” cookery is a superb “fine-dining” experience with casual French inspiration. Fried oysters are turned on their ear, wrapped in phyllo threads, fried and served on a soy-yuzu sauce. Ravioli are delicate won tons set in a light pool of citrus-tinged Thai–style broth. Woodman’s duck salad pairs thin slices of breast set over pulled-leg confit with a celery remoulade. It made my toes curl with joy. Gilding the lily was a lobster sauce that pulled the dish together.

Woodman’s braised dishes (veal cheeks are a regular Wednesday special) are beautifully cooked—his short ribs over parsnip purée with mustard greens and caramelized onions may be the best dish on the menu. You’d be hard-pressed not to go for the seared scallops, quivering on a corn waffle and swaddled in bacon vinaigrette. Ditto the beef fillet, seared and served on soubise with potato batonnets. The service is worldly one evening, dodgy the next, but will work itself out.

Pastry chef Johnathan Saliba’s chocolate-filled beignets, Morello-and-Amarena-cherry composition, and triple chocolate cake with chocolate sorbet are all worthy endings to dinner.

Cloudy Crystal Ball
Successful restaurants need to cater to a core clientele to enjoy a long, lucrative run. The hipsters that populate Five’s LynLake neighborhood can’t manage its steep prices very often (Five’s “dining room,” serving prix fixe tasting menus, will be even spendier). As I swoon for Five, my question is, who will be its customers two years from now?—the crucial question for upper-end restaurants in the Twin Cities. This autumn of superb restaurant openings has been amazing, but for each to thrive it will require an expansion of the sophisticated-dining audience in this meat-and-potatoes, frugal-to-the-max, cocooning-in-winter/at-the-lake-in-summer metropolis. The crowd that only eats out on Friday and Saturday is a fickle bunch—they are here now, but will have moved on come summer.