Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant

Address:
1010 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-332-1010, dakotacooks.com

The Scene
The vibe at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant is palpable. The room bustles before, during, and after the show with downtown suits, coveys of elegant ladies, and music mavens of all shapes and sizes. Everyone is sipping a martini and snacking on those famous fries with béarnaise. The collection of jazz-legend photos, wine racks, and clever wall treatments keeps the place from feeling like a big box, and the state-of-the-art sound system (an overused cliché if it were describing any other room in town) keeps the focus where it should be when Marsalis takes a solo. The black-toned, stunningly lit, brick-accented interior has always made for great listening, but the Dakota’s new culinary energy under chef Jack Riebel is nothing short of dramatic.

Our Take
Much has already been written about chef Ken Goff’s departure from the Dakota kitchen a year and a half after the restaurant and jazz club’s move to downtown Minneapolis, and the subsequent hiring of local über-chef Jack Riebel. The Goodfellow’s/La Belle Vie alum seems to have lifted the entire kitchen onto his back and marched it into the top tier of Minnesota restaurants. Flaky sea salt is on all the tables, every dish is thoughtfully composed, the quality of cooking has trebled, and the Dakota has lost none of its “taste of the Heartland” philosophy.

The famous Brie-and-apple soup is lighter and more balanced and the salads are gorgeous still-lifes created with traditional ingredients, but the flavors and nuances—for example, in the cucumber dressing and the marinated beet and arugula salad topped with curried, spiced walnuts—are definitively upscale. For lunch, the poached- egg-and-brioche salad with frisée and a bacon vinaigrette, the beer-battered walleye with smoked-tomato aioli, the roasted pulled-chicken sandwich, and the crab and pike cakes with pickled-vegetable slaw were all thoroughly fresh, a tribute to Riebel’s insistence on “à la minute” cooking. Dinner was also a joy ride. Pea flan in ham hock broth is an adult paean to the soup my grandmother loved to massacre, the foie gras mousse and rhubarb conserve was exquisite, even Riebel's take on steak, a grilled rib eye with barbecue–blue cheese butter and twice-cooked potatoes was spot-on. Save room for the blueberry-peach upside-down cake.

Size Matters
As excellent a cook and as dogged a leader and teacher as Riebel is, achieving fine-dining excellence in a restaurant with a casual “club” menu, high-style lunch and dinner service—and almost 350 seats and a patio—is almost a Sisyphean task. Service remains a problem at the Dakota. At a restaurant of this caliber, it is not OK to have servers disappear for twenty minutes or have a stunning plate of assorted seafood jewels plunked down with a hearty “Here ya go.” Riebel’s hiring manifests Dakota’s ambitions writ large—perhaps the front of the house has not gotten the message.

Fine Print GETTING THERE, GETTING IN: Reservations are recommended for weekend dinners, since music fans grab tables for both a meal and a show. There is never a cover charge for those who only dine. Valet parking (Friday–Saturday only, $6), nearby ramps, very limited metered street parking. HOURS:  Lunch M–F 11 a.m.–2 p.m. Dinner Su–Th 5:30–10 p.m., F–Sa 5:30–11 p.m. NOISE LEVEL: Can be high, but, hey, it’s a jazz club. KIDS: An adult atmosphere; children’s menu available. CARDS: AmEx, Diners, Discover, MC, Visa. ENTRÉE PRICES: $18–$32. Handicap Accessible