Chambers Kitchen

Address:
901 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-767-6999, chambersminneapolis.com

The Scene
Adam Tihany, the dean of restaurant designers, often said the golden rule of restaurant styling is to make the room work whether it’s empty or full and to make sure that every customer looks better in the restaurant than outside it. David Rockwell, this generation’s leading restaurant designer, has achieved Tihany’s ideal in this swank and sleek solution to the classic upscale hotel restaurant conundrum and created a timeless environment that works all day, but doesn’t detract from the food. The perfectly lit basement dining room with inky black floors and white leather seating furthers the goals. The best-looking elements of Chambers Kitchen aren’t Ralph Burnet’s Damien Hirst lithos, but the people and the food at the tables.

My Take
Jean-Georges Vongerichten is deservedly one of the most highly regarded chefs in the world. Now his restaurants in New York, Paris, London, and Shanghai have a new sibling featuring an Asian-inspired menu of greatest hits from his most successful menus. Chambers Kitchen is expertly run by the well-traveled chef Joshua Nudd and pastry savant Christopher Szczeniowski, but the food is all JGV. Eat here a few times, and let’s talk about the skill and discipline it takes to turn out plates like the king oyster mushroom–and-avocado carpaccio kissed with charred jalapeño oil and lime. Or the gulp-friendly galangal emulsion that accompanies the too-good-to-be-true mushroom egg rolls. Look at how few ingredients are composed on each plate, and then remember that JGV cooks without stocks, relying instead on herbs, juices, infusions, perfumes, and oils to create his recipes. His salt-and-peppered walleye with chilies and basil is a sour-salt-sweet-bitter tribute to the four pillars of Thai cookery, while dishes such as the bacon-wrapped shrimp with passion fruit mustard and cumin-tinted honey are cooked with enough restraint so you taste every element on the plate. Szczeniowski’s dessert menu (his passion fruit soufflé gets my vote for best sweet) puts him deservedly in the front ranks of the country’s best pastry chefs. When the staff becomes more comfortable with the complex service playbook, the experience of dining here will be second to none.

Best in Class?
Most Twin Citians find it easier to take potshots at restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s 20.21 and Chambers Kitchen than to laud their success. Some think that since the star chefs are only in residence a few weeks a year and their eateries are part of larger restaurant groups based elsewhere, their achievements are not as noteworthy as those of owner-operated restaurants. I believe strongly in the concept of supporting independent restaurants, but Chambers Kitchen is as skilled as any in town, its national prominence reflects kindly on our entire food community, and if it were a little fifty-seater in St. Paul we would be declaring it the best restaurant in town. Which it probably is.