La Belle Vie Lounge

These days I’ve been hanging out in the bar at La Belle Vie. And it’s not just because Dusty Springfield is on the sound system. The room is chill-out cool: Heavy pendant chandeliers with dozens of petite shades hang above the couches and chaise longues that provide comfy seating options. A massive counter dominates the room and is a favorite place to catch local star chefs unwinding after an evening behind the stove.

Everyone knows that Tim McKee and Josh Thoma’s high-style restaurant offers as sublime an eating experience as you can find in the Midwest outside of Chicago, but what they don’t know is that the lounge offers the same great food, plus a thrilling bar menu that doesn’t make you feel like you’re missing anything by snacking instead of dining.

The bar fare is pitch perfect. A sturdy, grilled bread comes crowned with chilled pâté de foie gras and orange preserves. There are fried polenta–crusted prawns with remoulade, and a crisp and buttery jewel of a griddled cave-aged-Gruyére-and-jambon royal sandwich—all executed flawlessly. The small bowl of spiced couscous adorned with warm, rare, sliced beef strip loin may be the best finale to any bar crawl in town. Check that. Adrienne Odom’s cardamom doughnut with lemon verbena cream, blueberry jam, and blueberry sorbet is. Save some room.

Food & Wine magazine recently chose Bill Summerville’s 400-bottle wine list as one of the ten best in the country, and the bar pours most wines by the glass. LBV will open any bottle under $100 as long as you’re buying two glasses, and on a recent evening, a rosé flight was being offered.

All that, and the best hand-shaken cocktails in town courtesy of the unflappable Johnny Michael, who mixes all his cocktails by hand with fresh-squeezed juices. In the classic tradition of the Gilded Age, the strong drinks look as good as they surely taste. There are cherry-kissed lime Rickeys, ginger mojitos, and a cassis-and-citrus punch called an Amethyst—an unbeatable thirst quencher that might turn the tide of global warming. There is even a nonalcoholic drink menu, the only one in town worth taking seriously.

510 Groveland Ave., Mpls., 612-874-6440