Q&A with Michael Morse

This month, Michael Morse expects to open The Landmarc Grill, an American bistro serving meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and chicken pot pie in The Normandy Hotel, a family-owned Best Western on the fringe of downtown Minneapolis. Morse has bounced around the Twin Cities scene in the years since un deux trois closed, bringing his King of the Dining Room act to high-profile but short-lived stints at Tejas, Levain, and A Rebours. Landmarc may be the final shot for the notoriously grizzled New Yorker, now fifty-nine. He ruminated—in his deep, coarse, Harvey Fiersteinesque vox: “I have blood in my veins, and I’m passionate about what I do. If passion was just the key to success, then I would be very successful.”

Why were you at Levain and A Rebours?
Those were jobs. Jobs. Unfortunately, at this late stage in my life, I still need to have a job.

Why did you decide on this spot?
If I say “I don’t know what the f_ _ _  I’m doing here,” that’ll be in the magazine? I’ve known Michael Noble, the gentleman whose family has owned this hotel for many years. He used to eat at un deux trois. At one point, there were food venues in the hotel. There was Normandy Kitchen, a breakfast-lunch kind of operation. Henry the VIII was a little hamburger space. Normandy Village was a white-tablecloth restaurant. There are people who come up to me in the streets and whatever that remember eating here in the forties and fifties. There’s a lot of longing for the Henry VIII hamburger.

Do you really give a damn about making a great hamburger?
Of course I do. I mean, I give a shit about everything that we do in the business. So, yeah, I care about the hamburger. I care about the knife and the fork and the light and the music and the wait staff to a point of being a little obsessive and compulsive about what goes on here.

Why does Landmarc end with a C?
It gives it something different. Some class.

Is this the first situation since un deux trois where you think, “This is my show”?
It is my show.

Are you going to hire a big-time chef?
No.

Are you going to miss the high-profile clientele?
I got news for ya. [They] will be in this restaurant. And pretty much everybody I know. When it’s a weekday night or a weekend night and they’re downtown going to a movie or the convention center or working late and they just want to come over to a place where they can walk through the door and they know where they are and feel relaxed and know that I’m there and the staff is there and just kinda feel . . . comfortable, timeless, and classic are the words.

What’s the menu going to be like?
We’ll have items that the Normandy Hotel people talk about: the Henry VIII hamburger, the pancakes, the popovers. There are certain dishes that I did at un deux trois that people ask for. The French onion soup. We had wonderful steak frite. There was calf’s liver that some people, who like liver, have said, “Michael, if you don’t have the liver, we’re not coming!”

You’re kind of known for being out in front and handling the room.
Right. We all have areas that we excel in, and I think—no, I know—that I can do what I do, at the table, better than 99 percent of the people. I just have that sixth sense of walking into a room and looking at my customers and looking at their body language and seeing how much food is left on their plate and looking at the garbage can and listening to the music, and I sense when it’s all coming together and when something is not right. Danny Meyer said in his book, “When you’re born, the first four things that happen to you is you make eye contact, you smile, you get a hug, and you get fed. For the rest of your life, that’s what you’re looking for.”