Spoon and Stable — Restaurant in Minneapolis

If any Minneapolis restaurants engage in the Michelin star system, I think this establishment would be one of the first, if not the first, to earn at least one star. Not saying I like that system, but I am just tryinh to magnify the fact that Spoon and Stable is a comprehensively amazing establishment. I have spent two birthdays within the past 3 years here and I have to conclude that they were both worth it in terms of my dinner experience. Amazing.

Some of the photos I have chosen to include contain items that no longer exist, but I did re-order some of the dishes that were still there, namely the Spaghetti Nero, the Bison Tartare, and the Honey & Cream Cake. For appetizers, the kanpachi crudo perfectly allowed me to take one bite with everything included (fish, ponzu, peach, and lemon balm) to have a completely new flavor profile experience. I have not had the same experience with crudo in general yet in other places, so yeah, this was amazing. The bison tartare was amazing as well because the aïoli and radish really created a contrast from the raw beef flavor that just happened to work.

Every pasta was a hit! I have had the spaghetti nero twice and I thought both times the dish was perfect because nothing was overpowering! It was very easy to make the sauce very sour or dominate the flavor but it wasn't the case. Including octopus, prawn, and mussels worked very well, too, because some of the small bits were just enough to provide the squid ink pasta with a flavor and texture balance. For the pansotti, I really enjoyed the black garlic soubise on the outside and the juxtaposition its flavor created with what was inside the pasta: ossau-iraty cheese. Two completely different flavors that worked beautifully. The raviolo was great as well, with all flavors that managed to mesh together. The mushroom was very pronounced once taking a bite into those bits. It was slightly too oily, maybe due to the abundance of butter, but great regardless.

I also ordered the rainbow trout which was a new experience but I ended up concluding that it was a dish that I could personally try to replicate. The coriander flavor was very strong and that wasn't something that everyone could get used to. I enjoyed it overall, especially with the crust perfectly cooked to crisp and flavorful, but I did have to dip the fish into the cucumber broth for even more flavor beyond the coriander-infused crust. The creamy spinach having cheese curds on top was a pleasant surprise and wow it worked very well! Eating some spinach with the cheese curds really just created this new flavor that worked like charm.

Dessert was simply out of this world. Honey & cream cake is a must and it looks like they are using red currants now instead of blackberries, which is cool! But man, those tiny pieces of cookies they included... I don't know what they were made out of, but they were the best I have ever had in my life. Even though I had only one piece of it, that piece really astonished me. The pistachio pudding waa aesthetically very pleasing and tasted like nothing else I have ever tasted. The raspberry granita and yogurt dip n' dots both provided taste and texture, making the whole dessert an entity that one has to enjoy by including a little bit of everything on a spoon. The peaches and cream was just so interesting in terms of flavor, which I deduced it was due to the anise hyssop, but it was very evident. The thinly sliced peaches contained that flavor as well, so the contrast between that heavily emphasized taste and the cream taste was so huge that I ended up treating this peaches and cream dessert as its own unique entity among all desserts of similar types I have had. Uniqueness is the key.

Other than food, the atmosphere was lovely. We could visibly see the room with a ladder and lots of types of alcohol. The chairs and couches were clean and comfortable, and my partner and I could visibly see the chefs giving their best shots. Perfect place for a date. I would recommend reserving their dinner service a long time in advance, so if you...

Spoon and Stable has been on my list to check out for awhile, and their food definitely lived up to the hype! My partner and I visited on a Saturday for a fun date night and had a good experience. TLDR: incredible food (especially the introductory courses!), nice atmosphere, and generally good service after a longer wait to place our first order.

We arrived on time for our reservation and were seated immediately. The hostesses and our waitress were both nice, and the service was good—however, it was about 25 minutes after we were seated before our drink order was taken, and we ordered all of our food along with our cocktails. Both our food and drink menus had been closed for about ten minutes before our waitress stopped by again, despite checking in with the tables beside ours a few times. This said, there were no delays after our order was placed, and after that our waitress checked in more frequently and took subsequent cocktail orders with no issue. One other thing to note on service: my partner ordered their daily cocktail special but was never informed what this was, even after receiving it. You may need to explicitly ask.

All this said, their food was totally awesome and definitely worth it! We tried one introduction, one pasta, and each had our own entrees. My favorite dishes were the introduction and pasta—we had the wonton soup and potato gnocchi. The flavors on these were absolutely incredible, I loved the shrimp and duck wonton and the sauce on the potato gnocchi was amazing. Our entrees were also very good and flavorful. I got the pot roast, and it reminded me of the pot roast my mom used to make when I was a kid, but elevated! I also got the foie gras add on, and I’d actually never tried seared foie gras like this so that was also a cool experience. My partner got the pork chop and the bite of this I tried was perfect, very tender and packed with flavor. They also brought out complimentary bread to start which my partner really liked.

Their cocktails were very good too. They did their own twists on classics and they were all solid drinks, but didn't blow me out of the water. I felt similarly about the dessert we tried—we got the lime leaf pavlova, and this was very refreshing and tasty but not really a stand out of the meal. Beyond the food and service, the atmosphere was nice. The huge cage they kept their wines in was very cool, and I liked how the skylight overhead let in a lot of natural light.

Overall, I think Spoon and Stable is a very nice restaurant and their food is generally outstanding. In my opinion, there are some other restaurants in the Twin Cities with similarly delicious food and slightly better service and cocktails, but I do think the food here is adequately hyped. Plus service-wise it may have just been an off night. I'd be interested to come back to try their brunch menu, and I do definitely recommend checking them out if you...

So disappointed... I did a lot of research before settled on S&S since we only have 2 dinners in Minneapolis. James Beard restaurant can't go wrong, but man let me tell you how wrong I was....

I gave a 2 Stars because there were some good experiences.

Good: the Bison Tartare was great. My daughter loved it. We had a dozen Oysters, they were fresh and "sweet." Very nice. We were ready for the main courses, but everything just went downhill from there....

BADS: Grilled lamb: flavor was OK. But the server never asked us how we like the lamb, so it came middium rare. Which would have been ok, but the meat was sooooo tough, I couldn't even cut with the knife easily. So my mother in law couldn't eat the meat.. costco lamb chop is better quality meat than this!

Squid-ink spaghetti with shrimp: it looked beautiful. This is not my first time having similar pasta. I was looking forward to have some from my son. He took a bite and said oh, it is not that good. I was thinking maybe he is not use to the "special" taste, so my husband had some. He gave me the look "this pasta tasted weird." He told me, it is really sour. I couldn't believe it. I had to taste it myself. As soon as I put the spaghetti in my mouth, man, it was so sour, I had the hardest time to swallow it! Then, I started to mix the spaghetti, then I see chunks of spaghetti stick together and uncooked! OMG!! I am talking about a James Beard Restaurant here. Can't believe it! I am paying $34 for some uncooked overly sour spaghetti! I told the server about it, all he said was I am sorry you didn't like the taste. WHAT??? If I were at any other reputable restaurant, the manager would have come and talked to me. Oh well, I guess I will never come back again..

Side dish: spinach with cheese curd: I saw the picture in the review, it looked great. So I ordered it. The version I got had a lot of sauce. When I had my first bite, man, it was soo salty that I had to spit it out... I didn't want to be the picky customer, so I didn't say anything. All my other family members tried it and said the same thing. Way too salty...

We also had halibut and pork chop, they were ok, nothing special.

Also with this automatic service charge, the service was not good at all! They are going to get a fixed tip, why should they be nice to the customer? It just doesn't make sense..

Overall, after $400, I had a terrible experience.. I just hope your experience is a lot better than mine. Or don't go! Try a...