Photography by Jenny Lunde
D'Amico Kitchen, on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis,
is an amazing restaurant that naturally stimulates your senses. I'm not sure which was my favorite part of the dining experience: the atmosphere, which draws you in visually and physically, or the food, with dishes that tickle your tongue and delight your soul. Luckily, I don't have to choose my favorite, because D'Amico offers both... abundantly.
The sense stimulation begins even before you enter. As you approach the restaurant, your eyes are drawn to the beautiful raw rusted doors, as well as the sign above the door that reads D'Amico Kitchen Osteria and Bar in rich color and texture. (InItaly, an Osteria is traditionally located in a small town or suburb - it's a location where people spend the evening with friends over local wine and simple food made with ingredients from nearby farms. It is an informal, relaxed atmosphere in which people sit at shared community tables. In recent generations, the emphasis in many Osterias has shifted from a meal's social aspects to the actual food, although menus still tend to be relatively simple with local specialties like pasta and grilled meat and fish.)
Once inside, a palpable feeling of serenity washes over you. Large windows along two of the walls allows light to warmly fill the room. The clean, crisp color of white is all around you - tables, chairs, draperies to add privacy, walls, and candles. While some shades of white are cool and distant, other shades - including all of those inside the restaurant - are warm, inviting, and cozy. The interior designer did an amazing job (and not just because of the pumpkin-colored accent wall - my regular readers know I have a bit of an obsession with all things pumpkin). What makes the design work so well is the placement of objects around the restaurant, the warmth of the white shades, the windows providing natural light, and yes, that accent wall doesn't hurt. This serenity of the restaurant extended even to the staff. I could tell immediately that there were no snobby waitresses here. The waitstaff was there merely to facilitate this excellent Italian dining experience.
I try to learn at least one new thing each day, and on the day of my visit to D'Amico, I learned once and for all how to pronounce the word gnocchi, which I have apparently been saying incorrectly for many years! It was fitting that I would learn the pronunciation on this day because this gnocchi dish was like no other gnocchi I have ever eaten. It was a very soft puff pasta cheese ball delight that simply melted in my mouth.
D'Amico's gnocchi, my "You've got to try this dish!" selection, has set the new standard against which all future gnocchi will be measured.
Beet salads have become a little trendy, and many restaurants offer a typical salad with a couple of slices of red beets thrown on top and call it "beet salad." Not here. D'Amico uses striped beets and when cooking it, they use a few red beets to accentuate the stripes. This gives the dish several different layers of vibrant color. And they don't stop there! Chucks of beets are placed on a bed of Gorgonzola cream, and even the oil drizzled off the plate is packed with a pistachio flavor that dances on your tongue. I'm a beet connoisseur, and I was very happy with this dish.
I also enjoyed the tomato soup, where beautiful lines of oil created a window of sorts, through which I could see the soup from all sides.
As most of you know, I love pumpkin, sweet potato, and most
squashes. So selecting D'Amico's Winter Squash Ravioli was something of a given. Light pasta pockets filled with squash were accompanied by leaves of sage in a butter citrus sauce that glides on the tongue before the creamy yummyness of squash emerges. Sage is so beautiful with textures, and when cooked, these texture become very rich.
I've been visiting restaurants during Restaurant Week for several years, and I can confidently say that D'Amico Kitchen is now my #1 ranked destination. The food, the staff, the atmosphere, and the cost (in that order) are what determine my restaurant experience - and D'Amico is a clear-cut winner.
One special thing to note about this restaurant is
Date Night. They offer a special where you and your partner choose 3 courses and a bottle of wine for $50. Looking at the date night menu, most of our dishes were on it (just not the soup), and one of the dessert options was an Almond Crepe, which caught my eye.
