I Can Feel Again Sneaky Mister

Here's a bit of a too-early-controversial take: Mr. Paul's Supper Lodge, the jazzy New Orleans supper society that opens on Friday in Edina, is the full circle connection of string ends that started with the legendary Town Talk Diner back in 2006.

Not in food, not in concept, just in middle and soul.

Mr. Paul's is the creation of Tommy Begnaud and Nick Kosevich, both of whom were acolytes of Tim Niver and Aaron Johnson who opened the very absurd drinky diner which helped spur the local cocktail revolution and created a space for a finer diner in the Twin Cities eating landscape. I'm so sad if you don't recall it, and I'd like to clink a glass and lock eyes with y'all if you practise.

"I've been chasing the dragon of what it is to be similar Boondocks Talk, and create that feeling once more, for my whole career," Kosevich told me every bit nosotros walked through the rapidly assembling space. "I believe that that was something magical and special and really, it hasn't happened since then."

What we're talking most isn't a re-creation of something iconic, similar the sick-blighted 2013 Figlio resurrection at the West End. This is more than a proof of life, that something so remarkable and world-cracking, although long gone, can take a really tasty ripple effect.

"In that location's a level of freedom in hospitality where yous get to be the self you choose. We were pushing elements of service at Town Talk. Niver taught united states of america how to work that signal bar, where every person that comes in, either I know y'all, or I'm well-nigh to know you, and you're gonna leave knowing us," Kosevich went on. "It's the style that nosotros're gonna create that free energy and really enable everybody to experience like, hey, this is your section. We want you to own it, we want you lot to feel like this is your bar."

And to be clear: this is familial. Begnaud is tied to Mr. Paul through blood and Rebel Yell, and then this NOLA-tinged restaurant is less theme and more homage to his grandpa'due south roots.

There are cheeky touches here and at that place: the wallpaper game throughout is adjacent level. The main dining room is laid with half-moon booths as plants drip from overhead. There's a sense that not everything should be perfect. A sure set of tiles for the back bar arrived in the correct color, simply the wrong size: they fabricated do.

I joked with Aaron Wittkamper, the designer who did an immaculate job with the Brother Justus space, that this project was probably a touch harder to join. Information technology's just a meg moving pieces and like three levels of ideas, but dammit if there's non pinkish grout in the hallway.

In that location's a smallish individual bar that can be booked for events, the whole emerald light-green infinite is cavey in the all-time way. There volition be a night vibe to the shelves and candle lit alcoves come this weekend. In fact, look a lot of candles throughout the space. The private dining infinite in the dorsum also sports dark tones to balance the window walls on one side. This main wall is focused on a gallery drove of art that one time belonged to Mr. Paul, and it sets the tone for the room. Behind a pinkish cabinet is a full acoustic organisation, to support private issue needs. Because dammit, this is however Edina.

Begnaud remembers walking though the Commander's Palace kitchen on a visit, and anybody they passed said hello and welcomed them. He's hoping for that same convivial vibe as people pass through the pinkish-grouted hallway (next to the bathrooms) on their style to Mr. Paul'southward Po' Boys and Jams. Go down the black hallway, follow the airship animate being.

The small side shop promises good times from the infinitesimal you see Mr. Paul'southward carnival cutouts on the wall, to the second you outset line-fishing in your pocket for a gumball machine quarter, to the moment you realize at that place's Ace of Base on the live jukebox. The po' boy shop will open later this coming calendar week, with sandwiches and drinks. The Balloon Emporium cocktail experience, with Kosevich leading a ticketed session of cutting edge drinks and eats performance, will start in Jan.

This is the Become Big moment for Begnaud and Kosevich: it'due south a huge space with multiple layers, multiple concepts, and they've worked years to get here. I haven't had a bite, but I have no uncertainty that at that place will be marching bands and buskers roaming the room, that there volition exist more than helium sucked than is probably wise, that on your 3rd visit you may be brought to your seat through the back bar, with a bump along the way.

Perhaps, if it all pulls off, this fresh opening crew might come dorsum together in 15 years and create something crazy and new that germinated at Mr. Paul'southward. That's how this is all supposed to work, you know.

Opens Friday!

Stephanie March

Food and Dining editor Stephanie March writes and edits Mpls.St.Paul Magazine's Swallow + Drink department. She can likewise be heard Saturdays on her myTalk107.1 radio show, Weekly Dish, where she talks most the Twin Cities food scene.

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I Can Feel Again Sneaky Mister

Stephanie March

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