Cafe Levain

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4762 Chicago Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55407

612-823-7111

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Critics'
Pick
BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CAFÉ—MINNEAPOLIS
Award Winner 2008

Cuisine(s): American, Contemporary, French

Hours: Sun 10:30am-2:30pm, Sun,Tue,Wed,Thu 5pm-9pm, Fri-Sat 5pm-10pm

Price: $$, $$$
Payment Types: MasterCard, Visa

Features: Patio/Sidewalk Dining, Takeout, Vegetarian Friendly

Serving: Brunch, Dinner
Alcohol: Beer/Wine

Reservations: Not Accepted

Parking: Lot Available, Street

Description

Reborn from the ashes of former fine-dining standard-bearer Restaurant Levain, Café Levain is a T-shirt casual, safe and sound little French-oriented bistro, with the emphasis on safe and sound. The French onion soup is the best in town--beefy as a steak, comforting as a quilt, and smothered with top-quality cheese, well browned. The roast chicken boasts a skin as crispy as bacon, and is craveable, good, and plain. The menu is remarkably brief, just a handful of entrees, a very few appetizers, and a dessert or three to pair with the wonderful wine list, but if you're in the mood for inexpensive comfort foods cooked with skill and grace and served with good wine, Café Levain is the safest bet in town.

2008 | BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CAFÉ--MINNEAPOLIS

Restaurant Levain launched as an ambitious culinary exploration of foie-gras torchon and butter-poached lobster, but the problem was, it was a little too pricey for most to visit if it wasn't a special occasion. The restaurant closed last year and reopened soon after as a more casual café: It's the same cozy space, with butter-colored walls and dark wood wainscoting, but the revamped menu features French bistro, slow-cooked, home-style fare. This incarnation of Levain is all about... More »
2006 | BEST STAR CHEF EXPERIENCE IN A RESTAURANT

Five years ago you could go into most of our top chef-driven restaurants like Alma, Zander, or La Belle Vie and see the chef of note hurling pans behind the line just like folk. Nowadays not only are open kitchens falling from fashion, but you really have to work hard to find a lot of big-name chefs in their own restaurants--they've got chefs de cuisine for that, thank you very much. Not so at Restaurant Levain! Long renowned as one of the most talented chefs to ever stuff a quail or... More »
2005 | BEST RESTAURANT IN SPITE OF ITSELF

In the hands of Chef Steven Brown, a seared scallop wearing a gossamer cloak of sea urchin--the sparkly fellow standing sturdily upon a cloud of black cuttlefish ink-tinged rice--becomes not so much an experience of food, but an experience of immortality, as the intensity of the sea and the sweetness of its bounty spread through your soul in a sweetly singing oceanic harmony. Yet the dining experience at Restaurant Levain is usually the opposite of harmonic. Every seat seems to be smack dab... More »
2004 | BEST RESTAURANT WHEN SOMEONE ELSE IS PAYING

Restaurant Levain. Opened with big plans--five-star cooking in the neighborhood. But you know how it goes with the best-laid plans of mice and Levain... Started life with a big-name maître d', but lost him before the paint on the sign out front had time to dry. Built its reputation on a big-name chef, paired a big-name sous--but that was yesterday, now it seems so far away. They left. Opened with no wine license at all--call it five-star dining, Mormon-style. Swapped that out for some... More »

Safe and Sound

By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl | Wed, August 22, 2007

Café Levain 4762 Chicago Ave. S, Minneapolis612.823.7111www.restaurantlevain.com Now that we no longer have roads in the Twin Cities, picking restaurants has gotten a little trickier. Oh, I know that technically we only lost one road, but I thin... More »
Levain Unleavened

By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl | Wed, February 18, 2004

Levain 4762 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis 612.823.7111 Success is a bedeviling concept. The things that constitute a successful day for a newly divorced mom with the flu, a surgeon in a field hospital in Afghanistan, or a field mouse are all v... More »

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KimG30 | Minneapolis, MN | 5 Reviews

| Mon, June 2, 2008

Bravo to Levain for abandoning the too fancy/too expensive Manhattan restaurant experiment in favor of a casual neighborhood cafe. But, it's a cut above most other Minneapolis cafes in the food and wine. Great discovery last time: a Spanish white wine called Basa.

Main Menu

Starters

$8.00

French Onion Soup
beef broth, gruyere, rogue creamery “smokey blue” cheese, baguette, crispy onion

$9.00

Mushroom Soup
roasted mushrooms, breadcrumbs, truffled pecorino, preserved lemon, chive

$8.00

Sunchoke Soup
sunchokes, toasted nuts, vermont cheddar, cider gastrique

$9.00

Upland Cress Salad
grapefruit, fennel purée, ricotta salata, toasted nuts

$9.00

Mussels
shallot, garlic, cream, butter, white wine, baguette, herbs, saffron aioli

$9.00

Warm Lentil Salad
lentils du puy, kale, mustard vinaigrette, dried fruit, parsnip, pistachio, soffrito

Entrees

$18.00

Roast Chicken
lentils du puy, bread salad, olives, celery root, dried fruit, brown butter

$26.00

Hanger Steak
balsamic, demi glace, caramelized onion, frites

$26.00

Pan-seared Sturgeon
fingerling potato, fennel, mussels, shellfish broth, picholine olives, capers, brown butter

$23.00

Short Ribs
savory oatmeal, kale, brussels sprouts, mustard, crème fraîche

$12.00

Short Rib Burger
truffled pecorino fondue, cornichon, dijon, frites

$15.00

Pearl Barley Risotto
pear purée, brussels sprouts, pickled vegetables, breadcrumbs, rogue creamery “smoked blue” cheese

$17.00

Riverbend Farms Soft Polenta
roasted mushrooms, sunnyside up egg, aged cheddar, picholine olives, chive

Side Dishes