Piccolo Restaurant

• Cuisine(s): Small Plates
  Price: $$$
• Serving: Dinner
  Alcohol: Beer/Wine
• Reservations: Accepted
  Parking: Street

Description

After spending the past several years cooking for other people, Doug Flicker, the chef-partner of the late, lamented Auriga is now cooking at his own wee little 36-table restaurant. Piccolo presents a dining style new to the Twin Cities of a mini-entrée menu we've been hard-pressed to name: Coursed dining? Fractional eating? Tasting plates? Eh, we'll keep working on it. Until then, we do know what the concept does for chefs (allows them to stretch their creative muscles) and diners (experience as much of that excellence as possible). For about $10 a pop, diners receive the sorts of plates that chefs might whip up for themselves after a long day's work (scrambled eggs with pickled pig's feet and truffle butter; gnocchi with white beans, robiola cheese, and house-cured guanciale) or when they're in a fanatic, R&D, recipe-tinkering mode (roast chicken re-imagined for modern times with the help of "meat glue" and a sous vide machine). By the time you make your way to dessert-malted panna cotta with figs and chocolate-milk foam, for example - you'll find yourself sated without feeling stuffed. Good things come in small packages, remember?