Description
After a career working for several of the Twin Cities' most notable restaurateurs and running some seriously ambitious kitchens at Restaurant Levain and Porter & Frye, chef Steven Brown finally has his own digs. To retain an accessible vibe, his 14-table Tilia doesn't take reservations, so you could easily wait for an hour on the weekend, but the restaurant is a pretty enough place to wait, with its wooden booths, denim-upholstered chairs, and retro light fixtures. It's a worldview filtered through the iPhone's Hipstamatic camera app, and, in a way, Tilia feels like it's been here forever. There's a lengthy and well-curated row of craft beers on tap to sample while you decide what to order from the American bistro-style menu. The foods are familiar, but with fine-dining refinement, and none costs more than $20. The potted meat is an excellent bargain, being richly spiced, creamy with fat, and positively irresistible when slathered on crusty grilled toast and garnished with a vinegar-kissed shallot. The contemporary, fusion-style shrimp and spring peas are also excellent, dressed with a sweet-hot sauce that fuses the Italian influences of wine and garlic from scampi with the Chinese flavors of ginger, Szechuan chiles, and fermented black beans-it's fresh, fiery, briny, pungent. Wild Acres ducks hang for several days in the cooler, like dry-aged beef, to concentrate their flavor and cultivate a slightly wild tang so the breasts may be served with a stew of prunes, lavender honey, and shallots. Be sure to save room for the butterscotch pot au crème, which has an unexpectedly dark flavor that's rich with undertones of brown sugar and molasses. Then go home, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow morning for hot cross buns and eggs Benedict with waffles and crab.
