Style Scout: Food (and Design) for the Soul

The best-designed restaurants aren’t always the prettiest

Northeast Minneapolis's Brasa feels just like home.

Image credit: Tate Carlson

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By: Cy Winship |   February 2012   |  From the print edition

Sometimes design seems a silly and pretentious occupation. Designers worry about wall color, the size of rugs and whether Hollywood Regency is here to stay—really, it’s shameful. Factor in the constant pressure to choose just the right thing for the right place and it’s even worse. I’ve been designing for two TV shows lately, and I can tell you that you are a terrible failure as a human being if you choose the wrong lamp. (As the increasingly unhinged host of one of the shows wailed, “I just can’t sell that shelf! I’m just not that good an actress!”).

It got me thinking: Is there just too much damn design everywhere? I looked around and became exhausted by the importance we ascribe to every freaking lamp and chair—God, even the covers on our phones! Who are we that we fetishize every object around us? That we judge and agonize over the design merit of everything in our lives?

Unfortunately, this revelation coincided with my idea to write about good design in restaurants this month. Yikes! I thought great food wasn’t quite enough to get me out on a frigid winter’s night. I planned on writing about restaurants in the Twin Cities with warm and creative interiors—and not the ones most people would expect. There’s the newish Wise Acre Eatery with all those terrific plants, the simplicity of Brasa in Northeast, with the roasting chickens making me feel at home. I love Cafeteria’s wit, Sea Change’s drama, The Lowbrow’s humor. So, what woke me up?

I’m going to get blasted for this, but it was a trip to the Bachelor Farmer. I love the interior—the corny wallpaper and cool lights. I love the servers’ hip farm wear. Everything looked right. Except that I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten just a couple of days later. I suppose it’s unfair to single them out. Indeed, many restaurants look hip enough for me to admire. I guess what I’m saying is that visual wit just isn’t enough. When you get down to it, you gotta have soul.

Of course, there are also many visual mistakes that can ruin my experience. Fluorescent light, bad color, uncomfortable seats, too much noise. I remember one great little Malaysian restaurant that kept all the fluorescents on and then added at least a dozen cheap crystal chandeliers. Blinding light is anathema to me and makes food look hideous. But, barring those deal-breakers, what really makes me leave my home on a cold winter’s night?

I found the answer the other night as my friend Mary sat twirling her fork, rhapsodizing about the pork at Shady Grove in Ellsworth, Wisc. (Yes, Ellsworth, home of the Cheese Curd Festival). The restaurant has knotty pine walls, brown vinyl booths and campy, red supper-club chairs with huge tacks. (I should have been sneering, but of course I love supper-club camp.)

The servers there know what the chef is trying to do. The chef and hosts talk about local and organic but, most importantly, produce dishes I really remember. I recall laughing and sighing and looking around at farm families—and one huge table of exotic “had-to-be-New-Yorkers”—out together and my heart just swelled.

That is a well-designed restaurant. Warmth. Personal connection to the food. Soul.

So, for me the best-designed restaurants aren’t necessarily the prettiest. ChinDian is rough hewn, but has Nina and Tom behind the wheel. Tea House, Grand Café, Brasa, Wise Acre, Anchor Fish and Chips and On’s Thai Kitchen all have that ineffable something. It’s people. Interesting, hard-working people who love sharing great food.

It’s great if the place looks nice. I would certainly change a great many restaurant interiors. But, even I was surprised by this revelation: There are many things more important than what’s on the walls in a restaurant—and maybe in our lives. Duh.