The Plates at Piccolo Are, Well, Piccolo

[Jeremy Iggers]

Stopped by for dinner Monday night at Piccolo, Doug Flicker's new place at 43rd and Bryant Ave. S. - the former Cafe Agri. Monday night is chef's night out - Lenny Russo, chef-owner of Heartland in St. Paul, was there, as was Kim Bartmann of the Red Stag, Barbette and Bryant Lake Bowl, along with Martin Olander, former owner of August Moon, and several other major league foodies. It's the kind of restaurant that serious foodies are going to love. Flicker boldly goes where most chefs fear to tread, with dishes like scrambled eggs with pickled pigs feet, truffle butter and parmigiano ($9); potato and veal tongue pave with cornichons, caraway and Italian parsley ($11), and sous vide beef shin with compressed figs, walnuts and horseradish ($14).
Carol started with the sunchoke croquettes, three small crisp balls accompanied by shaved fennel and radish ($8), followed by the potato gnocchi with white beans and robiola cheese (ordered minus the guanciale, an unsmoked Italian bacon, $11) while I opted for the escargot with artichokes, soft palenta and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, followed by the aforementioned beef shin, a tough cut of meat made sublimely tender by slow sous vide (vacuum) cooking ($14). And we shared a delicate ricotta pannacotta with Meyer lemon and quince.
Each plate was a delicate and delicious exploration of textures and flavors. And very small. How small? You'll probably want to order three dishes or more, at an average price of about $11 a plate.
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has an interesting discussion of portion size in his treatise on class, "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste" I don't actually remember much of the details, but one of his points, as I recall, was that very small plates signal high class status - "I dine for pleasure, not to quell hunger, and I don't care about cost."
I'm not sure that's going to fly in south Minneapolis. The one thing that I have learned over 30+ years of restaurant reviewing is that portion size is the one thing that Minnesotans do care about. Minnesotans like big portions. They like to feel like they are getting their money's worth. Even if they have lots of it. (The other thing Minnesotans care about is parking. No worries there. There is lots of on-street parking nearby.)

Piccolo Restaurant, 4300 Bryant Ave S.,Minneapolis, 612-827-8111

[PM]

Just got back from a fabulous dinner at Piccolo. This is my new favorite local restaurant (only 6 blocks away). The scrambled eggs were wonderful--the pickled pigs feet were (amazingly to me) wonderfully succulent, and added to the richness of the butter/truffle/parmigianno combination. The best single dish we had was the lamb crepinette, with an intense olive sauce--absolutely amazing. The flavor was incredibly concentrated, and they all married so well. The sauce that came with the black cod totally transformed the flavor of the cod--I tried it without the sauce first, and it was fine, but with the sauce it was amazing.

Sure, the plates were small, but not all that small. each plate was basically a generous appetiser for one person. Between us we had a total of 7 dishes/plates, and that was plenty of food. We also had a dessert each--the chocolate terrine and the bitter almond cake--both fantastic.

The wine list is not extensive (9 red wines, 9 white wines, 2 sparkling wines, and 5 dessert wines--mostly ports) but creative, and all of the wines are available by the glass, the carafe/half bottle, or the whole bottle, and the price differential between the different sizes is not significant. Clearly, this is designed to get you to order different glasses of wine with the different plates, which we did. Sort of a create your own wine flight to go with your particular food preferences. I think that we had 4 different red wines (glasses) between us, as well as a dessert wine (my only complaint is that there were too many different kinds of port, and not really enough different choices of dessert wines).
This is not a cheap place to eat dinner, but the flavors were intense, wonderful, and creative. I would place this on a par with Alma or Heartland or 112 or Bar La Grassa. Definitely my new favorite local restaurant (sorry, Heidi's)

[PM]

Went back again last night, and the menu was substantially changed/updated. Still great, however. There were maybe 4 items from the menu last time, including one dessert. Everything else was new (the pickled pigs feet was still there, but the lamb was gone), and there were plates that featured smoked sturgeon, partridge, spanish mackerel, pork hocks, veal breast, etc. Everything we tried was new, and wonderful! And, most amazingly to me, the level of creativity continues! I am not certain where he comes up with inspiration for all of these dishes, the ideas of how to meld all of these interesting and disparate flavors, but he does, and they work.

The service continues to be great--friendly, fun, attentive. More people this time, as well, but there was always at least one table open, never more than 3 open. I gather that it is getting full over the weekends, but still a place you can make a last minute reservation during the week (something I like a lot---I never seem to be able to plan meals out too far in advance).

My greatest worry had been that the menu would become stale, or not get changed often enough, but that doesn't seem to be a problem at all.