Well well well, look at the time. It’s Restaurant Week! The most delicious and budget-conscience week of the year! Now through Oct. 15 you can tuck into multi-course meals for pennies on the dollar. It’s not girl math or boy math, it’s FOOD MATH: If you get a three-course meal that could include pasta, steak, chocolate cake, all in for $35, that’s like earning money. Here’s what I would eat all week if I could clone my gut space.
NEWBIES
Welcome The Block to the RW party! This cute little SLP gem is calling my name for the $15 two-course lunch which I would happily nail at French onion soup and Double Royale burger. Pinkies out, yo.
This is a great week to check out what’s happening at the Butcher & The Boar in North Loop. The three-course $45 dinner is lighting up the options with blue crab beignets, their signature cheddarwurst or the pan roasted catfish with corn and green tomato relish, and the miso-caramel adorning the ice cream sundae sounds right up my alley.
The three-course $40 dinner at Chloe by Vincent has all the fall Frenchy feels. Butternut squash soup or a mushroom tartine, fall veggie risotto or perhaps grilled quail with cauliflower puree, banana bread with red wine stewed prunes? Yes to all of it. And also a cheese course as a dessert option, tres bien.
Earl Giles is in the RW hopper! The $35 three-course dinner is simple and streamlined: Caesar salad, pizza, and peach cake. Think of it as a partner to the excellent cocktail menu they’re always creating. Plus, can we have a moment for that lush room?
It’s the new Momento, kids! Same name, way better food, and a $45 three-course menu to introduce you to it. Start with a cup of Cioppino, because it’s fisherman’s stew season. That pomegranate braised short rib with parsnip puree, fennel, and crispy mushroom not only screams fall, but it’s an elevation of some of the others you’re used to.
Well, Mother Clucker’s Pizza took over the old Nicollet Diner space, and holy moly they are bringing the good meals for good deals vibe. For $15 you can get a three-course lunch OR dinner, and you’ll start with some salad or soup (and that includes chili). Then you have to choose between two huge slices, two pieces of broasted chicken (with sides and a biscuit!), or half an Italian hoagie. Then, you still get pie!!! For under $20!
The perfect meal does not exist, unless it’s a butter lettuce salad, Parlour burger, and banana bread combo for $35 dinner at Parlour St. Paul.
Pub 819 in Hopkins has a $15 two-course lunch that has me eyeballing the brisket grilled cheese sandwich.
Welcome Stanley’s NE for a first round of RW fun. That $25 three-course dinner for me would start with the Buffalo cauliflower, because it’s really all about the sauce anyway. Brisket mac-n-cheese feels like the correct balance to that, and then it’s a cheesecake vs. mini donut coin flip.
Star Bar & Bistro is new to the city and new to RW! You can go classique with the $45 three-course menu by starting with French onion soup, traveling to the warming and comforting cassoulet, and pirouetting with some orange creme brulee.
Oh HI Thaliwala out in Chanhappenin. Their $35 three-course dinner is here for both dine in and takeout. I’m torn over which momo to get, so maybe I’ll just get the veggie pakora. I am a chicken tikka masala girl, so count me in on that, though I will take a giant bite of your channa saag so be careful. Coconut rice pudding for the finale and FTW.
BEST OF THE REST
Why don’t you get in a few more lakeside dinners before it’s a landscape of white? The $45 three-course dinner at 6Smith is a chance to start with roasted beet and squash salad (so harvest), then get the blackened pork chop with apple-parsnip puree (so harvest), and finish strong with mocha mud pie (whatever, you love it all year) and a side of lake views to boot.
I just got back from Italy and I still haven’t found anything to rival the pappardelle with mushroom bolognese that’s an option on the $45 dinner at All Saints.
Consider the $25 three-course lunch at Baldamar your orchard visit pre-game. Get the beer-cheese soup made with Summit IPA, I’m going steak frites (because, steak frites), and then finish with pumpkin cheesecake. As one does.
The Bloomington Chop House has me in a quandary. Do I go for the very agreeable $20 three-course lunch in which an Iron Range porchetta sandwich goes head to head with a bison patty melt? Or do I go for the $45 three-course dinner with steelhead trout and optional wine pairings?
If you have already folded into couch season, consider that the $30 three-course dinner option from Broders Cucina has a takeout option. Just you, some gigante beans, a little Lasagna di Spinaci, and an apple crostata. And athleisure.
Please see the $30 three-course dinner at The Brooklyn as a chance to go full nostalgia. Start with chicken wild rice soup, then get fork and knife ready for a hot beef sandwich (will all the gravy and mash-po that implies). Follow with zero regrets and a Nutella-stuffed chocolate brownie.
The Bungalow Club’s $45 three-course dinner had me at carrot soup tbh, it was the German bread dumplings. But then, Coq au Vin as an option? When’s the last time I ate that? The fact that MN Dairy Lab ice cream is the dessert (remember their butter ice cream from the MNSF? I do.), well.
When they say two-course $20 lunch at Copper Hen, they really mean two-course $20 brunch. Savory crepe with gruyere and bacon, bagel brekkie sandwich, a whole farmer’s brunch with potatoes and eggs. I say good day.
Downtown lunchers know that EaTo is a gem, and now you can scoot in for a $17 two-course lunch, and then grab a bottle of wine to take home for dinner. An Italian chopped salad balances a meatball hoagie in my book, any day.
Guys: Gigi’s Cafe is a $15 two course dinner and it’s available for takeout. Get your Peterson Craft Meats bacon cheddar burger and a piece of cake and RUN.
If you are fully back in the office, but seem to need those long lunches, get your cube culture to Mason Jar in Eagan for the $20 three-course lunch. Literally you can spend a few hours there, all of you can get different things and pass the plates (I’ll get the pot roast, you get the Reuben, Sally get’s the grilled turkey apple brie sandwich, but I might not share my red velvet trifle).
Hello 24-hour friends, the restless and the hungry. Nicollet Diner is your spot for a $20 three-course meal, because it happens at lunch or dinner or second breakfast or elevensies or post-dancing or whenever. How do you not get the tuna melt and the apple pie? Or the club house and French silk pie?
The $25 three-course dinner menu at Pat’s Tap feels like a modern bar menu should: loaded with elevated options, but balanced by cheese curds, and with plenty of veg options. Zucchini cakes can’t lure me from warm pretzels, but maybe? And ok wait: a seared Halloumi burger as the non-beef option? So like a massive griddled cheese sitch? Yes I am veg today. Sidebar: mini-donuts.
I like the rut-busting that’s happening at Pau Hana. You’ve had enough Caesar salads and can’t look another burger in the face. For the $40 three-course dinner you could have Kalua pork lumpia or Thai lobster bisque, you could choose the macadamia nut crusted Opakapaka with a coconut beurre blanc while your date goes for the ahi tuna decked poke pizza. Hot tip: that ube panna cotta for dessert is IG-worthy.
Please impress your date both culinarily and fiscally with the $45 three-course menu at St. Genevieve. Warm gougere avec parmesan mousse, squash veloute with sherry and pumpkin seed oil, then grilled pork belly with roasted carrot is allllllllllllll kinds of affordable luxe.
Best for groups? Yumi Sushi Bar in either St. Paul or Edina. It’s a $35 three-course dinner menu with so much mixing and matching potential for rolls and fish and teriyaki and gyoza. I can’t begin to pick a favorite other than: all.