Cool Hunting

Heading to Minneapolis? Check out 20.21, the recently opened Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the Walker Art Museum. Similar to the successful pairing of Danny Meyer and the MoMa (where The Modern shines as brightly as the building and the art), Puck has collaborated on the food for the Museum’s restaurant and café.

Chef Scott Irestone’s (Photo credit: Tom Wallace, Star Tribune, 2005) menu is heavily Asian-inspired and while not overly adventuresome or risk-taking delivers several winners (try the Szechuan Flatiron Steak, the baby back ribs and the miso-saké Butterfish). Presentation and service were top notch. Prices were perhaps a bit high for Minneapolis but very reasonable in comparison to LA, SF and NYC. The house desert, the Cube and Spoon and Cherry, which replicates the Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture in the acclaimed Sculpture Garden was a big success.

The dining room (like the rest of the museum’s recent addition) was designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Dramatically cantilvered into the Twin Cities’s most attractive views, a seat at “table 1,” in the corner of the overhang, is one of the most coveted in the city. The dining room is somewhat small, simply furnished and perhaps one of the loudest restaurants I’ve ever been to. The noise level was deafening and had us shouting at each other most of the meal. This distracted us from fully enjoying the tasty food and the people watching, two things relatively new to the Twin Cities dining scene.

1750 Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403
+1 (612) 253-3410
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