Red Stag Supper Club: Having Your Steak and Eating It Too…

The press release says the Red Stag Supper Club will open to
the public next Monday, November 26, but Kim Bartmann’s newest restaurant
actually has been open for business since last Monday. It’s what’s called a
soft opening – a chance to work out some of the kinks before the crowds, and
the restaurant critics, show up en masse. I stopped in Tuesday night for dinner,
and things already seemed to be running pretty smoothly.

Bartmann, who also owns the Bryant Lake Bowl and Barbette, has been at the forefront of the local sustainable-humane-organic
restaurant scene – and Red Stag takes that ethos a big step further. Red Stag is being billed as the first
LEED-certified restaurant in Minnesota. That stands for Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design – a set of standards for making buildings
energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Among the Red Stag’s bragging
points: water consumption is
70 percent lower than the typical new restaurant – and would be even lower if
the state of Minnesota permitted waterless urinals. The lighting all comes from
LEDs, which are much more efficient than incandescents, and the restaurant has
its own composting system, so less food waste gets hauled to the landfill.
The place looks great – the old carved wood bar and the red and black carpet
give the place a classic supper club feel, while the exposed beams are a
reminder that the new business recycles an old space.

The supper club theme is an interesting choice – it harkens
back to an era when none of us worried about carbon footprints and
environmental sustainability or whether our steaks were grass-fed and our eggs
were free-range. Meat and potatoes were
the staples of the classic supper club, and Red Stag menu is a carnivore’s
delight: three cuts of steak, plus a red deer Stroganoff, a pork chop, entrees
of chicken, duck, and a veal casserole, a butcher plate of potted duck, pig in
a blanket and Scotch egg. If you really want to get elemental about it, you can
order a big roasted marrow bone, served with grilled bread, gremolata, and a
spoon. But this is meat you can eat with a clear (or at least clearer)
conscience: it’s all local and sustainable, from producers like Wild Acres (ducks), Star
Prairie Trout Farm, Thousand Hills Cattle Company, and Pastures A’ Plenty (pork).

Chef Bill Baskin’s resume includes cooking with
Seth Daugherty at Cosmos, at Graves 601 Hotel, and with Heston Blumenthal at
the Fat Duck near London, often named as one of the best and most innovative
restaurants in the world. His approach here is more basic, and more rooted in
regional cooking, with dishes like a chop salad, smelt fries, chicken with
potato buttermilk dumplings, and pork chops with cheese grits and shimp and bacon succotash.

It isn’t fair to judge a restaurant on its second day in business, but based on what I have tasted so far, I would probably steer clear of the trendier dishes, like the seafood cioppino and the breast of duck with butternut squash ravioli and raisins – and stick the classic supper club fare.

509 1st Ave.N.E., Minneapolis, 612-767-7766.