Café Maude

Café Maude is just the kind of restaurant a lot of neighborhoods need: prices low enough that the folks within walking distance can afford to be regulars, and food interesting enough to draw diners from a wider area. Proprietor Kevin Sheehy, who also owns a couple of Dunn Brothers coffeehouses nearby, worked closely with the Armatage Neighborhood Association in planning the café (the namesake for both the restaurant and the association is Maude Armatage, the first woman to serve on the Minneapolis Park Board).

The pricing is certainly neighborhood-friendly—especially for a restaurant offering a full bar and table service. Most of the menu is small plates, salads, and flatbreads, but you can get a half-pound burger for $7.50, half a wood-roasted chicken for $10, and an entrée portion of hanger steak for $12. Chef Jason Ross, formerly of Solera and Aquavit, has a bit of the same eclectic spirit as Isaac Becker at the 112 Eatery. It’s hard to slap a label on his cuisine, but Mediterranean bistro probably comes close: The rice and Parmesan croquettes with hazelnut sauce are basically Sicilian arancini, the grilled haloumi cheese is from Cyprus, and the Greek salad is, well, Greek. The flatbreads are Italian, sort of, except the Italians would never top a pizza with frisée, duck confit, and bleu cheese. The chorizo hash with baby octopus? Mark it down as Spanish-Greek-Moroccan fusion. The grilled chicken, moist and juicy, is rubbed with Moroccan spices, while the hangar steak is given a French touch with its cognac finish.

Café Maude is new enough that Sheehy is still fine-tuning the concept. The original plan to offer coffee and pastries for breakfast and salads and sandwiches at lunch has been dropped, but a full-menu breakfast and lunch service will launch sometime this month. The café’s tiny stage features live jazz on Fridays and world music on Saturdays, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, DJ Howard Hamilton III picks tunes from his vast music collection. 5411 Penn Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-822-5411; www.cafemaude.com