Here’s how we end up at Gusto Cafe & Wine Bar in Hopkins:
It’s Saturday evening and we have nothing to do because the party we thought we were attending actually is next week (someone — that would be me — put it on the wrong space in the calendar) and all the kids are occupied elsewhere and it’s too late to make dinner reservations. So we decide to hit a cheap movie.
We intend to see American Gangster, which has Russell Crowe, so how bad can it be? But we get to the theater two minutes too late and walk in at the end of what looks like a pivotal opening scene involving bloodshed, then sit down next to three young boys who proceed to giggle and text message one another. After 20 minutes, I admit to my husband in a whisper that I have no idea what’s going on. So we get up and walk down the hall.
If we wait 20 minutes the ticket taker tells us, we can see Dan in Real LIfe instead, which has Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, and Dianne Wiest, so how bad can it be? Well! Where to begin?
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. . . .
This is a film that manages to be both tedious and irritating, with just enough cloying drama to keep you from thinking about something more compelling — say, tomorrow’s grocery list; or what you might want said at your own funeral — but nothing that will lift or transport or even amuse you into forgetting you’re sitting on a scratchy theater seat in Hopkins.
It’s about two brothers (Carell is one; a comedian named Dane Cook the other) who fall for the same woman (Binoche) for reasons that remain murky. She’s got a sexy bottom — this is demonstrated in a looonnnngg aerobics workout scene — but no personality to speak of and she crashes into the film’s opening segment expressing some breathy angst that you assume will be central to the plot but it never becomes really clear.
Yet we wait out the entire movie — and I know you’ve been here — thinking it will get better or maybe even worse but different in some way that’s interesting. Besides, it’s our second attempt of the evening and the adjoining seats are full of old people, so no one is text messaging. Plus, we paid only $2.50 apiece for our tickets, which is the great thing about going to the Hopkins Cinema, but still, that’s $5 and there’s nothing else going on and the party is next week and what are we going to do if we end up leaving anyway?
So we grit our teeth through exactly one hour and 39 minutes and after the movie’s denouement, involving the obligatory fistfight between brothers and a touching scene with three vapid, wide-eyed children and a raucous wedding where everyone dances, we walk down the street because at this point, we’re both really craving alcohol.
Also, we’ve been meaning to try Gusto.
It turns out to be a warm, twinkly little storefront bistro on Mainstreet Hopkins, just down the block from the antique shop and directly across from the tattoo parlor. We walk in and take two stools at the 4-seat bar. They are, by the way, the cushiest, most comfortable barstools I’ve ever occupied — with thick padding and high backs — putting those theater seats to shame.
The wine menu is pretty ordinary, for the most part: McManis Viognier and Avalon Cab. But it also offers both the blanc and rouge varieties of the M. Chapoutier Cotes-du-Rhone that I’m forever crowing about. And on the very tail of the white list is a wine I’ve never even heard of: Oremus Tokaji 2004, from Hungary.
So we order it because, I mean, how bad can it be?
And it isn’t! In fact, it’s surprisingly terrific: full and complex and smooth, like the whites of southern France, but limned with the flavor of something entirely foreign. The scent is intensely citrusy, a twist of lemon and lime, but the taste is orchard-like: pear, apple, a little kiwi and green pepper. Then it settles on the roof of the mouth — almost as if it gravitates upward — with a lingering finish of burnt sugar or caramel. The alcohol content is 13% and you can feel it, a nice low burn like vodka on mute.
Turns out Hungary is now an emerging fine wine exporter, thanks to the fall of communism (which opened up winemaking as a commercial enterprise), a recent surge in tourism, and a boatload of French investors. Tokaj, a city in the northern part of the country, has been famous for its vineyards since around 1067. Think swords and shields and storming Huns.
But back to Hopkins:
Chuck Venables, a Parasole ex-pat (he worked in various roles, both chef and front-of-the-house, at Blue Point, Buca, and Manny’s) and former manager at the Graves 601 Hotel, opened Gusto in April 2006. He wanted something closer to his house, he says; also, he believes in the way the city is changing.
"I wouldn’t have done this five years ago," Venables tells me. "Hopkins wasn’t ready. But today. . . ."
Indeed. It appears Hopkins IS ready, because the place is full. Every table in the tiny dining room is occupied and a well-dressed couple has claimed the other two seats at the bar. The food going by on its way out of the kitchen looks wonderful, and the used plates going back in are uniformly scraped clean.
There’s a happy mix of voices in the room and a faint scent of garlic, bacon, and cream hanging in the air. Prices are on the high end for this part of the metro: our three glasses of wine (one each and one to share) come to $39 without tip. But the place is so pleasant, with its suede-colored walls and black wrought-iron chandeliers, this is fairly easy to forgive.
We sit for a while and consider dinner but decide ultimately that it’s been a long evening already, we’re just recovered from the aggressive mediocrity of the movie, have thoroughly enjoyed our wine and, frankly, don’t feel like pushing our luck.
So we leave and walk through the still, quaint streets of downtown Hopkins to our car. Snow crunches beneath our feet. And across the street, the dim glow of the tattoo parlor lights our way through an iridescent low-hanging fog.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply