Ryan Aberle Out at Ringo!

Well, that was fast. Ryan Aberle, opening chef at the new international-focus-every-month restaurant Ringo, in St. Louis Park, has resigned. His replacement? Someone I’m unfamiliar with named David Bonilla, who, restaurant owner Jim Ringo tells me, has a background in the Wolfgang Puck restaurants, and worked briefly at Ringo when it opened.

“When he heard Ryan was leaving, [Bonilla] called me with a great proposal of how he would change things,” Ringo says. Like how? “Cutting the menu down, concentrating on more core items, manage more consistent execution, and getting more focussed,” said Ringo.

Well, hooray for that. I went to Ringo once under Aberle and was saving my thoughts for my own review—thoughts that ran something like: Who is responsible for this abomination? The five-spice calamari was easily my worst dish of the year; it smelled like a swamp and tasted worse. So who is responsible? The restaurant’s concept and owner, or the chef? Looks like we’ll know soon enough.