Photo by Kevin Kramer
What’s Up
Chef David Fhima and his team are turning frog legs into princely, must-order apps and toiling for three days over saucy duck confit. Thus, the celebrated chef has returned to his original focus: classic French cuisine.
Photo by Kevin Kramer
A family trip to France, Fhima says, inspired the finishing touches to Maison Margaux, which opened in the North Loop this spring. His kids had asked, “Why don’t you cook like this?” He used to, in West Hollywood. Around 1983 or ’84, he recalls, classic French cooking took off, and he did that for 10 years. He moved to Minnesota in ’94, embraced the flavors of his melting-pot backstory, and only now returns to “technique, technique, technique, technique”—more important to French cooking, he says, than style, although there’s plenty of that.
Fhima is also applying post-2020 dining concepts, such as profit sharing, living wages for staff, and a “food justice platform” planned to “showcase the cultural talents that exist in Minneapolis,” per the website, with women-owned small businesses and the BIPOC community in mind.
Photo by Kevin Kramer
Side Dish
The format here is that of a heartwarming, appetite-sating brasserie. To start, duck-and-veal sauce puddles in the sinews of that labor-intensive duck confit. The demi glace, reduced with red wine and finished with chocolate sauce to temper acidity, complements the confit’s pairings: bone marrow and a crusty cube of 130-year-old sourdough toast with apricot marmalade. At risk of sounding Midwestern, it is the highest-end deconstructed sandwich.
Photo by Kevin Kramer
Elsewhere, the fall-off-the-bone frog legs—which give “the taste of chicken with the texture of lump crab,” my friend noted—get a sweet-heat batter: buttermilk and French chili powder. It felt wrong but right to dunk bread from the basket in the cauliflower, gruyere, and chevre souffle. Dessert was also souffle, at Fhima’s insistence. The pillowy chocolate concoction needs 18 minutes, so order ahead. Fairly soupy, it is best eaten from the dish, as Fhima prefers a souffle that isn’t “cake in a cup.” This one conjured gooey brownie memories, and our server was correct: cozy as hot cocoa. Finally, I savored the 1789 (aka Vive La Revolution) cocktail and don’t need to tell anyone that the wine list, deeply French, impresses.
Photo by Kevin Kramer
Where It’s At
Fhima had his eye on the historic Ribnick Furs building. He wanted a restaurant inspired by the joie de vivre of the Moulin Rouge era. When some original Moulin Rouge posters turned up amid building renovations, it sealed the deal for the property owner, he says. That’s kismet. The posters now hang on the walls, and they accent the glossy, blue, nearly nautical, bricks-and-mod-chandeliers aesthetic.
The basement bar, with a smaller menu that boasts a burger, is plush with red and black. It’s worth checking out for the lounge-meets-cabaret dazzle. With an event center upstairs from the brasserie, the whole thing is a family endeavor. The time I went, Fhima stood just inside the open kitchen, in aviators and a bandana and the open stance of someone pleased and excited and embracing the moment.
Maison Margaux; 224 N. First St., Minneapolis; maisonmargauxmpls.com
