Dakota Jazz Club

Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant
1010 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis (612) 332-1010

All that Jazz

All What Jazz

Recordings have led to the near-extinction of live local music. You’ve seen pictures and films of earlier times. There was no shortage of cabarets and clubs, from what I gather. Professional musician wasn’t a near-oxymoron. Unless you were suitably talented yourself, that universal human want for rhythm and melody and (at least in Western music) harmony could only be satisfied by performers in the flesh. With the invention of first records and then CDs, there was an alternative—with convenience and musical quality going for it and trumping aural and communal intimacy.

But, somehow, the live music scene is making a comeback in the Twin Cities. Or at least it is on the jazz front—the only genre I can claim any familiarity with vis-à-vis the local scene, the familiarity arising from the fact that a good friend is a well-known saxophonist. In and near downtown Minneapolis, for example, we have The Times, Loring, Lurcat, Kitty Kat Klub, Jazzmine, Rossi’s, and, now, the relocated Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant (these are just the ones that come to mind immediately, and it’s notable that several are of relatively recent vintage).

Of course the Dakota has been a staple of Twin Cities jazz for some time, but its former Bandana Square, St. Paul location wasn’t exactly conducive to drawing in crowds. Translated across town and with an updated look, I suspect it may have the opposite problem—indeed, despite a cavernous interior with seating on two levels, this week B and I had to conduct the business of The Lunch seated at the bar. Incidentally, although the layout has the advantage of affording virtually every table, both on the main floor and the wrap-around balcony, a view of the stage area, it could exacerbate a problem that fans of music sometimes encountered at the original location, where only a few dining tables were so located—not every occupant of these tables would be a jazz fan and it wasn’t uncommon for the latter to try and silence dinner conversation with pointed stares.

The menu has also been updated, although that well-known old favorite Minnesota brie and apple soup is still there. Other soups include a walleye and whitefish chowder with wild rice and a butternut squash bisque with crème fraiche and pumpkin seeds. Several cold and warm appetizers are also available. We split one of the latter, a trout and chévre flan. It came nestled in a ring of crisp Granny Smith slices with grilled red onion strings arrayed across the top. The flan had a smoky trout flavor, moderated by the cheese, and a dry, almost crumbly texture. The menu also listed horseradish as an ingredient, although it wasn’t much in evidence; a heavier dose would have benefited the dish. The onion strings were caramelized but chewy rather than crispy.

My main selection was crispy wild rice and root vegetable cakes with spicy aioli. The cakes, layered on a bed of sautéed greens, were nicely crisped up on the outside, soft inside. They were good, but I would probably have liked them better had I not, the evening before, had a similar, except superior in terms of both texture and taste, dish at Restaurant Alma—their black rice cakes.

These choices weren’t typical of what the menu has to offer. Most of the entrées are jazzed up (no pun intended) meat and potatoes. There’s even a section of the menu titled "American Comfort Food" and featuring, for example, macaroni and cheese (with black trumpet mushrooms, garlic, and smoked Niman Ranch ham), chicken pot pie (with chanterelles), and beef stew (unjazzed) . B followed the meat-and-potatoes theme and ordered tenderloin and mashed potatoes. The steak was tender, the potatoes especially flavorful.

For dessert, we short-listed a chocolate pudding and a pear-and-dried-blueberry crisp with malted vanilla ice cream—and selected the latter. The crisp was light on the fruit, but the crust had substance and crunch.

The Dakota wears the stars-and-stripes on its sleeve, to the extent that the wine list is all-American—mostly from well-known and well-regarded wineries and with a good by-the-glass selection.

The best reason to patronize the Dakota is because it’s the jazz vanguard in the area. National and international luminaries make regular appearances, and there’s no cover charge if you’re dining then—you could watch Charlie Parker for free if his ghost showed up on stage. An associated Dakota Foundation for Jazz Education offers free performances on designated Saturdays and you can educate yourself by going to the occasional Jazz Dialogues at the restaurant. So do the Dakota and support a quintessential American art in stylish surroundings while sampling good American fare.

An essential ingredient of any town that has pretensions to big-city life is a top-class jazz venue. A sort of place that attracts national acts on the weekends, and during the week provides a stage for upcoming local musicians. In a foreign city, being on vacation and a loose end, I am likely to make a beeline for a jazz venue for something to eat, but far more importantly for a drink, and an evening of hot jazz. In recent years I have been to The Base Line in Johannesburg; Dizzy’s Jazz Café near Cape Town; and Aubrey’s in Singapore. Our own fair city has at least two serious jazz venues: The Artists’ Quarter in St. Paul and the newly relocated (From St. Paul to Minneapolis) Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant. The later is a nationally known site on the calendar of most touring jazz musicians and happens to be where I met A for our weekly lunch.

The Dakota was a perennial fixture in the old Bandana Square—an interesting retail and commercial space, set amidst an industrial park—surviving hard times while businesses around it would come and go with alarming alacrity. Having had enough of that it has moved into brand new digs on Nicolett Avenue in the spot formerly occupied by the now defunct Zinc Brasserie. And what a spot it is! Large, almost cavernous, with a second-level balcony that semi-rings the restaurant. This overhang provides space for even more patrons to enjoy the performance on stage while eating their dinners. There is wonderfully dark wooden bar near the entrance where, as we found out, a complete meal can be had. A raised stage is set in the middle of all this space and I don’t believe that there is a bad seat in the whole house. Booths with leather settees line the walls and look cozy enough, although I was less than thrilled with the fabric upholstery. Another interesting touch is a wall with interspersed wine bottles, almost like ribs, embedded in it. The colors are suitable shades of green and blue.

Dakota has recently started opening its doors for lunch and is very popular. I was politely told that without a reservation seating in the restaurant would be impossible but Lunch could be had at the bar and that’s where I went to wait for A over a glass of Cline syrah. The wine list is a fairly decent representation of California vineyards and I counted at least a half-dozen reds and whites by the glass.

The menu has been revamped since the move but it still stays close to its American roots, which is only right because jazz is more American than apple pie (I was amazed to hear American scat and blues in the townships of Cape Town—the music has come full circle), and there is even a section dubbed ‘Dakota American Comfort food’. The appetizers are divided between cold and warm and from the latter we shared a delicious order of smoked star prairie rainbow trout and chévre flan with horseradish, apples and grilled red onions. The taste of the smoky trout and chévre was nicely offset with the tangy/sweet apples. The only slight complaint I had was that the red onions were almost grilled to oblivion. Some of the other appetizers that caught my eye for a return trip were the grilled polenta and leeks in tomato sauce with parsley; steam fried duck wonton in spiced cranberry-maple sauce; and broiled walleye in pumpkin seeds with mashed roots, currant-pear glaze and leeks.

The entrées are split between the afore mentioned ‘Dakota American comfort food’ and the ‘Dakota classic main courses’. For my main dish I ordered the petite beef medallion with mashed potatoes. I ordered the beef medium rare and it was succulent and after adding a bit of pepper full of flavor. The mashed potatoes were divine. My only regret is that this was lunch otherwise I would have preferred a larger piece of meat and several glasses of a heavy burgundy! A had some vegetable/root concoction that I quite liked but I think he was restraining himself, not having recovered from the gastronomical excesses of the day before.

For dessert A asked me to pick a couple of items from the menu and then he settled for the lesser of the two evils, which in this case was dried pears and malted vanilla ice cream – a combination that works better than you might imagine. I especially liked the contrast (of firmness) provided by the dry fruit and the yielding ice cream. The bill for the extravaganza came to a very reasonable $52.00.

In the old Dakota (Energy park variety) I thought the kitchen was uninspiring the "Dakota Cooks" slogan not withstanding. The location made it inaccessible at least to us Minneapolitans and even once we got there the restaurant side was decidedly dumpy and the only reason we would go there was for the music not the food. Well you can forget all that now. The new location is pristine (even if parking is expensive and downright difficult) and the kitchen has really come on strongly. The musical scene as always is stellar and now you can have a decent meal as you enjoy this most American of art forms.