Nicollet Avenue has something tasty for you to try. It’s called The Copper Hen and Kitchen. The restaurant, bistro wine bar is a blushing 3 weeks old. And she’s pretty and wants you to date, kiss and drink-in all her deliciousness. I want you-to-go-to-there. Take in the cleanly recreated rustic ambiance. The wood is shiny and winks with copper paint and copper railings at the business end of the restaurant. It’s pretty cool. I couldn’t help but take pictures because I knew I’d have trouble describing it adequately. Oh, and yum!
I pulled into a rare open parking space on Nicollet facing north, in the same east-side block that hosts Bad Waitress and Pancho Villa to name a few. I oozed out of my banged-up Prius ready to eat angry. Yeah! And over-indulge in caffeine. Alright! Chin-set, teeth grinding my gaze caught something new and pretty and my shoulders relaxed. There she was, The Copper Hen and was that fresh baguettes I spied, piled in baskets at in the back of the store? And is something butter-based wafting from here that made me drool a little bit in my mouth? I smirk and duck-in through the front door.
Breakfast items are your often seen croissants and scones. But, have you had a blueberry bacon cupcake? Huh? Huh?! I didn’t, but it was decadent looking and I bet it’ll make your morning to eat one. I went for a savory pastry – one ham and cheese please. Yes. Oh? No. It was 11:20 and the freshly created pastry board had been changed to the lunch set. Sorry. No problem. The fact that I could have had a freshly crafted savory pastry is ah-may-zing. The exceedingly polite cashier steered me to an open-faced sandwich with a quail egg and pancetta (or was it fat-back) and roasted potatoes in a to-die-for chive rue. ZOMAGAH. I ate that baby so fast. The toasted bread was starch, I dunno’, it was history before I knew it was toast, ya’ dig? And it came with a mixed green side salad which I politely inhaled. I drank some good-vibe coffee. I forgot the name. But I noted they have a local-vore thing going on too. A wind-burned and burly man was delivering food-stock out of a truck labeled “Autumnwood Farm – since 1902″.
I’ve never been to provincial France. But when I read books, I think the Copper Hen’s decor came out of a Franco-friendly pulp fiction ditty. Half of the people in the restaurant were monochromatically clad. But, so. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the fair Pastry Chef Matt Paulson and owners, Chefs Chris and Danielle Bjorling hash to the masses on Eat Street. I left their shop as the lunch hour rush began and had to sidestep a straight-from-the-farm vendor, and it made me smile. You must go-to-there! Oh, and yum.
Signed, Rachel Lovejoy
Write them: info@copperhenkitchen.com | Call them: 612.872.2221 |Be amazed, inspired and well-fed!
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