Eater Twin Cities’ Restaurant of the Year 2019 Adds One More Pop-Up in Minneapolis

Travail’s Minneapolis residency has dominated 2019 and the fun will spill into next year. An extension has been added with chef Karyn Tomlinson: Uffda. The January and February pop-up was inspired by Scandinavian grandma cooking, and its that style that Tomlinson used to win the national culinary cooking competition Cochon 555. That menu included astounding Swedish meatballs and a ham sandwich familiar to many a Midwestern church basement.

Tomlinson was the closing chef at Corner Table, known for her gentle hand with ingredients and elegant plates of food. She also spent an entire winter cooking at the famed restaurant Fäviken.

Uffda’s menu will include duck confit pot pie, wild rice hotdish, and those famous meatballs. Tickets are on sale now and start at $85 for the tasting menu experience.

Like every other extended Travail pop-up, dinner is ticketed, but the bar is first come, first served and will sport its own Minnesota menu including an Iron Range cheeseburger, fried walleye, and again those meatballs.

Travail is the chef collective that has been breaking boundaries and defying expectations since the first restaurant opened in downtown Robbinsdale. It has since moved locations twice, with a third tee’d up for early next year. The new building is nearly complete with multi-level dining and a rooftop. The opening was expected to happen in early 2020, but has been pushed back to after February.

With that extra time, the team decided to sneak in one more idea into the current/temporary Minneapolis location on Hennepin Avenue. This year, the chefs have pivoted through several different restaurant concepts, sometimes with chef friends, always with fantastic results, earning Travail the distinction as Eater Twin Cities’ Restaurant of the Year 2019.

• Travail’s Uffda [WEB]
• Twin Cities Eater Awards 2019 [ETC]
• All Travail Coverage [ETC]