Revival Fried Chicken and Smoked Meats Merge on Nicollet Avenue

Coming soon to Nicollet Avenue: Revival fried chicken and Carolina-style barbecue under one roof. Co-owners Nick Rancone and chef Thomas Boemer announced on Instagram that they’ll merge the restaurants at the Revival Smoked Meats location, at 4537 Nicollet Avenue, on August 14th. The original Revival, which helped kickstart a fried chicken renaissance in the Twin Cities when it opened in 2015, will close.

“It just made sense to bring it all under one roof,” Rancone said in in the post. “We thought it would work to keep them separate, chicken down there and smoked meats up here, but the neighborhood kept telling us they wished they could have it all together.”

Revival Smoked Meats started as a popular stand at Keg & Case Market in St. Paul — unfortunately, the pandemic shut down operations there in 2020. But the barbecue restaurant was resurrected this May in the space of the two owners’ former restaurant, Corner Table, a finer-dining spot inflected with Boemer’s Southern style. With the Revival merge, fried chicken will join a menu of brisket, smoked hot links, and cumin-crusted pork belly.

Go order a Tennessee hot half-bird at the original location while it’s still open this week. “We’ll miss that space, we’ve been in it since the Revival beginning,” Boemer wrote in the post. For Revival’s other restaurants in St. Louis Park and St. Paul, nothing changes.

Danny del Prado and co buy the Bachelor Farmer

Mpls.St.Paul Magazine reports that restaurateurs Danny del Prado and Ryan Burnet bought the former Bachelor Farmer and Marvel Bar building on August 4. One of the Cities’ most prolific restaurateurs, del Prado just opened Macanda, a restaurant with a Latin American, magical realism-influenced menu, on Lake Minnetonka this summer. But this restaurant will be unique among his line-up, in that del Prado is a co-owner of the building itself. “I don’t want to rush it, this is important to me,” del Prado told Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. “I want this one to be the restaurant I’ve always wanted to make. It’s going to be like a steakhouse, but with a lot of Argentinian influence, not really American style. I’m bringing it back to who I am, what I always like to cook at home.” Many details are still being worked out, but expect a basement bar that nods to Marvel Bar. The Bachelor Farmer, first opened by Eric and Andrew Dayton in 2011, was one of the Twin Cities’ most acclaimed restaurants before it closed during the early months of the pandemic. An anchor of the North Loop, it was a defining presence of the local dining scene (and beyond) — and it’s a fair bet that del Prado’s new restaurant will be too.

Learn to make tamales or nixtamalize corn with local chefs

Heirloom corn — grown from kernels passed between generations, preserved by farmers — is appearing on a growing number of menus around the Twin Cities, from Sooki & Mimi to Colita to Nico’s Tacos. Many of the chefs cooking with it work with Masienda, a wholesaler that partners with traditional farmers in Mexico. But beyond selling heirloom corn to chefs across the nation, Masienda is also dedicated to educating diners about these precious kernels: their connection to regenerative farming, culture, and genetic diversity in crops. This summer, the company has highlighted local chefs in a series of YouTube videos by local filmmaker Daniel Klein, of the James Beard Award-winning documentary series Perennial Plate. In one, chef Gustavo Romero walks us through the history of Nixta Tortilleria, which has transformed the Cities’ tortilla scene with its use of heirloom corn to make hearty tortillas in shades of slate blue, pale yellow, and brown. (Try one at an upcoming Nixta pop-up this Thursday, August 11.) In another, he teaches viewers how to make tamales with huitlacoche, a delectable corn fungus known as Mexican truffle. Masienda also features chef Sean Sherman, who demonstrates the process for nixtamalizing corn using ash from birch or oak trees.

Now in the Twin Cities: An AAPI pastry collection

Want to indulge in a pastry box stuffed with 18 desserts from 18 local Asian American and Pacific Islander pastry chefs and bakers? Here’s where to find one. With Warm Welcome, an organization dedicated to amplifying the stories of Asian chefs, bakers, restaurateurs, and others in the hospitality industry, is debuting its Bakers Box in the Twin Cities this month. This traveling program has made stops in NYC, LA, Boston, Chicago and other cities on its way to Minnesota. Expect black sesame mango macarons from K-Town Macaron, lotus mooncakes from Keefer Court, “Poppy Queen” kouign amann from Laune Bread, and 15 other sweets. Pre-orders are available via Tock for pick up one day only, August 28. Ten percent of proceeds will go to Hmong American partnership.