Well, the summer edition of MSP Magazine’s Restaurant Week was already more than a month ago, so I should probably get this post up before the fall edition rolls around (October 18-23). We decided to pay a visit to the latest Jack Riebel joint, Il Foro. Of course it’s not just Jack, but we did see him there that night hobbling around with his injured leg.

We had a late reservation on July 16th, but the place was still pretty busy. Are Minnesotans actually starting to eat dinner later now? The space is located at 40 South Seventh Street – right across the street from Candyland and the Macys ramp. Much has been written about the Art Deco interior, but it really is stunning. Our server said the whole place was basically saved, stored and rebuilt all thanks to the Dayton family.

Executive Chef Joe Rolle (Borough) has played a major part in the current Minneapolis crudo movement and Colleen ordered the yellow tail crudo as part of her Restaurant Week package ($30 per person). It was very pretty and included passion fruit, ligurian olive oil, vadouvan and cilantro. My first course was a large pork and veal meatball with ricotta and spicy tomato sugo. Yum.

We each choose different pastas: Colleen had red wine rigatoni (cacio e pepe), while I had tortellini (bolognese filling, parmesan brodo and extra virgin olive oil). We shared a side of crispy potatoes with chile, parsley and lemon that were cooked perfectly. The pastas were both good, but I think I preferred the rigatoni. Our choices for the dessert course were both excellent: panna cotta for Colleen and a beautiful cheese plate for me. I ordered an old fashioned from the gorgeous bar and nursed it all evening.

Service was a little slow, but at least there is a lot of great stuff to look at in that space while we waited. We also thought it was a little odd there was no bread offered, but perhaps that was just because of the special. After dinner, we checked out the back part of the restaurant, which includes some private dining rooms and a rear entrance into the mall/office/hotel area. There is a lot of other history to this space, but I’ll send you over to Dear Dara for more on that…