Several weeks ago, Colleen requested Mother’s Day lunch reservations at Gather, the new D’Amico restaurant at the Walker Art Center. Located in the same space as Wolfgang Puck’s old 20-21, we secured a noon reservation and headed over today.

The space is mostly unchanged, although the Warhol paintings are gone from the entry and there are a line of nice padded leather chairs in the bar and lounge area. The view of Hennepin out the window is still spectacular and a lot of people decided to sit outside on the balcony patio (we decided to skip that this time).

I thought the food was pretty good before, but it looks like the new place is in good hands too. Gather has a guest chef program that brings in people for one month at a time – local heros like Steven Brown (Tilia), Isaac Becker (112 Eatery & Bar La Grassa) and Tim McKee (La Belle Vie).

The current menu on their website was a little different from the one they used today. My non-alcoholic cocktail, the “spring fever,” wasn’t on the web version, but the kid’s drinks were (the push pop – blood orange, cherries and pear nectar). Colleen had a mimosa and there were several Mother’s Day specials, including a sweat pea and shrimp risotto with watercress pesto that she ordered.

I ordered another special, soft scrambled eggs with chive Mascarpone, bacon and baguette (above), but it looked like they were serving a lot of Eggs Benedict (and Champagne) today. Kid one had the buttermilk-marinated chicken, while kid two ordered the grilled cheese with white cheddar. Both added french fries, that came with an awesome truffle aioli (at least I thought it was awesome).

Everything was very good and service was outstanding. Prices were reasonable for this type of restaurant, but it was still nice to have the Walker member discount. I recommend checking it out, but make sure to be mindful of their strange hours (open for lunch Tuesday – Sunday, 11:30am – 2:30pm and dinner Thursday evenings, 5pm – 9pm).

Colleen and I went to the Walker Art Center’s Cinema series on Friday to catch the last film they were showing in a Lawrence Kasdan retrospective, The Accidental Tourist. Turned out this was also the last show in that theater before they close it down for two months to install new seats and an updated sound system (they already installed a new digital projector).

Even though I’d seen the movie before (and used to own it), I didn’t remember all of it. I guess that’s one benefit of getting older – everything old is new again…

Right before the movie started, we were told that it’s getting harder and harder for them to locate original film copies of older movies. This one was released in 1988, but the Walker couldn’t locate a print and were planning to show a Blu-ray version. Apparently Mr. Kasdan was here earlier in the week and offered to ship a personal 35mm copy from his vault in Los Angeles. So cool!

Here’s a list of some of the other films he wrote and/or directed:

• The Empire Strikes Back
• Return of the Jedi
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Body Heat
• The Big Chill
• Silverado
• Grand Canyon
• The Bodyguard

Not a bad résumé, eh?