Along with this month’s opening of the new InterContinental Hotel in downtown St. Paul comes the unveiling of a new restaurant.
Citizen Supper Club is now open on the first floor of the Kellogg Boulevard hotel, formerly home to Crown Plaza Riverfront. Look for updated versions of throwback dishes.
“If you hearken back to when the hotel was open in 1966, supper clubs were a really big thing. This is a modern take on a supper club,” said Ben Graves, president of Graves Hospitality, the group behind the new hotel and restaurant.
The group has brought in John Occhiato, previously of D’Amico Cucina and Cosmos restaurant (both in Minneapolis), to head the kitchen.
Citizen Supper Club is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Griddle items such as French toast and waffles as well as egg dishes are available in the mornings. For lunch, soups, salads and sandwiches are on the menu well as pasta, fish and meat dishes. For dinner, entrees include chicken and dumplings, duck a l’orange, pasta, steak and seafood. Pineapple angelfood cake, cheesecake and baked Alaska grace the dessert menu.
The space plays off the hotel’s revamped, modern midcentury design: “What we did is strip it back to its original glory,” said Graves. “Our inspiration was this picture of Don Draper in between takes on ‘Mad Men’ with an iPhone on (a throwback) set.”
Meanwhile, Graves Hospitality is busy working on another hotel and restaurant project on the other side of the river. Graves said planning is underway to build a boutique hotel and apartments with 150 rooms on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. A new restaurant will be part of the construction project, located at Washington and Chicago avenues, where a parking lot now sits.
Planning is still in the early stages. Groundbreaking is expected in 2016, with an unveiling in 2017.
