Fresh Food Dudes

In time, Pham and Talebi could inherit the golden toques of the metro area’s most noted multilocation restaurateurs, such as Phil Roberts, mastermind behind Edina-based Parasole Restaurant Holdings (whose restaurants include Chino Latino in Minneapolis and Salut Bar Américain in Edina), and the D’Amico brothers, Richard and Larry (who run the popular D’Amico Cucina and Bar Lurçat in Minneapolis, among others). Like those stalwarts, Pham and Talebi have distinctive ways of mixing style and sustenance. But talked-about restaurants often have ephemeral lives, as the recent closings of Minneapolis hotspots like Auriga and Five have shown. Can this new generation maintain its mojo?

Princes of the Palate

Pham spent much of his Vietnamese childhood cooking. “My grandmother owned a catering company in Qui Nhon,” he recalls. “When I was six, she would wake me up and I’d help her cut meat and chop vegetables.” One of his earliest memories is of learning to perfect his rice-cooking technique. “My grandmother would say, ‘Put your hand in the pan, then pour in the water. When the water covers your hand, that’s enough water.’ I use that same technique today.”

Herself the child of a Vietnamese mother and a foreign soldier (her father was a Frenchman), Pham’s grandmother served as a bottomless well of culinary wisdom to her ambitious grandson, who traveled to Vietnam in 1998 and again in 2004 to learn as much as he could from her. “All we talked about was food and business,” Pham recalls. “But then she said, ‘That’s it. I have now taught you everything I know.’”

In 1998, at the age of 24, Pham opened his first restaurant, ThanhDo, a St. Louis Park venue that still serves up some of the best Vietnamese cuisine in the area. “I had been saving to open a restaurant since I began working full time, working one or two jobs. Plus, my adoptive family helped me out,” he recalls. “I got the restaurant going and they basically helped with operating costs. My dad would come and help, my mom would answer the phones, and I didn’t have to pay them.” Pham also began to develop a flair for interior design as well as distinctive cuisine: Bright walls, airy décor, and white linen tablecloths give ThanhDo an ambience at once modernist chic and classically elegant.

Three years after Pham started ThanhDo, its success allowed him to open Azia at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue, the heart of Minneapolis’s Eat Street neighborhood. At 8,500 square feet, Azia has more than four times the floor space that ThanhDo originally had. Pham describes the restaurant’s cuisine as “classic Asian fusion,” and while he no longer does the cooking, he creates every dish on the menu. Azia’s offerings have included such eclectic dishes as cranberry curry, lobster in black bean sauce, and jalapeño basil walleye. Azia also boasts a full oyster bar and the largest sake list in Minnesota.

Early on, Pham also created something essential to Azia’s success—that heady, elusive cocktail called buzz. Its elegant, heavy-on-the wood décor, soft lights, and large street-side windows provide for exhilarating evenings where one might encounter celebrities such as Al Franken, Josh Hartnett, Vanessa Williams, or Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee. Since its opening, Azia has added the Anemone sushi bar and the Caterpillar Lounge, where guests can enjoy live music, starters, and pricey drinks, including a cosmopolitan that combines sake and Cointreau with a splash of cranberry juice.

Unlike Pham, Talebi doesn’t like to cook. He does, however, have a passion for the hospitality business. He almost considers himself more of an entrepreneur than a restaurateur. “It’s about filling a niche,” he says. “Coming up with a concept and putting the package together, then finding good people to execute your vision.” In 2003, at the age of 31, Talebi and other investors, including his older brother Kam, opened the upscale dance club Escape Ultra Lounge in downtown Minneapolis’s Block E. Its success would serve as a springboard to Keyvan’s restaurants.

When the coveted street-level northwest corner of Block E became available in 2004, the Talebi brothers and a handful of other investors opened Bellanotte, a trendy northern-Italian restaurant and lounge where 30-somethings frequently reserve a table for 9 or 10 on a Saturday night, and where mobile phones on vibrating settings are as commonplace as dessert spoons. At Bellanotte—Italian for “beautiful night”—it’s not uncommon for the waitperson to ask whether you’ve “valeted” your car, or suggest that you “box early” to save room for dessert, verbs probably never uttered during multiple decades of table service at Murray’s or Jax Café.

“We always wanted to have a restaurant with personality, a flair function,” Talebi says. “We wanted to create energy and fun, a place for people who don’t want to go to a nightclub, but who want to stick around and enjoy other people’s company.” Bellanotte’s gold-colored walls, onyx-topped bar, walk-in wine closet, and two separate bar areas make for an electric combination. Young professionals and a sprinkling of celebrities (recent patrons have included actor Andy Garcia and athletes Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Shaquille O’Neal) often linger until closing.

In the fall of 2005, the Talebi brothers became majority owners of a restaurant for the first time when they opened the View Restaurant & Lounge across from Lake Calhoun. “By this time, Kam and I have started to do our own thing,” Keyvan says. “The previous owners [Dixie’s on Calhoun] were looking to get out. The place was tired and old.” Talebi and his brother have sought to create something bright and energetic, in part by playing up the location: The first thing they did was rip out the old bar that obscured the view of Lake Calhoun and place bar tables along the full-length windows.