Demi

Demi is James Beard Award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen's intimate tasting-menu restaurant in the North Loop, opened in early 2019 next door to his flagship Spoon and Stable and run under Soigné Hospitality Group. There are roughly twenty counter seats wrapping an open oval kitchen, the seasonal multi-course menu is reservation-only, and the restaurant is a Relais & Châteaux member. It is, by most reckonings, the hardest table to get in Minneapolis.

It is also one of the most important restaurants in the United States for anyone who does not drink, because of what runs alongside the wine pairing. Demi offers a parallel non-alcoholic Temperance Pairing — around $85 for roughly eight curated zero-proof courses — built from teas, juices, shrubs and fermented or infused preparations, each matched to a specific plate. Beverage director Jessi Pollak leads the programme. Mpls.St.Paul Magazine judged the non-alcoholic pairing "just as good and wildly original" as the wine, singling out a "red" built from hibiscus, beet, apple, black pepper and black trumpet mushroom — which gives a fair sense of the technical ambition involved. Building savoury, tannic, earthy drinks that hold up against eight consecutive courses is a genuinely difficult problem, and very few kitchens anywhere attempt it.

What elevates it beyond technique is the stated intent. Pollak has described the goal in terms that have nothing to do with mixology: "I want people, when they experience the temperance menu at Demi or drink an NA cocktail at any of the Soigné restaurants, to feel normal and cared about. That's all that matters to me." That is the entire problem this directory exists to solve, articulated by someone at the top of the profession. At a counter where every other guest is being poured something considered, being handed sparkling water is a small, repeated exclusion across three hours. Demi removed it. Wednesday through Sunday, evenings only, booking essential.