Taylor Swift cupcakes from Something Sweet by Maddie Lu
In the past week, the momentum and fandom ahead of Taylor Swift's two-night Minneapolis stop on her Eras Tour rose to a fever pitch. At Something Sweet by Maddie Lu in Coon Rapids, that meant making flights of treats that pay homage to the singer and her legion of fans.
Something Sweet by Maddie Lu was founded in 2015 by Maddie Carlos and her mother, Laurie Carlos. It has grown to include an outpost in Duluth's Miller Hill Mall and the just-opened Macarons by Maddie Lu in Blaine. Maddie is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu and has won two Food Network competitions with her dazzling confections.
The treats at the bakery included cookies decorated like Taylor's album covers, chocolate chip cookies frosted with the instantly iconic lyrics, "Hi. It's me. I'm the problem. It's me." A six-pack of sweet cupcakes ($19) have flavors and insider tidbits Swifties would appreciate — including red velvet flavor and lavender haze design. Two featured images: Taylor's cat and Ms. Swift herself on a white cake with vanilla buttercream. The treats were a perfect sugar rush to amp up the excitement for the show a few more notches. (Joy Summers)
12772 Riverdale Blvd., Coon Rapids, 763-323-3236, somethingsweetcakes.smartonlineorder.com
Cauliflower soufflé at Maison Margaux
There's a lot going on at David Fhima's bustling new Moulin Rouge-inspired restaurant. The bright and airy French brasserie on the main floor, which is next to the welcoming lounge and patio. The upper-level event space, filled with light. And the impressive wine cellar and swanky Underground Bar with its own menu. There's plenty to take in — and that's before even taking a seat.
We grabbed an early seat at the bar, where the menu is, of course, decidedly French. You'll find many favorites — pommes frites, soupe a l'oignon gratinée, salade nicoise, frog legs, ratatouille, bouillabaisse and soufflés, among others. (Go with a group; the more people, the more plates to share.) Because cheese makes everything better, the Cauliflower, Gruyère and Chèvre Soufflé ($19) was on my must-try list. Perfectly light and fluffy, the Gruyère played well with the more assertive cauliflower and chèvre, making each billowy bite flavorfully balanced. We enjoyed it as a shareable side to save room for the other dishes we wanted to sample, but paired with an order of haricot verts ($14) it would make a fine meat-free main, too.
Save room for dessert and make it a soufflé double header with the chocolate soufflé ($14). Because chocolate makes everything better, too. (Nicole Hvidsten)
224 N. 1st St., Mpls., 612-900-1800, maisonmargauxmpls.com
Bagel from ElMar's New York Pizza
When a pizzeria opened in summer 2020 with a proprietary water filtration system that supposedly mimics the chemical makeup of New York City tap water, Twin Cities-based East Coast expats like myself immediately wondered: Would bagels be next?
I wasn't the only one. "We had always thought we'd open a bagel store after the pizzeria," ElMar's founders and ex-Staten Islanders Nicole and Michael ElMaraghy wrote in an email. But that idea got shelved by the demands of running a restaurant and having a third son. "We were still starving for New York bagels, though, so something had to be done," they said.
Three years later, we have New York water bagels in a Plymouth strip mall.
ElMar's is now running a bagel pop-up three mornings a week (Thursdays and Fridays from 7:30 to 10 a.m. and Sundays from 9 a.m. to noon). These gargantuan specimens — crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside — achieve a light fluffiness I haven't come across in my near-decade in the Twin Cities, where petite and dense seem to be the local preference. These are the closest to the New Jersey corner store bagels I grew up with, and the first bite was like finding home.
"They're as New York as anyone could possibly make them, besides cooking them in pizza ovens," the ElMaraghys said. "More uniqueness, though!"
The hand-rolled, kettle-boiled bagels are $3 each, and can be had plain or topped with onion, sesame or everything. I brought home a sack of them to freeze for later, and snagged one with cream cheese ($5) to eat in the parking lot. You can also order your bagel as a vessel for a steamy bodega-style egg sandwich ($7-$10), which is a very good idea.
If you want coffee with your bagel, you're in luck. The busy and ultra-charming cafe the Fox and Pantry is next door and offers a long list of creative lattes and breakfast sweets. Plymouth strip mall for the win. (Sharyn Jackson)
15725 37th Av. N., Plymouth, elmarsnypizza.com
Roast chicken with morels at Änna's Bistro
Pulling off the road into Marine on St. Croix is like wandering onto a movie set. The small historic main street is enough to gobsmack a person with charm. There's a general store, post office, a sign for an ice cream shop around the corner and at the end, a stately white and black building with a small side deck: this is Änna's Bistro.
The restaurant was founded by Änna Hagstrom, who had never run a restaurant before plunging into the business in June 2022. The former lawyer and resident of this idyllic town decided to make a career shift and open a small, intentional bistro in a former pizza restaurant.
One of the most remarkable things about Änna's Bistro is that there isn't a traditional kitchen. There's a wood-fired oven in the wall, and that's where all of the cooking is done. On the evening we visited, the menu was a mix of meat and cheese type snacks, salads and two entrees, one vegetarian and one a roast chicken over farro with a mound of buttery morels ($32). We ordered the whole thing and it made for a lovely evening of quiet conversation and lingering over the dishes.
The chicken was perfectly roasted, with burnished skin and a succulent interior. The morels were a spectacular taste of late spring earthiness, the soil just beginning to give up its bounty.
After dinner we wandered the town and hiked down to the St. Croix River while admiring the wildflowers and savoring the last moments of sun as the sky faded from lavender to gray. It's a perfect setting for a special night. (J.S.)
11 Judd St., Marine on St. Croix, annasbistromn.com
Pastries at Tous les Jours
Get ready to wait in line and have your heart broken at Tous les Jours. Minnesota's first franchise of a French-inspired bakery from South Korea opened recently in Richfield, and from the beginning there have been lines snaking through the perky shop and out the door. It's impossible to know exactly what treats you'll find. The line moves cafeteria-style through a corridor of shelves; almost as soon as a staffer fills a case with a bread or pastry, customers' personal tongs grab it. If you've moved up too many paces to reach a now-replenished shelf, you're pretty much out of luck. Emotions run high here.
That's only one of the quirks of Tous les Jours. Another is the care and attention each customer puts into curating their tray as they amble past the cabinets of baked goods; it's all squandered at checkout, where a cashier dumps everything into a paper bag, combining sweet and savory, hot and cold. That's how I ended up with chocolate from a dipped croissant smeared on a curry croquette. It's a curious mishandling of otherwise darling treats that are destined to wind up in a TikTok minutes later, the bags crumpled in the trash.
Still, there is an abundance of charm here, and plenty of bakery items worth sampling, even if they're not the ones you had your heart set on (I'm looking at you, sweet rice doughnuts). Kimchi croquettes and custard buns, honey cheese mochi pancakes and the pillowiest milk buns, domes of red bean bread and slices of cloud cake. Wash them down with an iced ube latte or a matcha frappé, and get back in line for another round. (S.J.)
6601 Nicollet Av. S., Richfield, 612-887-8668, tljus.com
