Bar La Grassa

Brought a team of coworkers here. We had the prawns and scallop appetizers and they were great.
I’ve always liked the wine selecting here, which was great one again.
Lamb meatball spaghetti was also a hit.

This place is fantastic. Great atmosphere. Great service. It’s where I learned that savory is a noun as well as an adjective.
But all that aside the food is fantastic. I’ve never had anything but small plates here shared with friends. And it’s been off the bruschetta menu and the fresh pasta menu mainly. Every time I’m here we get soft eggs and lobster bruschetta and the gnocchi off the fresh pasta. These are phenomenal. This week we added in the truffle tagliarini. Great as well. I think my wife liked it better than the gnocchi which is one of her all time favorite dishes in Mpls. I still liked the gnocchi better but I am splitting hairs. All was great.
It’s not a cheap place to eat but you don’t have to break the bank here either. Just really really good creative food at reasonable prices. Get here.

This place is a MUST if you are visiting the cities. I have lived here my whole life and have never been to Bar La Grassa. Boy have I been missing out. This place is incredible!
Julia G. took me here for my Birthday dinner. It was a Tuesday night and we couldn’t get a reservation until 8:00PM. When we arrived the place was packed. Clearly a popular place and for good reason. Make sure to dress up, almost all of the men were in collared shirts and slacks at the very least.
The service was excellent and our server was very well educated on everything on the menu including the endless list of wine. She was able to help us select a smooth red wine, something similar to a cabernet or merlot. Most if not all of their wine is Italian so we split a bottle of Montepulciano. It went down much more smoothly than what we’re used to in the box.
We started with a bruschetta. With a strong Italian Identity, the menu had a whole section of different bruschetta to choose from. We ordered the PECORINO FRESCO with APPLE and HAZELNUT. I would definitely recommend it, absolutely amazing. We then split two half orders of the GNOCCHI with CAULIFLOWER and ORANGE and the BUCATINI with BOLOGNESE which were conveniently each exactly half the price of a full entrée. I enjoyed the Gnocchi a lot more because of the sweetness the orange brought to the table (No pun intended). However a little goes a long way; the flavor was very over powering. A few bites of the Bucantini in between helped balance out the flavors. The Gnocchi noodles are made fresh in house and you can tell the difference. The texture was soft and almost doughy. All in all the meal was outstanding and at the end of the day affordable for the quality. Bar La Grassa is a MUST TRY!

Happy New Year! Opened the NY here and the Verdict? Delicious. In another word, Luscious. And yet another word, Memorable.
The vibe here is a comfy, urban tavern with super efficient wait staff. They are knowledgeable about what’s popular here. But go with your instinct, as a majority of dishes here are well loved and documented.
For starters: Soft eggs with lobster. Love love uni and eggs but this dish treated my palate to lusciously delectable contrasts: tasty brine of the plump and generous lobster coddled with the maternally pillowy eggs… on a crusty bruschetta. 2die4. My dish for the the night. Hmmmm, a lil caviar would probably just send me to the clouds.
First plate: Grilled shrimp with light spicy sauce, not spicy just slightly pungent. Flavor was nice, very alive on this place: hints of red pepper, saffron. Then dip the head onto the savory sauce and suck the nice tamale out and I was in heaven. Excited to try more plates, I ate half the dish to welcome the next dish.
Second plate: Fresh taglierini with black truffles and reggiano. I can eat this every day. Earth, Parmiggiano, pasta, truffles, Mmmmm. There was so much reggiano the pasta was nicely tart. For extra $ 3 you get shaved truffles and yes I went for it!!! I was nicely thrown to the clouds with this dish.
Salad: Roasted beets with pistachios and burrata, very nice textural contrasts with beets, crunch (pistachios) and pillowy soft (burrata). Only ate a few bites. Didn’t finish too full and took it togo.
My second visit was equally memorable. See the beautiful plates. Sometimes a visual speaks tomes… my fave this visit was the smoked spaghetti with browned butter… transported me back to a fave trattoria in Roma.
Loved it.
Coming back.
Visits: 2
Tip: For your first visit, try eating at the corner end pasta bar so you can see the delicious range of dishes picked up by an army of servers (like a well oiled machine). Here the disco music is more a hum and you get to appreciate the menu. Was salivating at the flawlessly plated creations Came at 5pm twice and saw a crowd of excited hungry patrons.

This is a really great spot in the North Loop, within a few blocks of the target field light rail station. It’s really packed on weekends so get a reservation… Probably not a bad idea regardless.
My favorite is hands down the pasta negra with mussels and sea urchin chili, but I’m a big sea urchin person. I have a hard time not getting a half order anytime I am down in that area. I’ve never had something I really didn’t like there.
I really like the half portion option, because it let’s you try lots of different dishes… And the half option is just half the price of the full plate.
Still doesn’t beat Broders Pasta Bar in South Minneapolis in my opinion, but it’s definitely 1A.

IT IS CRUCIAL THAT YOU MAKE A RESERVATION. Don’t bother rolling up here without one because you will be waiting forever. I made reservation for my birthday (which was on a weekday) and boy I didn’t know a Wednesday would be PACKED. I can’t imagine what a Friday or a Saturday is like here. But firstly when I called to make my reservation mentioning that we’d be celebrating a birthday and wanting a seat for 2 people that is intimate, the host said no problem and was kind of standoffish. Great. Parking is metered and by lots.
My husband arrived at BLG first and got our table. When I enter the restaurant it is LOUD, crowded and chaotic — absolute turn off. Lighting was too dim. We were seated in a small cramped corner with a tiny table. Obviously the host did not understand the words «birthday», «decent seat in the house» and «intimate». Boo to the host! Apart from being seated in a small cramped corner for my birthday the party sitting next to us was ridiculous, the guy was SHOUTING the whole time and their conversation was absolutely annoying & overwhelming. BLG is the type of place where you must speak LOUDLY to your dinner date.
Despite the awful seating arrangement and annoying neighboring table, our waitress was lovely — diligent, informative and knowledgeable. She went above and beyond for us! Also she brought out a birthday treat!
We ordered:
Avocado Anchovy Bruschetta — my hubby loved it
Scallops — $ 16 for 3 small scallops (good/​delicious but overpriced) nothing special, just scallops
Crab Ravioli — amazing and scrumptious
Black Pasta with Mussels — my husband enjoyed it alot, bold jalepeno flavor
Brown Butter Lobster Spaghetti — Bold, rich, salty and mediocre
Definite comeback place but its a hit or miss with the hosts. Hopefully better seating next time sheesh.

I am one of rare people that isn’t head over heels in love with BLG but I just didn’t like it.
It started poorly when we had to wait almost half an hour after our reservation to finally be seated, I know that restaurants can’t kick people out but maybe don’t book your reservations so tight.
Our waiter was fairly good, he was the perfect level of attentive but didn’t seem take my food allergy very seriously. I know that having a celery allergy sounds fake but it’s not, celery juice/​seed/​purée is in a ton of stuff (ex. uncured bacon) and celery is used as a starter in a lot of Italian dishes. He told me it wasn’t a main part in any of the dishes but I don’t think he went back and verified that it wasn’t a sub-​ingredient.
Here’s the scoop on the food: The beans were great, that was the only thing I would go back and eat again. Other than that
— Caesar salad: I like a good fresh Caesar dressing with a little bit of anchovy flavor, this was intense anchovy, I ate it because I didn’t want to waste it but I hated it, SO fishy.
— Pork shoulder bruschetta: I hate that the menu doesn’t describe any of the items, you just have to guess on everything. If I had know the pork would have tasted like anise I never would have gotten it. The flavor was so bad that we just let them throw away half of it.
— Carbonara: I am not sure what the meat was in this dish but it was not the bacon I would expect. I picked some of the pieces out and evaluated them on their own, they were dry, bitter and a bit ashy tasting. The sauce covering of the noodles was fine they just didn’t taste good.
— Gnocchi: I am a gnocchi lover, I get it all of the time and I make it from scratch as well. The size and texture of these were great, the flavor was just okay. This needed more acid to balance the flavors I would add a significant more orange zest and orange juice. If I ever went again I would try this again and hope this time was a fluke.
Overall I like the atmosphere and mostly like the service but I wish their menu was more descriptive so I can make sure I am ordering the things I would actually like. If I am craving Italian I will be sticking with Broder’s pasta bar.