Pairings Food & Wine Market

Delicious lunch, fast, great quality, knowledgable staff to consult on choices. I enjoyed the Salmon Sliders — yummmm
The grilled Chicken Panini was flavorful and the bread was crisped to perfection.
This is a must return to restaurant, perhaps for the wine pairing dinner?

How can a wine bar not have wine? I loved how this restaurant paired food and wine. First, they lost the wine shop. .now their liquor license?
the food was always great… but not sure it will make it without the second part of the pair.

Great deli, a bit pricey, but awesome food and service. The people are great. I highly recommend this place for a nice, relaxing lunch.

Consistently gone downhill since the liquor store next door closed. Food quality has continued to decease as prices have increased. I have been here dozens of times and will not be returning. They also lost their liquor license recently… Really !? Need I say more? What happened to this place?

I just stopped by for some take out. Ordered the butternut squash ravioli. It was phenomenal! The sauce was creamy but not too heavy. Also grabbed a side of chicken salad & it was perfect. Big juicy pieces of chicken, apple, grapes, walnuts! Portions are great too. More to eat for leftovers & the staff was fast and friendly!

I didn’t have a terrible expense, but for the price of the food, I expected a lot more. We ordered the cheese plate to start, abd it was nice, but the crackers and nuts weren’t anything that I couldn’t get from a box out of my own kitchen. I had the Bolognese, and my boyfriend had a burger. Both were fine. For dessert we had the flourless cake and the ginger peach pie. The cake was good, but the pie was excessively ginger. I couldn’t taste the peach.
In addition to the prices being too high for uninspired food, I never found a pairings list. For a place that puts wine and food pairing in its name, I expected there to at least be wine suggestions with each item on the menu.
If I could give it 2.5 stars, I would.

Consistantly delicious.
Con: you order at the counter and they bring the food to you which can be a pain. Noise levels very high so not good for hard of hearing.
Pros: Fresh. Well executed. Innovative without being off the wall. I have a mission to order one of each thing but I keep falling back to favorites! Wine by the glass. Nice selection of very nice desserts.

Nice place for lunch and happy hour. Decent wine list, good service and nice indoor/​outdoor seating. Have tried many of the HH specials, all good, in particular the truffle fries, cheese/​meat platter and risotto croquettes. Caesar salad is excellent. Mango ice cream sandwich is also good but overpriced at $ 5. Pizza we had was just OK, too wet in the middle, not cooked evenly. Will be back, also to try Tuesday BOGO pizza deal.

Quality has really gone downhill. They had a good concept but failed to adapt over the years. Wine store closed, selection of food and cheese has decreased and service is average. If they can change for the new Health Partners opening soon with thousands of employees they may have a chance. Otherwise this is just a mediocre food and service place to eat.

Great food but a little pricey. Great hh $ 3 wines. Poor seating system for lunch when it gets very busy. Any other time of day can get seated quickly. Sad the wine shop is discontinued. Great patio seating though.

A deli-​like place in the burbs, with fresh salads, wine, make your own (you pick out the ingredients and it’s a gas oven that looks like it’s wood fired) pizza. Not a super original idea but worth trying.
Now for this neighbourhood this place will fit in and draw a crowd. Sunday morning has a limited brunch menu and mimosa, for mimosa two and a pitcher of mimosas. Well they were out of the pitcher so we did the mimosa for two which was an airplane bottle of champagne and some juice. For the price, i’ve had much better and its just mimosa… anyways The food was pretty good. Some flatbread, fresh sausage, a couple of eggs all for some sort of breakfast dish.
It’s a nice enviroment, nice simple menu, good fresh food but I could get this at half a dozen different places within 15 miles.
KT

Very Disappointing in Pairings service ! My wife and I were in Pairings for lunch about 1:30 PM. I ordered the Tuscan Sliders and my wife had a salad. The kitchen was SOOOO slow my wife stopped eating her salad otherwise she would have finished before my plate even came out of the kitchen. Now a Tuscan Slider is basically 2 sausage meatballs squished between buns with red sauce and fries — not very complex. The kicked was there was only one other table occupied in the whole restaurant. When I commented on the service, no one really was too concerned. I guess with all the other higher ratings Pairings can afford to slack off.
Next time I am going across the parking lot to Jimmy’s. They consistently provide great service.
BTW — The Tuscan Sliders were dry!

Being on a gluten free diet can often be difficult. Our friend told us about Pairings being so close to our house and we never noticed. I thought it would be mostly sandwiches but we decided to take a stab at it.
I’m excited we did. Actually — we just got back from eating there tonight. I’ve had breakfast, lunch and dinner there and it always tastes delicious. Seriously, they have top quality meat, great taste with everything and an overall comfortable, relaxed environment.
I’ve had their grilled fish tacos (they are great!), hamburger (without bun) — the meat quality exceeded my expectations, their steak (again, great meat, cooked perfectly), and egg scramble with ham and cheesy potatoes. I would highly recommend every meal I’ve tried!
The only down side is the price. It can add up fast. For instance, the breakfast includes bread and I asked if I could switch out for fruit. It would have been an extra $ 6 charge. Eek. Hence the reason for –1 star. If the prices were a little more reasonable (it’s right on the line of being a little too high), we would probably make this a «once a week» dinner stop.

This place is fabulous. Fabulous salads, paninis and most importantly DESSERTS. Oh, the desserts! I’ve never had their pasta or pizza, but they look delicious.
The salads come with fabulous flat bread. The salads come with a choice of simple, but tasty greens or home cooked kettle chips. The build-​your-​own salad bar is a hit with a lot of fresh choices.
Usually a very fun environment, but can be very busy over the lunch hour. This makes the lines a bit confusing and of course, long. The outside patio is also very nice when weather permits.
Would recommend! Just go a little before the lunch rush at noon.

OK… when things are ‘in your proverbial back yard’ you tend to over look them. Such is the case with Pairings. Shortly after they opened, we stopped in and started at the wine retail store. Impressive selection, with prices to match.
Went over the the food side and it seemed to function more like an upscale deli. Nothing really caught our eye and we left. Subsequently, I’ve noticed several Unilocal reviews that spoke quite well of the food – assortment and preparation. So fast forward to yesterday – Saturday.
First thing we noticed is that the retail wine store is apparently gone. Now the focus is firmly centered on the food establishment. As the manager I spoke with, said: «We have found our focus and instead of being a wine store with food options, we have grown into a food establishment that serves wines. (AND a great selection at very exceptional retail prices). Example? House California Chard @ $ 11/​bottle!
Gourmet build your own salads (with a chef to serve you), flat breads, pannini’s, and several upscale large plates rounds out a healthy selection with variety without being overly expansive. Food is brought to your table as soon as it is prepared for you, and everything is fresh and very attentively prepared!!!
Free Jazz music on Thursdays, and happy hour pricing M-​Sat 3−6pm. We Will Return… soon!

I live near this restaurant and eat here regularly. The food is always fresh and delicious. I personally prefer the create your own salad, but the pizzas are good too. I will also say that they have the very best chocolate chip cookies ever! My husband says the fish tacos are excellent too.
It’s ALWAYS busy and also a bit pricey but well worth the time and $.

I really like this place, especially for outdoor seating. They have a wine shop next door, you can buy a bottle and bring it in to the restaurant, order your food, sit on the large patio and enjoy your meal and wine.
I really like their create your own salad option. And their pizzas are awesome. But my very favorite thing is their Lemon Bars. They are huge, but you won’t want to share! They are so nice and tart, and they have a coconut graham cracker crust. Soooo yummy!
Their customer service is pretty top notch too.
They are really busy for lunch, so go early or be prepared to have a hard time finding a parking spot and then a table once you make it into the restaurant.

There should be more places like this in the Twin Cities.
Reading the reviews and the company’s website, I thought it was going to be more Dean & Deluca, but it’s really like a hybrid of D’Amico’s counter with World Market’s much fancier (and more expensive wine shoppe — extra letters for the extra fanciness). Seriously, the wine sold their might be fine for a higher-​end clientele, but I like my ~$ 20/​bottle wine and those were not in the majority here.
My friend and I ordered a pizza and a salad to split. The fig pizza with balsamic glaze should have been amazing, but to me it was merely pretty good. The salad with grilled chicken, goat cheese, red onion, walnuts, strawberries and poppyseed dressing was fantastic. Such a simple classic salad but the slightly garlic-​y poppyseed dressing with it’s savory and sweet notes really set it off.
Speaking of notes, when a fancy wine shoppe, order some wine! I was surprised to hear that the red I ordered was out. Hello, you’re connected to a wine shoppe (extra fancy) how do you run out of one of your standard pours? I ordered another red and it was fine.
The market consisted of cheese and some high-​end pops (sodas if you’re fancy, I guess) but I wanted more. An olive bar? A cracker aisle? A high-​end meat counter where I can buy prosciutto and capicola until my heart is content? Alas, the space does not allow for this…
Did anyone other than me notice the other «pairing» in the neighborhood? Two Caribou Coffees feet from each other?! That’s what my more dramatic friend would call redic.

Wow, my recent dinner experience at Pairings could not be more different than all my lunch experiences. I had the Szechuan Grilled Shrimp Skewers and my boyfriend had the Pan Seared Beef Tenderloin Medallions. We were both completely disappointed. My shrimp was so salty I could barely eat it, and the rice was so dry. I consumed more water to wash down this meal than actual food. The beef medallions were scant in quantity and looked like small McDonald’s patties that were very, very well done. The veggies were so rubbery he really had to saw at them to cut them into bite size pieces. Guessing the food was already semi cooked or being kept warm because it took less than 5 minutes after we ordered for our food to arrive. Not what I’m looking for at $ 18 /​entrée.
I don’t know if standards have dropped since my last visit, or if we just had a fluke bad experience. I’d skip the entrees and stick with salads, sandwiches or pizzas. We enjoyed our routine trip to the wine market though – very friendly and helpful staff with great recommendations.

I think this place is a good option for lunch or dinner but keep in mind a few things you may want to know before you go.
This is a place where you stand in line, place your order and take a number. There is no option for making a reservation here. Probably not an issue for lunch but if you plan on going over a peak hour on a weekend night be prepared to wait.
The food market does have a lot of nice options on the menu for dining. Chef crafted entrees, fresh pastas, home made pizzas and build your own salads (where you pay by the pound). There is also a wine shop next door so if you’re in the mood for a little vino you can stop there first and sip a glass over dinner.
My biggest compliant here is the noise level and the ambiance resembles that of a «cafeteria». So no romance here.
Prices can add up too so by the time you get all done would you rather «wait in line» or sit down and be «waited on».