By Elizabeth Fechter
Murphy News Service
Minnesota native Gavin Kaysen, former executive chef at Cafè Boulud in New York, has returned home to open his own restaurant Spoon and Stable in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis.
“Being in New York for the last eight years was incredible and I really had a wonderful time,” Kaysen said. “And I don’t regret one day that I lived there.”
Kaysen said that it took him two years to make the decision to move back home, and that a lot of it was family driven.
“My parents, my cousins, aunts and uncles were all a part of it. I really wanted to be close to them, I have two children and I wanted them to be closer to their grandparents,” Kaysen said.
Theoretically, Kaysen said, as a chef he works much of the time. And his new endeavor will give his children an opportunity to be near their grandparents during the holidays.
“Ya know,” Kaysen said,” there’s this understanding, mentally, that once you live in New York, if you leave, does that mean you failed? Or do you leave on your own terms? I don’t think I left and thought ‘Oh I failed.’ I did way more than I ever anticipated I would do in that city.”
Kaysen said he has watched the Minneapolis culinary scene in grow into a wonderful food town, thanks to chefs such as Alex Roberts of Restaurant Alma, Tim McKee of La Belle Vie and Isaac Becker of 122 Eatery.
“The guests are willing to trust them and willing to be excited about what they’re cooking.” Kaysen said. “When it comes to the chefs and diners in town it’s continued to grow and grow and grow, and only get better really.”
Spoon and Stable, at 211 N. 1st St., is expected to open mid-November.
The new restaurant was originally named Merchant, but Kaysen changed it because he had heard of others with the same name.
“We decided to do maybe the unthinkable,” Kaysen said in a video released on his restaurant’s website last Friday, “a month before we open, change the name.
“We’re now Spoon and Stable. This is a stable and I steal spoons, it’s as simple as that,” Kaysen said.
Spoon and Stable’s menu will be casual, French by design but very American.
“Meaning techniques that are French but that doesn’t mean that we will advertise as expensive or stuffy,” Kaysen added.
Items such as cured salmon with beets and fingerling potatoes are a hint at what chef Kaysen has planned.
“The neighborhood will help drive the business,” he said. “I hope to get a great group of people, young and old.”
Reporter Elizabeth Fechter is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.