Masa Restaurant, Minneapolis

This chic restaurant's open Minneapolis kitchen allows customers to see the production of enchiladas, pollo con mole poblano and other Mexican creations, giving them insight into how certain equipment produces authentic meals.

By Donna Boss, Contributing Editor -- Foodservice Equipment and Supplies, 1/1/2008

Since it entered the culinary scene in the 1950s, the D'Amico name has remained synonymous with Italian and Mediterranean cuisine. D'Amico Cucina, Campiello and D'Amico & Sons are renowned in Minneapolis and Naples, Fla. In 1995, D'Amico Catering joined the D'Amico & Partners' group. In 2002, an American concept, Café and Bar Lurcat, joined the group.

Three years later, with the introduction of Masa Restaurant, the partners ventured into upscale Mexican cuisine featuring authentic flavors and traditional preparation. The impetus to depart from their Italian roots began when Richard D'Amico, CEO of D'Amico & Partners, received a phone call from Mexico City in 2004 from his brother, Larry, and D'Amico executive chef Jay Sparks.

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The two were dining at Chef Patricia Quintana's top-rated restaurant, Izote, and called Richard to tell him how impressed they were with the cuisine here, and at other restaurants in the Baja region of Mexico such as Aguila Y Sol.

"If you would have asked me years ago if I'd own a Mexican restaurant, I never would have said yes," Richard D'Amico says. "Once we committed, we had to figure out how to deliver some of the best parts of this style of cuisine while making it affordable. The food is more complicated than we thought. What goes into producing the flavors is astounding."

"We found that the food was not all hot and spicy, but more a matter of robust and layered flavors that were sophisticated and complex," Sparks says. He, Richard D'Amico and Masa chef Saul Chavez researched the menu for more than a year to create their concept of cosmopolitan Mexican cuisine with regional authenticity. Recognizing the growing popularity of Mexican cuisine in New York City and Chicago, the D'Amico team wanted to introduce the flavors and nuances into the Twin Cities.

Today, the two-year-old, 4,336-square-foot restaurant presenting high-end cuisine in a contemporary setting sits in Nicollet Mall in the Target World Headquarters, located in downtown Minneapolis. Bright, airy furnishings and large windows give restaurant guests a street-level view of the mall and neighboring Orchestra Hall.

"Our biggest challenge was converting an existing casual bar/restaurant space into a new, exciting and unique bar/restaurant," says Michelle Piontek, senior project architect, KKE Architects, Minneapolis. "With the existing back kitchen and bar locations to remain unchanged, we needed to work within strict budget constraints to design a chic, fresh and fashionable, upscale Mexican restaurant interior that would leave virtually no references to its previous tenant."

Piontek worked with Richard D'Amico to create what she describes as "an atmosphere of metropolitan sophistication that would educate patrons about the rich cultures of Mexico by surrounding them with many of the rich colors and textures native to the country."

Upon entering the restaurant, customers experience a clean white interior with a series of hanging backlit white fabric ceiling panels. These panels soften the room, conceal unsightly ductwork and preserve the open, airy space. Large white tile pavers lead from the green tile entry into the open 122-seat dining room. Medium-cherry wood stain ondoors, cabinets and low walls contrast against the upper white walls. Full-height windows facing south and west surround the restaurant, giving guests a view to the outside street activity on Nicollet Mall. Fullheight draperies soften the daylight and warm the dining room at night.

Glass bead wall wainscoting on both sides of a wave wall of shimmering green glass tile complements the orange bar's soft glow. A floating white bar top and polished chrome glass racks accentuate simple lines. Tile-framed notebook sketches of Mexican high fashion further accentuate the restaurant's elegant theme.

"Nothing in the interior distracts from the dining experience," Piontek says. "All design choices, from furniture, fixtures, lighting and artwork to china and glassware, draw the guests' attention to Masa's enticing dishes presented with an exquisite artistic flair."

According to James Palm, vice president, Strategic Equipment, Palm Division, Minneapolis, "To open a new restaurant and build it from the ground up is incredibly expensive. I look at each space as if I were spending my own dollars and work to incorporate as much of the existing equipment into the new design."

For example, Palm says the warewashing area, storage areas and back-of-house prep and cookline "made sense, so we didn't need to replace them. We added a walk-in beverage cooler for bottled beer and wine storage with glass doors facing the bar. This serves as a functional cooler as well as a notable visual and design feature. There was only one location available for the 25-foot-long display cookline. We needed to maintain exhaust air quantities to match up with the originally installed ductwork." The kitchen, occupying 1,160-square-feet for prep and 400-square-feet for display cooking, holds pre-existing equipment valued at $150,000 and new equipment purchased at $100,000.

Though some of the existing and all of the new equipment remain visible to guests, Palm says modestly that "the features that make this restaurant unique are the distinctive lighting, along with the specialty wall finishes throughout the space. The entire chef 's counter was kept as low as possible to maximize the visual impact of these design elements."

In the back kitchen, staff place food deliveries in a pre-existing cooler and freezer, and in dry storage. Storage, as in most urban facilities, is minimal. "We had to move a freezer next to the stacked convection oven on the cookline and install shelving for dry goods," Sparks says. "Because of our storage limitations, we can't go crazy ordering. We have to keep our inventory very low."

At the back cookline, staff prepare ingredients for the menu on large prep tables. The six-burner range heats mole poblano, sopa de pescado (with sea bass, shrimp, lime, red onions and cilantro) and other soups, as well as pozole verde (a light stew of chicken, pork and hominy served with lime, onion, radish and tostaditas). The tilting braising pan warms chicken stocks and soups. Other staff later finish and/or heat soups on the front line. Staff make caramel sauce for the crepe cajeta in this area, as well.

A double-stacked convection oven cooks pork for the popular puerco veracruzana (roasted pork shoulder marinated with lime, garlic and chile ancho, cooked in banana leaf and served with broiled pineapple in adobo sauce and black bean puree). The oven also bakes cookies that are served with sorbets and ice creams, in addition to Mexican chocolate cake, a sweet with a brownie-like texture and a touch of cayenne.

Fryers, once sitting in the front of the house, are now in the back. Fryers crisp tortilla chips; tostados for pozole verde; chile rellenos de carne (roasted poblano chile with a spiced shredded pork, raisins and almond filling, which is fried in meringue batter and topped with tomato sauce); and desserts such as churros served warm with a demitasse cup of chocolate for dipping. "We moved the fryers from the front line to the back because they weren't needed during service as much as the ranges," Sparks says.

At the display cookline, three six-burner ranges remain active throughout service as staff make tamales steamed in perforated pans; enchiladas for enchilada con pollo estilo morelia (two light corn tortillas dipped in guajillo salsa, sautéed and filled with chicken and served with potatoes, carrots and pickled jalapeños); and enchilada con jaibas (tortillas filled with king crab, Chihuahua cheese and served with lettuce, pickled onions, salsa verde, cotija and crème). Staff also cook side dishes such as frijoles borrachos (pinto beans finished with bacon, chorizo, tomato and jalapeño) on the ranges.

Staff use burners for preparing rice in large pots. "Rice steamers didn't work for us because we have to make large batches and weren't getting the quality we needed," Sparks says. "After cooking the rice, we cool it down and reserve it for service, then reheat to order in a microwave."

The griddle provides staff with a consistent tool for cooking tacos made from corn tortillas, sopes (thick tortillas with raised edges to allow for filling) and quesadillas.

On the char grill, staff cook most of the entrées, including mahimahi con achiote y cebollas en escabeche (mahi-mahi filet with achiote marinade and pickled red onions and served with black beans and rice); pollo con naranja (chicken breast marinated in orange juice, tequila and onions and grilled and served with roasted sweet potato and pineapple rice); pollo en recado de chilomole (chicken breast grilled with Yucatecan marinade, served with cilantro rice); and bistek con chipotle ancho marinado y cebollita verdes (grilled 10-ounce Black Angus ribeye steak with chile ancho-chipotle butter, served with refried pinto beans, grilled onions and the chile condiment, pico de gallo). The grill also prepares cebollitas asadas (grilled green onions with lime and cayenne).

Further forward toward the dining room are refrigerated prep tables for salad and dessert prep, heat lamps, a drop-in hot well that holds side dishes, and a pick-up shelf. Also nearby are wall shelves, a dipper well and ice cream cabinet.

To the left of the cookline, staff fill beverage orders for coffee, tea and soda. A full-serve bar is the centerpiece of the lounge.

"We're trying to stay focused on tradition, yet add modern elements to the menu, which we see in continuous evolution," Sparks says. "As we learn, we grow. For instance, we're finding the use of fresh chilies challenging because the heat is always bouncing around. So, we're always working to find consistency. When you have good people and they are willing to explore, very interesting dishes can result."

Another discovery, Sparks says, was the need for "a lot of labor to make authentic dishes. For example, making mole is a long process involving upwards of 26 different ingredients."

When Sparks says Masa's cuisine is in continual evolution, he isn't exaggerating. "Patricia Quintana recently came to visit Masa," Sparks says. "She knows how to improve dishes and understands the layering of flavors. This isn't something you understand in the first two or three years. Rather, it takes time."

So far, D'Amico & Partners' foray into this culture is receiving accolades for its ambition and execution. Learning how to use equipment to achieve consistent results is also part of the staff 's learning process. So, it won't come as a surprise to find Mexican cuisine-specific pieces of equipment such as a comal (griddle) or an electric molino for grinding corn at Masa in the future, though these items are still on the wish-and-not-absolutely-essential list.