If ever you were feeling that the restaurant scene in Edina had become lackluster, you can put those sentiments behind you. There’s been so much restaurant buzz around here lately, we can hardly keep up. Among the new faces in the culinary lineup: an Italian-born chef with three-plus decades of cooking experience launches Mozza Mia, a classic pizzeria and mozzarella bar; a well-traveled Minnesota native emerges after working under local restaurant powerhouses to head up his own kitchen at Cocina del Barrio; and a Korean immigrant and former actress with no restaurant experience opens Pizzeria Lola on the Minneapolis/Edina border. We love supporting all of this creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and we’re sure that you’ll enjoy seeing (and tasting) the results.
Passion, Passion and More Passion
Vittorio Renda exudes passion, warmth and hospitality—those qualities that we think of as being so quintessentially Italian. Growing up in the Calabria region of Italy with a father that loved to entertain, he learned about every aspect of food at a very young age. He tended the tomatoes, olives, grapes and lemons in the garden right outside his doorstep. He watched his father make salami. He helped cook up family-style plates for big meals to be enjoyed by all of the neighbors.
Motivated by his love of food, he moved north to Milan to start working in restaurants and pastry shops, then worked his way through the many regions of Italy. He never expected to spend the bulk of his career working in Minnesota, but during a visit to the United States in the early 80s, he had a meal at Pronto (a former restaurant in the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Minneapolis) and met Phil Roberts, founder and chairman of the board for Parasole. Something struck a chord between them and before long, Roberts convinced him to come and run the place. From there, they developed other Italian concepts together, like Figlio and Buca di Beppo.
The passion behind Renda’s work is evident when he describes how he perfected each item on the menu at Mozza Mia. The hand-pulled mozzarella, served with crusty bread and olive oil, is made fresh daily, and is nothing but wet, creamy goodness. In the pizza crust, he uses Caputo (an Italian flour), yeast and sea salt, in pursuit of a sourdough flavor and the chewy texture he desires. For the sauce, it’s nothing but San Marzano tomatoes, delivering the sweet, not-too-acidic flavor he wants. Even the limoncello takes a month to make, with Renda soaking the lemons in grain liquor instead of vodka to extract maximum flavor, then adding just the right amount of simple syrup.
Renda spends most of his time working, especially during a big restaurant opening like this, when he likes to have his hands in every element from the cooking to the service. To recharge, he takes trips back to Italy, to visit family (his father, age 90, who now resides in Milan) and rediscover all of his favorite Italian specialties: Homemade gnocchi, the best plate of Bolognese, gelato. The hectic lifestyle doesn’t seem to faze him, though. “It’s like my father says, ‘There’ll be plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead,’” he says.
3910 W. 50th St; 952.288.2882
Vibrant, Latin Inspiration
Though he might be a new face to the cooking scene of Edina, Bill Fairbanks is no stranger to local gourmands. Born in Minnesota and working in restaurants since he was 14 years old, Fairbanks got his start at La Toscana (a former restaurant of Calhoun Village), followed by Barbette. He then had a six-year stint working under chef-restaurateurs Tim McKee and Josh Thoma, at Solera, La Belle Vie and Barrio. (Though McKee and Thoma are no longer part of the Barrio enterprise, Fairbanks opened the original Barrio in downtown Minneapolis with them.) Cooking is pretty much the only thing he’s ever done.
As executive chef at Barrio del Cocina, Fairbanks draws this contrast between the Edina newbie and the original Barrio tequila bars: “Here, we are a restaurant first, with a separate dining room, a greatly expanded menu that can be ordered in courses, and private dining.” Case in point, rather than serving just one ceviche on the menu, there is an entire section dedicated to ceviches, including the style you would find in Peru as well as Mexico. A lobster ceviche is served with fresh hearts of palm, amarillo (a traditional Peruvian pepper) and sour orange (a variety of orange that is grown in the Yucatan and Belize).
Fairbanks has enjoyed plenty of travel (including a position at the restaurant of Hotel du Palais, Napolean III’s palace in the south of France, and extensive travel in Spain and Mexico) to influence his cuisine. He likes to take traditional dishes and rework them to create something more refined, which you’ll experience at Cocina del Barrio. The achiote-marinated salmon steamed in a banana leaf, for example, was triggered by a trip to the Yucatan.
While certain ingredients must be imported from afar to stay true to the Latin flavors, Fairbanks says that he will be featuring some local ingredients in his daily specials and new menu items this spring.
5036 France Ave. S; 952.920.1860
To Do One Thing and Do It Well
Even if you are familiar with the culinary works of Renda and Fairbanks, Ann Kim is undoubtedly new to you, because prior to opening Pizzeria Lola, she had no restaurant experience at all. As incredible as that sounds, with her drive and passion, she’s already packed the house in the first couple months. A former student of Columbia University, Kim began her career as a professional actor, playing roles at the Guthrie, Children’s Theater and Mixed Blood, among others. She then held an administrative position at Hennepin Theater Trust as Director of Education, but says she’s more a physical, hands-on person and was itching to open a restaurant.
She chose pizza because, as she sees it, everyone loves it and wants to eat it two to three times per week. “It’s not like [with my experience] I was going to do a five-course, seasonal menu, so I decided to do one thing and do it right,” she says. Kim studied at the International School of Pizza in San Francisco, affiliated with the Scuola Italiana Pizzaiolo in Italy, under the tutelage of Tony Gemignani, a master instructor and world pizza champion.
Kim also explored pizzerias around the country, from Manhattan to New Haven to San Francisco to Seattle (Pepe’s, the famous coal-fired pizza of New Haven, is her all-time favorite). Rather than take a purist approach, she ultimately created a style of her own, one that she describes as a cross between Neapolitan, New Haven and New York’s thin crust pizza. She sources some ingredients, like her flour, from Italy, but she has also discovered some items closer to home that she prefers in flavor. Her prosciutto comes from Iowa-based La Quercia, and is featured on the “Iowan” pizza with ricotta, mozzarella, roasted garlic and arugula. For her sauce, she sources a tomato from California that she prefers to the traditional San Marzano variety.
A native of Korea (Kim moved to the U.S. with her family at the age of four), Kim may have a few Korean-inspired tricks up her sleeve this spring. She’s been experimenting with kalbi in the wood-fired oven, and she’s working on a kimchi sausage (she grew up learning to make kimchi with her grandmother) that she’d like to serve on a pizza with a ponzu reduction.
5557 Xerxes Ave. S; 612.424.8338
