Monello

Holy crap. Amazing. Stopped in for lunch on a weekend, the place was empty, and the menu abbreviated. We came for their pasta, and at lunch there were only two kinds to order. Sounds ominous, no?
Well, we ordered the bucatini and the gemelli, and oh my god, we were in mouth heaven. My gemelli was a flavor explosion, crab butter avocado mousse breadcrumbs lime zest, so many textures and flavors singing and melding. Awe inspiring. My friend’s amatriciana was similarly phenomenal. The waitress was incredibly nice to boot.
Can’t wait to go back and try their full dinner menu.

As the final dinner after a weeklong convention, we were all a bit done in and ready to go home. Monello was close to the hotel and had good reviews so we figured… why not? We were so pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the room, the incredible level of service and the willingness on the part of the chef to take very good care of our one vegan diner in our group. His dinner was spectacular and completely made to order. We all had various pastas and seafood items and we all were very happy with our plates. It was a terrific way to end our week in Minneapolis and we will certainly not wait for the final night to return there next time we are in town.

It was pretty dang tasty! I was hungry and wanted to try a bunch of stuff so I ordered five plates. This is not near as much food as it sounds like. Service was the best! My only critique is that they use too much of the green cream sauce to garnish the plates… I think it was on every plate I ordered. One trick pony.

Keep in mind, this was part of a wine tasting event, hosted by Monello.
With that said, this was one of the most fun tastings I’ve been to — pitting sommelier vs. sommelier. Matching their individual wine selections (with an emphasis on Italian wines), with each course of the meal — 4 courses, 8 wines in all. There were 8 official sommeliers and several that were just attending the event. If the food was any indication of the normal meals at Monello, it was an outstanding experience. In particular, the pasta dish (Bombolotti with beans, pancetta, pecorino romano, and chiles), was PHENOMENAL! Guess they’re known for their fresh pasta and this did not disappoint. Equally delicious was the dry aged beef ribeye with tomato, bone marrow, and basil. Perfectly medium rare. The arctic char crudo and grilled octopus were some of the better ones I’ve had. Wine pairings aside, the meal was outstanding. The wine pairings were all very good and there were definite favorites. Jason DeRusha (WCCO) was a great host (who knew he was so funny?), and the staff at Monello was top notch. Can’t wait to come here for a «normal» dinner! Put it on your short list!

The food took a hour and a half to make and when it came three of the four dishes were room temperature or colder. We assumed they kept messing up the risotto, but we are not sure. The only thing we were told is that «it’s a big piece of meat» referring to the porterhouse for two. For the price on the menu the least I expect is warm food and a honest answer. Wouldn’t waste my time here again.

Great Italian restaurant. Good crudo and pasta selection. We did our own tasting menu and got 5 items which were all pretty good. Funny thing is they seem to put crème fraîche everything though we didn’t mind that.

I really wanted to give higher ratings to this place. We’ve been wanting to try this place for awhile with two other couples. After some rigorous planning (basically really difficult to find time on the calendar), we were able to make it later in the evening last Wednesday. There is a lot right next to the restaurant, Monello is also connected to the Ivy Hotel. If it is later in the evening on the weekday, there is plenty of street parking if you want to try and find a spot for metered parking. There was a Twins game going on that evening so we ended up paying event pricing of $ 10, which isn’t bad still compared to some lots downtown.
After taking a look at the menu, we decided to all do the tasting menus offered. You do have to as a table elect that option. They have two options: Chef tasting menu for $ 75 and the pasta tasting menu for $ 65. You can add a wine flight to either for another $ 40. We were with fellow foodies so we knew to get an idea of the food, going with the tasting menu would be a good option. The girls elected the pasta tasting menu while the guys got the regular chef tasting menu and we would swap dishes.
Service was good, the servers explained the dishes as they came out very well. I must say it was a little disappointing that half the dishes were the same on both menus. Mind you, our fault for not paying attention to the all the dishes listed, but at the same time, if it is a couple, wouldn’t you guys realize that if we are both doing the tasting menu, we’d probably pick both to get a sampling of everything? I wish there was more variety to make the two menus completely different.
Here is what we had separated by menu:
Chef’s tasting menu
1^st course: Sea bass crudo with caviar and dill — husband loved it, I felt it needed a little bit more citrus for acidity. It was kind of bland
2^nd course: Grilled octopus with paprika and cucumber — one of my favorites, loved the flavor on the octopus, had a slight sweet and sour like flavor to the dish
3^rd course: Torchio with braised rabbit, crème fraîche and artichokes — one of my favorites, rabbit was really tender and flavorful, the combination of all the ingredients was really good
4^th course: dry aged ribeye with eggplant and artichokes — really liked this one too, beef was cooked well and flavors were really nice in the dish
Cheese Course: Gorgonzola dolce with pear and walnut — I love cheese and this was no exception! Love the combination of gorgonzola with the pear
Dessert: Strawberry semifreddo with pistachio financier, strawberry and black pepper — great way to end the night, slightly on the sweet side, but if you mix it with the other ingredients, it cuts the sweetness of the semifreddo and make sure you if you get the wine flight, the pairing for dessert enhanced the flavors for sure
Pasta tasting menu
1^st course: Gemelli with blue crab, avocado and bottarga — yum! big pasta lover and the flavors in this are divine! Love the blue crab
2^nd course: Fazzoletti with lobster, hazelnuts and saffron — one of the better pasta courses of the night, lobster was cooked really well and liked the texture the hazelnuts added to the dish
3^rd course: Torchio with braised rabbit, crème fraîche and artichokes — this was the first duplicate dish on the regular chef’s tasting menu. Overall good dish
4^th course: Agnolotti with sweet sausage, beets and goat cheese — good flavors, love beets and liked the presentation of the dish
Cheese and Dessert were the same as I described above for the chef’s tasting menu.
I will say, I was a little disappointed in the wine flight, I don’t think I remember having such a small pour, maybe it was just the glasses? I don’t know, overall the food is good, however, if you compare price and portions, I have been to other similar restaurants with food that is as good or better with better pricing.
Not sure I would come back here for the amount we paid in the end for three couples.

The actual food is 4-​star for this price point. Quite good. The chef there has great plating creativity but is still finding his way getting it done to that next level. I could go into details, but there are other more pressing issues that are hindering the success of this place.
The service is 4-​star. Nice, friendly, and fairly knowledgeable about what they have and why it’s great. A little disorganized, but not a problem. Don’t expect them to handle a complex problem, group or difficult logistics.
The wine is 1 or 2-​star. This really needs to get fixed and is a deal breaker for me. This is what really takes my score down here and was a big disappointment. Two bottles I asked for — neither are in stock. My server makes a suggestion based upon what I was after and completely gets it wrong. Her knowledge was worse than shallow, she was just plan incorrect. Throw the entire wine list out, start over, get a captain or sommelier that can reboot things.
The cocktails are 4 – 5 star. Very good. Thankfully we were able to continue drinking great cocktails after striking out on the wine.
The ambiance is great here. 5-​star. Modern, yet classic. well appointed, quality and pleasant.
So if you want great cocktails with some delicious appetizers and don’t expect to have wine with your meal, Monello’s is worth checking out.

This is a late post as I completely forgot to write a review after our wonderful meal during restaurant week on Feb 25^th.
Our party of 8 was seated at a nice table in front of the window. We felt like we were sitting at someone’s formal dining table at home. Our server was a bit strange as she waited a while each time she came to say something and when she did, we could barely hear her. Not because it was loud but because she had a super quiet voice. Not ideal for a party of 8…
The dinner was already a set menu, so we started off with the Sea Bass crudo with caviar and crème fraîche. Fish was very fresh and went down smoothly. I don’t care for caviar but it was such a small amount that I went for it! Delicious! We were anxious to see how the other courses will come out.
2^nd course was pasta with braised rabbit & artichokes and with side of crème fraîche again. Good portion. Pasta was fresh, rabbit meat was very tasty and everything eaten all together in one bite was delightful — a light tasting pasta, not too heavy. But we are hoping the next course would be the same portion.
3^rd course was a grilled ribeye over something I don’t remember, maybe polenta? WOW! Ribeye is my favorite cut of beef and this was A-​mazing. It was super tender and full of flavor. After eating that, everyone was wanting more of it!!!
4^th course was dessert — Pumpkin Crème brûlée with cubes of spiced molasses cake, sliced apples and ginger. It was very good — light and a perfect amount for a dose of something sweet but not too sweet.
The ladies and I personally thought it was enough food as all the courses were spread out perfectly timed but a few of the guys could have eaten more. The service was good (minus how quiet and somewhat awkward she was) as far as bringing out the food in time. Each course was very well presented on the plate which doesn’t hurt either.
After being in Italy for our honeymoon back in Sept, I would say this is a GREAT Italian restaurant for those looking for QUALITY food. My husband and I will definitely be coming back to try out the other tasting menus, especially the other crudos and pastas!

This place is really about a 3 ½ I had to give it a 3 for several reasons which will be listed below. I booked dinner for 6, about a month in advance. We had all planned on doing the tasting menu so we were settled in for a long meal. When we arrived they seated us at a high top in the bar, which was very odd. So we requested another table, there’s no way we were going to sit at a high top for 3 hours, also one of the women in our party was pregnant. At first they told us they couldn’t move us but then moved us into a corner, it wasn’t ideal but really appreciated them making the effort.
We ordered the chef’s tasting menu with wine pairings for the table. The service was good in the beginning but continued to slow. Our second course took forever and there was no courtesy warning given to us which was a bit annoying. I was say the first two courses were good but not great, the next 3 were wonderful and the wine pairings were amazing. The room is quite small but other than that it’s good with a few improvements I feel like they could be great!!!

Restaurant week. Awesome tasting menu. Like others have wrote, the portions may be smaller but the thought and detail that goes behind each dish is amazing. For example, one of the items had Swiss chard in it and they also included incredibly small slivers of the purple stem (think tooth pick) for color, texture and taste.
Each plate we had was prepared and presented this way.
My date also had a wine pairing a with each plate and they did half pours which is great as enjoying oneself like this on a Monday night does need to be kept in check.
My favorite plate though was was the rabbit, noodles, crème fraîche and artichoke. It reminded me of something German and was so rich, yet light and good perfect for a cooler evening. Our server said it was a regular menu item and I definitely will keep this in mind for the future.

Four stars for delicious food, but the tasting menu portions are so small that they left us hungry. We went for restaurant week, and the price was good, but really we needed a bit more food at each course, or more courses. We have done tastings all over, from The French Laundry to countless places in NYC and I have never left a restaurant thinking I want to go home and have a snack. I ordered a wine paring, and was served excellent choices, but it would have been helpful to know the price was nearly an extra $ 30 for three wine half pours. The waitress was good and overall staff seemed very helpful. I would go back, but avoid the tasting menu.

My boyfriend took me here for dinner this past weekend, for Valentine’s Day. Italian is our favorite and of course we thought this restaurant would be romantic for a Valentine’s date night out. Before we went, my boyfriend showed me pics of some of the plates served at Monello, to make sure that I would be interested in dining there. All the review photos looked pretty yummy, some semi small in portion size but not even CLOSE to the minuscule portions we received from their Valentine’s menu. The prices were about $ 15 more than the 5 course to get the 9, so my boyfriend decided for the small difference that we would both get the 9 course. We have dined at restaurants before that serve a menu of multiple courses. Never have we experienced the wait time that we experienced at Monello. Not only did we wait about 15 minutes or more between each plate but it was served by a new person just about every time. not a big deal but two of which, didn’t even tell us the plate we were receiving. We didn’t have the menu any longer either, so we were stuck guessing. The food tasted okay but nothing really to write home about. I expected the Tortellini to be the largest dish as it is pasta and was in the middle of the courses. They gave us 3 pieces of Tortellini! 3 pieces! I couldn’t believe it. What a joke! My boyfriend at that point began to worry he would leave hungry because so far we had only been receiving 1 bite size per plate portions. «Last but most certainly not least» our waitress tells us when serving us the final course, which was a chocolate dessert. It was the worst of the dishes, it tasted like cardboard. The dessert before was a coconut sorbet and tapioca, which was not as bad, just incredibly small like the rest of the «meal». If I were Monello, I would have just stuck with that one.
My poor boyfriend. He only wanted to bring me, his S. O, out to a good diner. He ends up getting overly charged for sub par food and average service. Then to add insult to injury, after leaving dinner hungry, all he wanted was a stiff drink to help swallow the over $ 200 dinner bill. So we head to the bar downstairs and was tracked down by one of the servers, who was unhappy with gratuity! The waiter slaps the bill down on the table with attitude, which revealed the overall bill to me and he proceeds to tell my boyfriend that he did not sign. Which I saw him do and leave it on the table for the waiter. Even if he hadn’t, it had already posted processed on my boyfriends phone. He gets notifications from his card and received one shortly after we got seated downstairs. My boyfriend was pissed because like a gentleman, he prefers me not to see the dinner bill. It was highly unprofessional and I was pretty shocked.
By the looks of the other reviews, this place seems to be robbing people. Unilocal is a hit or miss at times and sometimes it comes down to personal preference in food. In this case, it is hard for me to say what the average day is like there, as it was a special menu for Valentine’s Day but I can say that both quality AND quantity was lacking in my experience. I am happy to be able to share this, hopefully it may prevent someone else from having the same experience. It’s really sad to get a bill that amount, know it was no where near worth it and there isn’t much you can do. Lesson learned, I would absolutely recommend choosing a different restaurant to get your money and mouths worth.

Where do I start…
When reading all the reviews, i decided to go here on Valentine’s day. My girlfriend and I where expecting a very warm, romantic Italian feeling. We received the complete opposite.
For beginners, they’re regular menu has most dishes starting at around 25 dollars. So i was expecting to have a bill around 70 – 80 $ but on this night, we were only offered 2 menus to choose from, a 5 course meal for 75 $, and a 9 course meal for around 90 $ Now at this point I cant exactly walkout saying «sorry hun, I cant afford this place» can i? The price would be fair if i was actually getting a full 9 course meal (which i was expecting), but instead, each course was approximately 1 – 2 bite sized portions! Not to mention the 25 minute wait it took to get each course!
Secondly, each course was brought out by a different waiter/​waitress. My girlfriend decided to get a glass of champagne to go with the 5^th course, she ended up receiving the glass after course 4, and waited over 25 minutes to get the 5^th course! by this time her champagne had lost its bubbles and was very dull. The last «dessert» was a stale bite sized brownie wich was topped lemon flavored whip cream, peanut butter rice crispys and dehydrated strawbery chunks? And if that leaves you guessing? It tasted awful.
Thirdly, when i finally did receive my 236 $ bill, one of the wait staff asked why i didnt tip well in front of my girlfriend revealing to her how much was spent!!! Did I mention our whole meal took over 3 hours to complete and we still left hungry!
To fellow guys out there taking your significant others out on a date, choose another place, for example go to «Rinata» for romantic Italian… your date, wallet, and stomach will thank you.

My fiancée and I went to Morello for a Valentine’s day dinner. Due to the holiday (we actually went the night before, on Saturday night), the restaurant was offering only a tasting menu, with either a 5-​course or 8-​course version. We ordered the 5-​course, with wine flights, but the server inadvertently started the 8-​course one. We ended up getting 7 courses but paid only for the 5.
The good: The space itself is comfortable and attractive, and the service was pleasant. I enjoyed the bread.
The bad: The food was average, and had no obvious signs of being Italian. It was neither rustic nor hearty. Despite our having 7 courses, we left hungry. Each course was really just a mouthful, though to be fair the pasta course and beef course were a bit larger (call them 2 – 3 bites each). In any case the entire meal ate like a largish appetizer. The wine flights were OK but I didn’t find them particularly complimentary with the food. The pours were very light, so in effect we ended up with about 2.5 glasses of wine over the course of a 3-​hour dinner. Also, my fiancée is allergic to lobster, which was the star of one of the courses. We told the server this but rather than replacing it with a substitute ingredient (say, crab or shrimp), it was simply omitted from that course, leaving a dull combination of burrata, melon and prosciutto.
All of this would be OK, I guess, but for the cost. Once tax and tip were factored in, this was a $ 325 meal. To me that feels abusive for a very light meal of very average food. I guess that is the cost of going to a restaurant at a posh hotel, but I left feeling burned.
Because I have never had the opportunity to order off the menu, I can’t comment on what that experience has to offer.

The day of our meal, we all discovered Chris must now be keeping his calendar in Eastern Time, because he ended up at our 7pm reservation at 6pm. Luckily, I was nearby and we tried out Monello’s bar while Matt and Brad made their way over. Our drinks we both really great. I had some sort of herbal rum & coke (with homemade cola!) and Chris, as is tradition, ordered «the girliest drink on the menu.» Our bartender also excitedly told us about the bar downstairs, Constantine. When the bartender who just served you delicious cocktails is basically telling you that you should be drinking at a different bar, you have to investigate. More on Constantine later.
Once we got seated, we decided we were going all in on pasta. A bold move at an Italian restaurant, I know. Monello also had an impressive menu of crudos, and by «impressive» I mostly mean just «long» because I didn’t know what a crudo was and was surprised when I found out how many there were. Basically when you think of a crudo, imagine those scenes where some unsuspecting dope gets really overeager when the serving platter comes, only to see a few tiny bites of artfully arranged raw ingredients underneath when the cover is removed. That being said, we ordered two of them, because we gotta earn that Fancy in our name. We went safe (yellow tail) and not so much (sea urchin and bone marrow). The yellow tail was really refreshing. The sea urchin and bone marrow was confusing, as one might expect. I couldn’t tell if I liked it because my mouth didn’t know what it was eating, or because it was actually good. My other companions were more confident about their satisfaction. They must eat more sea urchin at home.
The octopus was unfortunately disappointing. It got scorched a little too much on the grill, so it lost a lot of flavor. You never want to use the word «gritty» to describe food. Save that word for comic book movie reboots only, please. The other appetizer was a vegetable tart, which was actually very similar to the tart we had at Heyday, just without the liver (i.e. it was way better). The first pasta was Monello’s take on a plain spaghetti, which sounds boring, but it was actually really good. The tomato sauce was flavorful and spicy, and then used a bizarre noodle I am dubbing funnoodlecini, for its resemblance to everyone’s favorite pool floatie.
The next round was a triple threat of pastas, all of which were pretty spectacular (albeit lacking in funnoodlecini). The rabbit and artichoke pasta was rich and flavorful. The roasted beet, goat cheese, and sausage dish had a lot of fun textures. The star was probably the mozzarella and pesto tortellini. It was oddly refreshing, something I didn’t know tortellini could accomplish. It was probably the broth with the tortellini, which was made with camomile tea. How they made that work is beyond me. Someone watching us eat would have been pretty entertained seeing each of us try to get as much broth as possible with a fork. It was that mind-​bendingly good.
After that was… more pasta. We were still hungry (the small plates, while reasonably priced, are indeed small) and went with the lamb ragout and the blue crab and avocado pasta. The former seemed like a safe bet, and it was actually pretty bland (the unanimous least favorite of the pastas). The blue crab pasta, on the other hand, was fantastic, probably my favorite of the night. Avocado in pasta was another pretty difficult concept to fathom, but all the citrus flavors, seafood, and textures meshed super well together. Having that crazy combo way outshine the traditional marriage of lamb, eggplant, and mint made me like the one and dislike the other all the more. We finished our meal with a scoop of gelato each, which was a good way to say arrivederci to the meal. Caramelized banana gelato? Hellz yeah.
At one point the general manager, summoned by Matt’s social media-​ing, stopped by to chat with us, which is becoming one of my favorite parts of our meals. We talked about some of our favorites (Spoon & Stable, Brewer’s Table, Revival) and then she asked about Heyday. We mentioned that the chef was clearly talented, but the service was a little slow and awkward. Well we mos def jinxed ourselves because from that point on especially, the service at Monello was… a little slow and awkward. It seemed like meals there are deliberately paced slowly, which I appreciate to certain extent when I’m having a nice meal, but the tempo seemed a hair off. A meal pushing three hours in a non-​crowded restaurant is a bit strange. That being said, other than the couple misfires, Monello is certainly a worthy champion in bringing Italian food to Minneapolis. They also made the meal extra memorable as they printed a custom menu for us as a keepsake, listing out the exact items we ordered, wine and all (very useful for food bloggers that fall behind and need something to refer to a month later).

Came here for dinner with another couple who had been a few times previously. Dishes are creative and sound good. I enjoyed the grilled octopus and panzanella salad was fine. I guess the presentation and maybe even recipe for panzanella salad changed since they first opened. It apparently used to be a work of art on a plate, but now looked just like your usual salad on a plate. The couple I was with was disappointed, but it still tasted good.
The Bucatini All ‘Anatriciana was spicy! It was good, but I was the only one at the table who could enjoy it.
Torchio with braised rabbit was good as well
The overall ambiance and décor is great too.
I think maybe need to come back again and try a few more things out.

What incrediable evening of dining. Menello will call all your taste buds to attention. Fine dining, with extremely great attentiveness to service. Refreshing.
When I say each dish summoned your tastes buds to attention. The endive salad had a little surprise, smoked grapes. Each dish was presented wonderful, with flavor abounding. Our main courses swordfish and beef tenderloin, done with creativity that made one slow down and savor each bite.
Monello’ is sufisticated, warm and modern. It might be the finest dining in Minneapolis. .our compliments to the chef.

Had dinner at Monello followed by cocktails downstairs at Constantine. All was excellent. Started with cocktails which were well executed. We shared all the plates, beginning with the Langoustine and Sea Bass — both were great but preferred the sea bass. Then shares the beet and mozzarella salad — again, very good. The server recommended wine for our shared pastas — a red from Austria that paired very well. We shared the small portion sizes of the Bucatini and rabbit. Both excellent! The bucatini had excellent flavor. Our server was very good but she talked really quickly and her voice «ran off» at the end of sentences which made it challenging to understand her. Hope that improves with experience. The cocktails downstairs were amazing! Jesse at the bar was phenomenal. I will make this place a regular stop.

This was a very good experience considering they have only been open 2 months. I really wanted to try Tim McKee’s new venture, and Morello is a good lift and land of his La Belle Vie art with an Italian focus. The risotto is incredible, as was the beet salad and the truffle/​mozz stuffed pasta. The wine list is very strong, some good values and some splurges. For dessert — their version of the tiramisu is delicious, and the house made limoncello is top notch.
The service was spot on — and incredibly considerate. We had tickets to Anthony Bourdain that evening and I had commented to the server that we weren’t sure if there was an opening act or not if we needed to be out of there at a specific time. While we were thinking about it, she called the State Theater for us and let us know there was no opening act and the food would come out accordingly so we could be on time. THAT is service.
If there is anything to critique it is that it feels like a hotel restaurant — the washrooms are out to the lobby and downstairs, but now I’m probably being picky. The plates are on the smaller side but well presented — some will likely say that they had to go out to dinner after dinner. I hope it becomes the hot table like some of the other new restaurants that have opened recently.
If you have time — check out super swanky Constantine right downstairs. Also — there is free valet parking — a plus.