Restaurants
Best Restaurant for Lunch
Next up in the series of polls for the <PDD Awards Index>PDD Awards, we will determine the best lunch restaurant in the Duluth area. We’re taking nominations in the comments to this post, then a poll will follow, as usual.
For some of you, the ideal lunch is the place that kicks out the fastest, cheapest grub. Others might prefer a slow-pace escape from the daily grind. Either notion is fine, but the majority vote will decide what is best.
Once again, we define our territory: Any restaurant in Duluth or 10 miles of its border is eligible. So establishments in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors, Cloquet and farther away municipalities are out of bounds.
Ugly Stick Saloon
A splash of Coyote Ugly is in the city of Superior, just minutes off of the Bong Bridge on Belknap Street, in the former dining area of the Shack.
(more…)
Perfect Restaurant: New Scenic Café
You have to leave Duluth to get to its best restaurant. The New Scenic Café is located about three miles beyond the city’s northeastern border, in Duluth Township — roughly a 20-minute drive from the center of the Zenith City. It’s a drive Duluthians and tourists alike have been happy to take repeatedly during the 14 years since chef Scott Graden and his aunt Rita Bergstedt opened their contemporary American restaurant.
Above: New Scenic Owner Scott Graden
The location on the scenic North Shore Drive is a big part of the allure, but what’s so new about this 14-year-old café? The menu, that’s what. It’s always new, changing with the seasons. Today one might try the seared duck breast or ratatouille lasagna, while six months ago the lamb meatloaf was the temptation of the moment.
Sure, it’s the kind of place ham-and-eggers will make fun of, scoffing at the prices and snickering at the notion of an “heirloom” tomato, but it’s hard to be the best restaurant in the area without a hint of snootiness. At least it’s a North Shore brand of foodie snootiness, where your flannel shirt and/or socks with sandals will fit in just fine.
Props must go out to the runners up in this poll, because the voting was close. New Scenic edged out Zeitgeist Arts Café by two percentage points, and Zeitgeist edged out Duluth Grill by three percentage points. A bit behind the top three, but still pulling nearly 15 percent of the vote, was Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar.
Best Twin Ports Dining Deal Rooms
Can the PDD faithful help me find some private dining “deal room” options in the Twin Ports?
I’m tapped out on my short list of places to broker deals with customers and vendors. I often need to have a quiet area for two to six people to conduct business over a working lunch.
Some deals are very casual and low key, some not as much. Some are software demos and require a screen and projector — these are not very high-brow affairs, so …
Serve me up some critiques on food, atmosphere, memorable experience and privacy please.
Best Duluth Restaurant Poll
In a previous poll, PDD readers made it clear there are four restaurants in the Duluth area worthy of consideration for the distinction of “Best Restaurant.” They are: Duluth Grill, Lake Avenue Restaurant and Bar, New Scenic Café and Zeitgeist Arts Café. So now it’s time to pick a winner.
[poll id=”45″]
This poll is now closed. The results were:
New Scenic Café — 30.7 percent
Zeitgeist Arts Café — 28.7 percent
Duluth Grill — 25.7 percent
Lake Avenue Restaurant — 14.9 percent
PDD’s Best Restaurant Poll
Through the highly scientific method of asking people what they think, we developed a list of 38 nominees for Best Restaurant in the Duluth area. This poll whittles the list down to manageable list of finalists.
[poll id=”44″]
This poll is now closed. The four top restaurants in alphabetical order, are:
Duluth Grill
Lake Avenue Restaurant and Bar
New Scenic Café
Zeitgeist Arts Café
What is the best restaurant in the Duluth area? We’re working our way up to a poll.
Next in PDD’s series of restaurant awards is probably the one we should have started with — the grand champion: the best restaurant of them all. We’ll begin this process by taking nominations in the comments to this post.
The criteria is somewhat up to you. In our previous polls there were a limited number of restaurants that could be considered “new” or “breakfast” restaurants, but virtually any restaurant in the territory is eligible to be considered “best.” And whatever makes it “best” is certainly subjective.
We expect people will lean toward fancier operations and consider money no object on this one, but if you truly feel the best restaurant in town is a cheap pancake house or burger joint, we’ll respect that. However, if you nominate a fast-food chain we’ll tell you right now it won’t be on the ballot. So here it is right up front we so can all get a good laugh: “I nominate the West Duluth KFC.” Oh, ha ha ha. Very funny.
Also, we know some of you snobs are dying to rant about how Duluth doesn’t really have any good restaurants because your advanced taste buds can barely survive outside of New York or Marrakech. Shut up.
And, of course, we must define our territory: Any restaurant in Duluth or 10 miles of its border is eligible. So establishments in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors and Cloquet are out of bounds.
With all that out of the way, let’s begin. Once the nomination list reaches a satisfactory conclusion, a poll will be posted.
Mean Beans Espresso & Creams
I just moved into the Chester Area and have noticed that Mean Beans hasn’t been open for the past couple of days. Does anyone know if they have closed the doors for good?
RJ’s Coffee Den in West Duluth
RJ’s Coffee Den reopened at a new location, 330 N. 57th Ave. W., just shy of a month ago. The Den was formerly located in Proctor, and closed in October 2011. The new owner, Renea Johnson, has hopes to keep the business alive having remodeled the former Erbert & Gerbert’s sandwich shop next to the Kom-on-Inn Bar.
(more…)
Shorty’s Pizza & Smoked Meat
A new restaurant on Tower Avenue in Superior has been generating some new energy along a strip that is struggling through major road reconstruction.
(more…)
Perfect New Restaurant: Pak’s Green Corner
West Duluth had never seen the likes of schnitzel or poutine, much less a pad thai burrito, until Pak Williams converted the former China Station restaurant into Pak’s Green Corner in summer 2012. The friendly and funky little Asian-fusion joint — located across the avenue from a long-shuttered auto lube — was the clear-cut winner of Perfect Duluth Day’s Best New Restaurant poll.
Above: Pak Williams with the fancy Perfect New Restaurant plaque, flanked by cook Hieng Wilaiphan (left) and waitress Vicki Boynton (right).
Pak’s got off to a rocky start following its opening day, when word of the new restaurant leaked out and a positive recommendation on PDD led to a full-house showing up for lunch on day two. With one server out sick and no one around with a strong command of how the cash register or credit-card machine worked, it was a rough day to say the least.
Now, with a full year of working out the kinks behind it, Pak’s Green Corner can claim the title of Duluth’s Perfect New Restaurant, having captured 51.9 percent of the vote. Honorable mentions go out to Tycoons Alehouse and Eatery (second place, 32.5 percent) and 7 West Tap House (third place, 15.6 percent).
City’s 58th Street Diner in South Superior
City’s 58th Street Diner is bringing the 1950s back to South Superior. With its classic malt-shop feel and reasonable prices, it’s like taking a step back in time. (more…)
Poll: Best New Restaurant in Duluth
A previous poll on PDD narrowed the choices from a baker’s dozen down to the three best new restaurants in the Duluth area — Pak’s Green Corner, 7 West Tap House and Tycoons Alehouse. Now it’s time to determine the champion, so we ask …
[poll id=”42″]
This poll is now closed. The results were …
Pak’s Green Corner – 51.9 percent
Tycoons Alehouse and Eatery – 32.5 percent
7 West Tap House – 15.6 percent
You must be logged in to your Perfect Duluth Day blogging account to vote. If you need to create an account, click here. You can register and login simply with Facebook by clicking here. If you need help figuring it out, click here.
Poll: Best New Restaurant
After some careful analysis, we developed a list of nominees for Best New Restaurant in the Duluth area. Now we ask you to pick your favorite.
[poll id=”41″]
This poll is now closed. The three top finishers, in alphabetical order, were:
Pak’s Green Corner
7 West Tap House
Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery
Pirate Pizza
There’s a new covert pizza alternative operating out of a secret location on Goat Hill here in Duluth. Pirate Pizza delivers home made pizza from a home made oven with largely local ingredients to your door via a motorbike that once, according to the pirates, “used to run contraband around the Gaza strip.”
Best New Restaurant Nominees
Two weeks ago, we announced Duluth Grill won our poll for Perfect Breakfast Restaurant. Now we’re wondering which restaurant among the newbies you like best.
Before we open the voting, of course, we have to establish a list of nominees. What qualifies as a new restaurant? Well, these are all fairly new:
Shorty’s Pizza and Smoked Meat (Superior; Aug. 2013)
Citys 58th Street Diner (Superior; June 2013)
Canal Park Brewing Co. (Nov. 2012)
7 West Tap House (Oct. 2012)
LeeAnn Chin (Oct. 2012)
Noodles & Company (Sept. 2012)
Pak’s Green Corner (Aug. 2012)
Grizzly’s Wood-fired Grill (Canal Park location; May 2012)
Giant Panda (Feb. 2012)
Oriental House II (Jan. 2012)
Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery (Dec. 2011)
Azteca’s Mexican Grill (Dec. 2011)
Vitta Pizza (June 2011)
What territory are we talking about? Anything in Duluth or 10 miles of its border — so new restaurants in Superior, Hermantown, Proctor and the various bordering townships all qualify; Two Harbors and Cloquet are out of bounds.
So, the only question we’re really asking here: Are there any good nominees we didn’t think to include in the list above?
Perfect Breakfast Restaurant: Duluth Grill
What’s not to like about Duluth Grill? It’s a truck-stop style diner in the friendly West End neighborhood that buys from local farmers and grows some of its vegetables around its parking lot in raised-bed gardens. Owner Tom Hanson and his family have plans to build an urban orchard on the lot as well, with plum trees, black-cap raspberries, lingonberries, choke cherries and other deliciousness. They even get their honey from hives on the roof of the building. Duluth Grill is much more than a simple breakfast joint, but readers of Perfect Duluth Day strongly agreed in a recent poll that it is indeed the best breakfast restaurant in the area.
Is it the Scotch eggs? The breakfast stir fry? The curried polenta skillet? The smoked salmon omelet? The caramel apple French toast? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It’s all that and more.
(more…)
That pizza joint on the hill
Oh, my 40-year-old brain! I have been sitting in the same chair all day trying to remember the name of the pizza place that was up on the hill, I think, across from Shakey’s. It had a weird pizza joint / olde tyme candy shoppe / barbershop quartet theme. The logo was a guy with a handlebar mustache wearing a striped red shirt. My brother remembers enormous jaw breakers. Extra credit to anyone who can name the owners. They went to Holy Rosary.
Please help. I may never sleep again.
Chef Yee’s serving it up at Foster’s
Life just got even better on the hill — I discovered Chef Yee’s is serving up his fare Wednesdays and Thursdays at Foster’s on Arrowhead Road. I ate there tonight for the first time. It was delicious, fresh and quick — ah, just like we remembered! Paired well with a Great Lakes Brewing Co. Edmund Fitzgerald tap! Even my hubby who isn’t a Chinese food fan gave it rave reviews. We’ll be back!
Poll: Best Breakfast Restaurant
Through a recent poll about breakfast joints we have a disputable, yet official list of the five favorite places to seek ante-meridiem nourishment in the Duluth area. Now it’s time to determine which is number one, so again we ask the all-important question …
[poll id=”40″]
This poll is now closed. The results were …
Duluth Grill — 39.2 percent
Pizza Lucé — 21.6 percent
Uncle Loui’s — 17.5 percent
At Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Café — 15.4 percent
The Kitchen — 6.2 percent
Poll: Best Breakfast in the Duluth Area
A recent post on PDD asked about the “best breakfast in town.” Having gleaned the nominees from that post — and eliminated one for being too far outside Duluth — we might as well make it official and have a poll asking the all-important question …
[poll id=”39″]
This poll is now closed.
Because there were a dozen options in this poll, we considered it the first round of voting. So instead of posting the full results, we reveal the top-five breakfast restaurants, which advance to a new poll to determine the official champion.
The top-five breakfast restaurants, in alphabetical order, are:
At Sara’s Table / Chester Creek Café
Duluth Grill
The Kitchen
Pizza Lucé
Uncle Loui’s
Best breakfast in town?
Where does everyone think the best breakfast is in town?
Best Fish Fry
We are recent transplants and have visitors coming. They’ve requested to go out for fish fry … perch from the lake. Anybody know of a good place in Duluth?
Jazzy Tunes and Good Eats
One of the most awesome aspects of hanging out at the local comic shop are the quirky people who hang out there. I don’t mean the Sheldon Coopers — I mean the creators of Apocalypse City and Night of the Smurfing Dead. I mean the owner of Psher Meats, who also sidelines as a fiction writer. I mean Sir Jeff, the newest light in the kitchen at Zeitgeist, and Greg, who makes the DNT’s new creative services run like clockwork. Duluth is filled with more talented people than it has outlets for that talent.
So it didn’t surprise me that a talented light-jazz musician stopped by the shop and told us about his show tonight at Valentini’s.
(more…)
Great Lake Superior fish and chips found!
I went up the north shore looking for a little north woods fun and dinner and found a little bar/restaurant/motel just south of Two Harbors called Earthwood that has a fantastic fish and chips dinner made with lake herring caught by local fishermen and beer battered fries. Two local beers (Bent Paddle and Castle Danger) on tap and huge deck made this trip a memorable experience. Has anyone else stumbled onto any hole in the wall fish and chips shops? The Earthwood can’t be the one and only!