First look: La Mesa blesses Bryn Mawr with a true neighborhood bistro (Sarah Chandler, City Pages; November 14, 2018)
Might the little neighborhood bistro be to dining what the little black dress is to fashion?
Just as you can dress up or dress down with this fashion staple, such a bistro offers a gathering place that’s a lively cafe by day and doubles as a charming dinner spot by night. It’s a place where locals flock to break up or make up, to celebrate or commiserate, to enjoy a solo burger and a beer or to book a birthday dinner for eight. Like the proverbial black dress, a great bistro should be classy, but not fussy––or stuffy. Rather than aiming for “upscale”––polite code for throwing a lot of money at a place––it exudes a spirited elegance that defies a price tag.
Oh, and as price tags go? It shouldn’t be outrageously expensive.
When you discover a little bistro that’s not in your neighborhood, you might even find yourself fantasizing about moving to that neighborhood. Much as I did on a recent evening, as I stumbled out of the Latin-inspired La Mesa in Minneapolis' Bryn Mawr in a cioppino-induced haze.
Chef Juan Yunga hails from Cuenca, Ecuador, a colonial city high in the Andes whose historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The menu is peppered with spices and ingredients native to this region, from aji (a gentle hot sauce) and mote (Andean corn) tamarillo (red tree tomatoes). He met his wife and business partner, Ann Carlson-Yunga, two decades ago at the Nicollet Island Inn.
“We wanted to open a great neighborhood restaurant with pan-South American food,” says Carlson-Yunga, “where guests can experience some of Ecuador’s magical flavors.”
“And their incredible hospitality,” she adds with a smile. “El cariño.” (This loosely translates to warmth and affection.)
On a recent Sunday, I sipped a white sangria that, according to chef Yunga, was the unofficial tipple of choice on the restaurant’s inviting patio this past summer. Its sweetness comes from fresh peaches and mangos they roast in their wood-burning oven, lending a decidedly South American twist to the classic Spanish drink. (The oven, a centerpiece of the bar area, also churns out appealing-looking pizzas, including a roasted corn special with cotija, roasted garlic, and cilantro.)
I was fairly thrilled at my first foray into llapingachos, a classic Ecuadorian preparation of potato cakes stuffed with cheese. I’ve enjoyed many a potato cake, from Swiss rösti to Czech bramboracky to Jewish latkes, and am generally a fan. Yet Yunga’s version––oozing with queso fresco, spiked with aji, studded with those luscious tamarillos––transcends mere comfort food and ventures into the borderlands of the sublime.
Cioppino is a dish that, done well, announces itself on the way to the table by wafting a trailof fragrant steam through the air. Such was the case with the heady bowl my server gentlyset down: mussels, jumbo shrimp, gorgeous scallops, and mahi-mahi swimming in a richbroth of tomato and fresh basil with a gentle kick of spice.
Everything’s made from scratch here, which means the flan––a dessert that can easily turn alarmingly gelatinous––is a creamy thing of beauty made without shortcuts: cream rather than condensed milk, delicately scented with fresh orange.
The bar area offers cozy seating for couples and solo diners: Choose between a long, black bar offering a view of the wood-burning oven, or a row of little candlelit tables flanking the industrial-chic glass and aluminum garage doors. Beyond, the high-ceilinged dining room amps up the drama with dark wood, dramatic lighting, and eye-popping giant canvases painted by accomplished local artist Thor Eric Paul.
It’s friendly, cozy, and also a little bit sexy. And isn’t that exactly the kind of elusive magic a great neighborhood bistro can summon?
La Mesa Opens with Bryn Mawr Neighborhood Roots (Southwest Journal; April 18, 2018)
Juan Yunga and Ann Carlson-Yunga spent two years searching all over Minneapolis for a spot to house their restaurant, and they were thrilled to land a couple of blocks from their front door in Bryn Mawr.
Now they’re serving mahi mahi tacos and wood-fired pizzas to their neighbors at 230 Cedar Lake Rd. S., the former Sparks restaurant, and their nine-year-old daughter is quickly planning a career in waitressing.
“We’ve seen a lot of familiar faces,” Carlson-Yunga said. “It’s a nice comfortable spot for people to go and hang out.”
The couple met 19 years ago while cooking at the Nicollet Island Inn. Carlson-Yunga is a Project Manager at TEA2 Architects, where her design for a Lynnhurst garage, woodshop and potting shed earned a BLEND Award last year.
The restaurant showcases her photographs of plants like the tree tomato (tamarillo) that forms the base for the gently spiced Andean condiment aji, which shows up throughout the menu in dishes like the shrimp or chicken skewers.
“[The restaurant] celebrates all the wonderful things we love about Ecuador,” she said.
Yunga-Chicaiza grew up in Cuenca, a temperate city set in the Andes Mountains where hillside residents keep plots of land to grow corn and other vegetables. The city inspires some of the restaurant’s warm and hearty dishes, including the wood oven-roasted chicken served with roasted potatoes, tomato-onion salad and Cholula aioli.
The couple chose a wine list with quality and reasonable pricing in mind. They also serve Andean flower tea, traditionally made with amaranth flowers, lime and sugar; and Fioravanti, an Ecuadorian strawberry soda that’s said to be one of the world’s first commercial sodas.
Looking ahead to patio season, the restaurant is planning lush planters with the help of the Bryn Mawr Garden Group.
La Mesa is open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and dinner starting at 5 p.m.
Table Talk: Sparks closes in Bryn Mawr neighborhood; new restaurant with Ecuadorian fare moving in (StarTribune; January 22, 2018)
After nearly six years of feeding the Bryn Mawr neighborhood, Sparks (230 S. Cedar Lake Road, Mpls.) quietly closed its doors last week.
But the cozy space won’t stay dark for long. Spouses Juan Yunga and Ann Carlson-Yunga are working hard to open La Mesa by Feb. 1.
“We’re opening a neighborhood bistro with Latin roots,” said Carlson-Yunga. “Our hope is to be a really great neighborhood spot that also servesdishes not just from Ecuador but across South America, to highlight the beauty and culture of that cuisine.”
The plan is to retain the kitchen’s sole cooking device, a wood-burning oven.
“At first we thought, ‘That’s going to be a challenge, because it’s a new piece of equipment to master,’” said Carlson-Yunga. “But it’s such a neat, almost artistic form of cooking, and once you develop a skill for it, it’s a wonderful piece of equipment.”
Menus haven’t been entirely fixed, but pizza, a popular Sparks staple, will definitely make the cut.
“We’ll have Ecuadorian items as well,” said Carlson-Yunga. “We’re still working out those details, because we have to gauge what works best with the oven.”
Along with beer and wine, one for-sure beverage will be horchata lojana.
“It’s not the cinnamon milk-based beverage from Mexico,” said Carlson-Yunga. “It’s a wonderful floral tea that’s served in the Andes. You go to the market, you buy a bouquet of flowers, and you take a bit of each of the flowers and make this herbal tea, with lime and sugar. It’s bright red – that’s from the amaranth flowers – and it’s so refreshing, and the process of making it is so beautiful.”
The couple lives in the Bryn Mawr, not far from the restaurant.
“We looked for spaces all over southwest Minneapolis, so we’re happy to have landed in our own neighborhood,” said Carlson-Yunga. “After all that looking, you begin to wonder about the eventual outcome. But once we got this place we knew that it was meant to be.”
She’s a Minnesota native, he’s originally from Ecuador. This is their first venture as restaurateurs, but they’re hardly new to the industry. Yunga is a 20-year Nicollet Island Inn vet. Carlson-Yunga is an architect (she specializes in residential design for Tea2 in Minneapolis) but spent time cooking at the former Cafe Brenda and the Nicollet Island Inn.
They met at the Inn.
“I was the evening sauté cook, and Juan was cooking at lunch,” said Carlson. “It’s emotional for Juan to leave, because he has had so many good years there, and has met so many great people. But at some point you have to move on to the next phase. He’s thankful for the experience and ready to take that step.” She’ll be involved in La Mesa but will continue her architecture practice.