La Chaya Bistro

Rating:

If La Chaya Bistro accomplished nothing else beyond ridding the south Minneapolis streetscape of a tattered KFC outlet, it would be all right in my book.

Co-owners Juan Juarez Garcia and Dave Kopfmann weren't the first team to take a crack at transforming this former Extra Crispy outpost -- they were preceded by a short-lived coffeehouse venture -- but the pair seemed to do the lion's share of the dirty work, converting a shlocky bit of urban blight into an eye-catcher, due in no small part to Kopfmann's landscape-designer chops. It's also a whole new ballgame inside, with a busy semi-open kitchen overlooking a mustard-tinted dining room smartly trimmed in rough-sawn pine. Seriously, someone needs to hand these two a well-deserved urban renewal award.

I also appreciate what Garcia, the restaurant's culinary force, isn't doing. He's not going the standard-issue neighborhood cafe route (each time I am faced with yet another twist on classic American comfort food, I am nudged one step closer to early retirement). Instead, he's borrowing from his native Mexico -- and from Italy, where he worked -- and devising a menu that wisely doesn't fuse the two cultures but pairs them side by side. It's a welcome change of pace, and, more often than not, it works.

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