Restaurant Max

Rating:

My favorite time to eat at restaurant Max, the glitzy new restaurant located inside the equally glitzy and equally new Hotel Minneapolis, is at lunch.

The crowd -- and there is one, a reassuring sight given the current economic climate -- is well-dressed and prosperous-looking, as if everyone is in the middle of a job interview or on the verge of closing a deal. It looks as if the restaurant has already developed a devoted lunch following, primarily because diners know that they can rely upon chef Matt Holmes to impress his noon-hour guests with lively editions of what often could be lunchtime snoozers.

Cobb salad. A dullard, right? Not here, since Holmes cleverly tarts up its familiar foundations -- egg, chicken, bacon, avocado, a gutsy Minnesota-made blue cheese -- with a bright pesto, then wraps the whole enchilada inside a lettuce shell. It's unexpectedly pretty, and I for one am a fan of the good surprise. His idea of a pulled-pork sandwich works for me: Generous chunks of mouth-melting pork are slathered, Asian-style, with soy and hoisin sauces and topped with slow-cooked onions.

When it comes to the turkey club, the welcome tweaks include pancetta stepping in for bacon, and a zesty pesto aioli subbing for mere mayonnaise. In Minnesota, "shrimp" and "egg" in a sandwich title are invariably followed by "salad," but not in the House of Holmes: The eggs are treated dashimaki-style (a soft and fluffy Japanese omelet) and topped with shrimp and dainty micro greens; it couldn't be more appealing.

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