Heidi's

Rating:

There's no use denying this, so here goes: I have been a Stewart Woodman groupie since the Canadian-born, New York-trained chef moved to the hometown of his wife, Heidi, eight years ago and instantly made Levain a food-freak destination.

I admired their short-lived Five, where Heidi's pastry-chef powers initially sparked the notice of local dessert hounds, present company included. When that overly ambitious enterprise collapsed, the Woodmans went small, launching their intimate love letter of a restaurant, Heidi's Minneapolis. Naturally, my taste buds crushed on it.

The fun all came crashing down on Feb. 18, 2010, when the restaurant went up in flames. While that kind of catastrophe would have sent a schlub like me to bed for a month, self-medicating with endless pints of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, the indomitable Woodmans immediately made plans to start over.

"At least you'll have another restaurant to review" was the first thing Stewart said to me, post-fire.

Talk about bright-siding a lousy situation. But that's exactly what they've done. Their spectacular remake of Heidi's embodies that whole triumph-over-adversity thing. It also represents the couple at the peak of their prodigious talents. Although it has been open less than three months, Heidi's (this time, minus the "Minneapolis") is easily one of the Midwest's most exciting restaurants.

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