Viktor
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Omni Viking Lakes Hotel to feature top chef Ann Kim
Visitors to the Omni Viking Lakes Hotel will have the opportunity to enjoy a restaurant menu created by one of the Twin Cities' top chefs.
Ann Kim, the James Beard award-winning chef and co-owner of Young Joni and Pizzeria Lola in Minneapolis, will oversee Kyndred Hearth, the hotel restaurant that is set to open in October in Eagan. Rick Nelson of the Star Tribune wrote:
The restaurant's centerpiece will be [the] same copper-clad wood-burning oven — imported from France — that anchors Young Joni and Pizzeria Lola.
Along with Kim's wood-fired pizzas, the seasonal menu will focus on handmade pastas and "other things that I've never been able to do at the other restaurants," she said. Kim said she's also excited about the prospect of serving her first breakfast menu, which will feature what she described as "twists on what I love to eat."
That includes airy ricotta pancakes, a variation on the egg-and-cheese sandwich that sustained her when she lived in New York City ("Mine will kick it up a notch and start with a Japanese milk bun," she said) and a souped-up version of the Korean rice porridge that was a childhood staple that will call upon jasmine rice, locally sourced wild rice, mushrooms, pickled vegetables, fried ginger and fresh herbs.
The hotel is the first Omni complex in Minnesota and is part of the Viking Lakes area that is being developed by Vikings Owners Mark, Zygi and Lenny Wilf. Viking Lakes encompasses Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center.
According to Nelson, the restaurant and lounge will be located on the ground floor of the 14-story hotel and will seat 200. The restaurant's patio, Nelson wrote, will provide views of the Vikings team facility.
"We hope that this becomes a destination for the people living in the surrounding neighborhood, and not just serving as an amenity for the hotel's guests," Kim told Nelson. "It's going to be a stand-alone restaurant that happens to be in a hotel."
Kim called the opportunity "the best of both worlds."
"Omni and the Vikings are saying, 'We trust your brand.' They're putting up the capital, and doing the legwork, and that's a gift," Kim said. "I can focus on what I do best and not worry about everything else that's involved with operating a restaurant."