Harbor View Cafe

09/18/08

Fabulous gourmet comfort food, Impressive wine list, Great down-to-earth staff, Beautiful views

by aep784

This place is truly a gem on the Mississippi. This place won "Best Restaurant" in Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine a few years back and the restaurant isn't even in the greater metropolitan area or even Minnesota for that matter! It has been given rave reviews from Andrew Zimmern (top food critic for MSP Magazine and host of the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods), Michael and Jane Stern (James Beard award winning monthly columnists in Gourmet Magazine and food critics for Roadfood), as well as a short snippet of a review in a New York Times Travel column by the late, well-regarded columnist R.W. Apple Jr.. Although I am no food critic, I have been fortunate enough to have eaten in food meccas around the world like New York, Paris, San Francisco, Las Vegas, London and Taipei and can easily say that this place is in my top 5 favorite places to eat.

So what makes this place so great? The seafood is flown in daily to ensure 100% quality and freshness, the produce and protein comes from a variety of local and organic sources (when seasonally available) and the food is prepared unpretentiously and yet with a subtle and tasteful elegance. The overall experience is consistently perfect. Those that complain of the long waits during peak season just don't get it. One of the many wonderful parts of the experience is sitting outside waiting for your table, watching the sail boats pass by over the expansive lake, seeing eagles soar above and watching the trains pass by. This isn't your ordinary restaurant. It is a piece of heaven in an unassuming picturesque setting in a small, Wisconsin town of 800 people.

When you go, make sure to try the Halibut with Black Butter Caper Sauce, the Berkshire Pork Shanks with White Balsamic Glaze, Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Rosemary, Garlic and Chipotle Peppers, or the Five Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms. For dessert go for the Bittersweet Chocolate Tort or the Georgia Walnut Pie. In my 13 years of eating here, I have never been disappointed.

• Pros: Exceptional food, setting, down-to-earth staff, the drive to get there, Wine list
• Cons: Long waits at peak times during summer months, no credit cards

06/01/08

Great food, lousy service

by xslady

The waitstaff is fine; it is the management that can truly ruin a dining experience for you at this pretentious little establishment. As a regular customer for the past dozen or so years I expected better than to be treated to a diatribe from the proprietor in response to a complaint about being made to wait for a table for 45 minutes (after being assured it would be a 10 minute wait). Many empty tables were visible in the restaurant but management refused to budge from its policy that they could not open a new section or push a couple tables together in one of the open sections to accomadate a group of 5. Inexcusable.

• Pros: great food
• Cons: arrogant proprietor

10/16/06

Creative touch with the familiar

by chirovance

The Harbor View is exceptional for its chef's interpretation of familiar food. It is no surprise to anyone that Aquavit in Minneapolis went down faster than the Lusitania. The food was too precious and done in extreme combinations - e.g.: Far Eastern Tiger Prawn in Aspirin Arugula Sauce with a dusting of Mexican Cocoa. Nothing like that is foisted upon diners at Harbor View. Their Garlic Chicken Breast is perfect. Chicken, garlic and linquine - nothing ethereal. And yet, the salmon in parchment is unusual and wonderful.

There is a wonderful dish, and I'll misspell it, Frikadeller, which is essentially Danish pork and beef meatballs in a savory gravy. I'm hard pressed not to order it every time I go to Harbor View.

The food is DEFINITELY worth the drive, and no (reviewer One), you will not find similar food on the way or in Twin Cities restaurants down the street. The fact that the drive is beautiful is a bonus. If the trip were through the desert, the food would be reward enough.

Wishlist: Reservations (the wait is a horror show), more days and lunch hours, a website so we could see what's on the menu ahead of time and solid days and hours postings.

• Pros: Food and variety of it, friendliness of staff, drive down.
• Cons: Drive down, no reservations, limited hours and days.