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Inside Bar Brava in Minneapolis, the wine bar where the only constant is change

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Inside Bar Brava in Minneapolis, the wine bar where the only constant is change


The thing about natural wine is that it’s always evolving.

The natural yeasts inside the bottle keep the party going, meaning what the wine started can be completely different once the cork is popped. By extension, it makes sense that Bar Brava, Minneapolis’ first natural wine bar, is often in flux, evolving and adapting just like the bottles it is inspired to stock.

“When we first opened, I had a business partner,” said owner Dan Rice. “We were only open three months before the pandemic hit.”

Rice first found a love of natural wines while working in finance in New York City. He had studied business and found success in the field, but soon found his passion for the work dwindling while another interest had taken root. It came in a cloudy bottle of wine produced by people who put as much care into farming the land as they did the good stuff in the bottle.

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“Call it a quarter-life crisis,” Rice said.

After a dream trip traveling, drinking and soaking up knowledge, he was ready to embark on a new adventure. He moved back to the Twin Cities, partnered with chef Nick Anderson to open a wine and tapas bar in a historic building in a neighborhood ripe for a new era.

Bar Brava opened at 1914 N. Washington Av. in north Minneapolis in late fall of 2019 and were forced to close months later because of the pandemic. But they were open long enough for those who get excited about hard-to-find, small-produced wine to get really fired up about the place — and subsequently miss it. Eventually, a few small parties were hosted, and a new sandwich start-up borrowed the kitchen to launch Marty’s Deli. It was an inkling of things to come.

As the pandemic’s grip began to subside, the bar reopened, but the business partnership between Rice and Anderson wasn’t in great shape. In July 2022 Bar Brava announced it would temporarily close. The Spanish tapas menu and full service would leave with the departure of Anderson.

“It was painful, but ultimately the right and good thing,” said Rice. He looked to Paris for inspiration, specifically the buvette Early June, which acts as an incubator for young culinary talent. Bar Brava would open its space to fresh culinary talent looking for something between a short event pop-up and a restaurant start-up. This paved the way for its first big success: Khue’s Kitchen.

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Chef Eric Pham began as a one-man ghost kitchen, working to create his vision of a restaurant. Word quickly spread about his cult-status fried chicken sandwich and playful take on bar food. After a year at the wine bar, the plan worked. Pham is currently creating his dream restaurant in a permanent home on University Avenue in St. Paul.

“When Eric left in February, we lined up a bunch of chefs to see who would work well,” said Rice. Which brings us to today.

Torsk is the work of chefs Sydney Reuter and Axel Pineda, who just happen to be best friends that used to work at Fika, the restaurant inside the American Swedish Institute.

“I know people look at me — a big brown guy — and wonder,” said Pineda. “But, I grew up in Owatonna with a single mother. I spent a lot of time over at my friend’s house eating pickled herring and pickled eggs. This is the food I grew up with.”

“I have Norwegian ancestry,” said Reuter, who’s originally from Austin, Minn. “We made lefse for the holidays. But a few years ago, I got to travel to Norway and fell in love with the food.”

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Torsk is the Norwegian word for cod, and like that versatile fish, the menu can take several different forms, depending on the chefs’ inspirations.

One such dish is the Cajun fried smelt ($14.) Pineda was working on recipe inspiration in Tofte, Minn., when he happened upon freshly caught smelt at a general store. Back at the cabin, he fried them up and fell in love. “These should be on every bar menu in Minnesota.”

Bar Brava also regularly hosts wine takeovers, inviting makers to pour all of their varieties. Torsk will lean into the opportunity to create dishes that pair with the wines. That’s how a Portuguese sandwich ($17) ended up on a Nordic menu — a winemaker brought in a whole lineup of wines from Portugal.

Other dishes of note: puffed-up potato bacon dumplings ($14), savory, hearty and the best of all comforts in one dish; a plate-sized pork schnitzel with sliced capers and frisee ($19); and a Basque cheesecake laced with lingonberries ($11).

Working as a two-person team in a restaurant, without all the demands of restaurant ownership, has been a labor of love for the Torsk team. Although they aren’t saying they would pass up the opportunity to someday have a permanent home.

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Now, they’re just having a lot of fun, serving flavorful food that speaks to the region and their souls. “It’s how we want to cook and what we love to do. Just let the ingredients dictate what we’re cooking,” said Rueter.

“It’s one of those things where 1+1=3,” Rice said of Torsk’s food and the natural wines he’s pouring.

In fact, the Torsk pairing is going so well, they’ll likely stick around a full year. And then, who knows what comes next? Likely a new evolution.

“I will say, it’s a lot better to drink wine than crank on spreadsheets all day,” said Rice.

Bar Brava, 1914 Washington Av. N., Mpls., 612-208-1270, barbravamn.com. Open 5-10 p.m. Tue.-Sat.; kitchen closes at 9 p.m. Follow Torsk on Instagram at @torsk_mn.

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Minneapolis, MN

Minnesota weather: Gorgeous Sunday with a warmer Monday ahead

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Minnesota weather: Gorgeous Sunday with a warmer Monday ahead


A sunny and warm Sunday is in store for the Twin Cities, with even higher temperatures expected on Monday before a chance of rain and cooler air returns later in the week.

Sunday forecast

Local perspective:

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Sunday is starting with some cloud cover before sunshine moves in with highs near 70 degrees around the metro and southern parts of the state. 

Winds will be much lighter than Saturday, coming from the south at 5 to 10 mph with only occasional gusts up to 15 mph. 

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The Brainerd Lakes area will see temperatures in the 60s, while the North Shore will be cooler, which is typical for this time of year. 

Sunday’s weather is expected to be dry and pleasant.

Overnight, temperatures will drop to the upper 30s and lower 40s, with some clouds moving in ahead of Monday. 

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Extended forecast 

What’s next:

Monday could be the warmest day of the week, with highs in the lower 70s for the Twin Cities and some spots in southern Minnesota possibly reaching close to 80 degrees.

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Winds will shift from southerly to southeasterly and then easterly as the day goes on, but should remain light. 

After the warm start to the week, a cold front will move through on Tuesday, bringing a chance for a few rain showers in the early morning. 

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Temperatures will likely drop to the upper 40s by Wednesday and Thursday, with another front possibly bringing showers late Friday into early Saturday.

The rest of the extended forecast calls for temperatures close to or just below average, with highs in the upper 40s to lower 50s.

The Source: This story uses information from the FOX 9 weather forecast.

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Minneapolis, MN

Man found dead in south Minneapolis house fire

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Man found dead in south Minneapolis house fire


Firefighters are investigating the Minneapolis’s second fire fatality of the year after a man died in a house fire Saturday afternoon. 

Fatal fire on 28th Avenue South

What we know:

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According to the Minneapolis Fire Department (MFD), fire crews arrived shortly after 1:00 p.m. and found smoke coming from the second floor of a single-family home on 28th Avenue South. Bystanders alerted firefighters that someone might be trapped inside.

Crews had to work through heavy debris to reach the upstairs area. It took about 40 minutes to fully put out the fire.

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During the primary search, firefighters found a man in his 60s dead on the second floor. No one else was found after searching all the floors.

Minneapolis Animal Care and Control took in a dog found outside the home.

Assistant Chief Wes Van Vickle said, “The department is grateful to the neighbors who alerted fire crews that someone may still have been inside, allowing them to act quickly.”

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Fire safety reminders and community response

What they’re saying:

“This afternoon’s tragic loss of life weighs heavily on all of us, and we extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased,” said Van Vickle.

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He also encourages the public to regularly check and maintain smoke detectors and fire extinguishers at home.

There were no other injuries reported. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner is working to confirm the man’s identity.

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What we don’t know:

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, and the man’s name has not been released.

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Minnesota serves as the flagship for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump

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Minnesota serves as the flagship for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump


ST. PAUL, Minn. — Organizers of Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies across the country are predicting that the protests against the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration could add up to one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history, with Minnesota taking center stage.

Organizers say more than 3,100 events have been registered in all 50 states, with more than 9 million people expected to participate.

And they’ve designated the rally at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul as the national flagship event, in recognition of how the state where federal agents fatally shot two people who were monitoring Trump’s immigration crackdown became an epicenter of resistance.

Headlining that observance will be Bruce Springsteen, performing “Streets of Minneapolis,” which he wrote in response to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and in tribute to the thousands of Minnesotans who took to the streets over the winter. Springsteen’s Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, which has a “No Kings” theme, kicks off Tuesday in Minneapolis.

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Minnesota organizers have told state officials they expect 100,000 people could converge on the Capitol grounds, where last June’s event drew an estimated 80,000 people.

The St. Paul rally will also feature singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda,Sen. Bernie Sanders and a long list of other activists, labor leaders and elected officials.

The White House dismissed the nationwide protests as the product of “leftist funding networks” with little real public support.

“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Rallies are also planned in more than a dozen other countries, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events, said in an interview. Countries with constitutional monarchies call the protests “No Tyrants,” he said.

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For those unable to attend in person, another activist group, Stand Up For Science, is hosting a “virtual and accessible” event online.

National organizers told reporters in an online news conference Thursday that they expect Saturday’s protests to be larger than the first two rounds of No Kings rallies, which they estimate drew more than 5 million people in June and more than 7 million in October.

“This administration’s actions are angering not just Democratic voters or folks in big blue city centers – they are crossing a line for people in red and rural areas, in the suburbs, all over the country,” said Leah Greenberg, the other co-executive director of Indivisible. “The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilization is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,”

Two-thirds of the RSVPs have come from outside of major urban centers, Greenberg said, listing registration surges in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and Louisiana, as well in competitive suburban areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

“Millions of us are rising up from all walks of life, from rural communities to big cities at No Kings,” said Katie Bethell, executive director of MoveOn, another major organizer. “And as we do so, we will send the loudest, clearest message yet that this country does not belong to kings, dictators, tyrants. It belongs to us.”

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