The Mexitalian bistro La Chaya has staying power

LA CHAYA BISTRO
4537 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis
612.827.2254; www.lachaya.com
appetizers $8-$13; entrees $12-$27

Ketchup packets and grease-stained paper napkins are a thing of the past at 4537 Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis. So are white walls and plastic tables. You'd never guess that the new restaurant La Chaya was once a Kentucky Fried Chicken. These days, the dining room is colored dusty ochre and decorated with artsy black-and-white photos. Diners sit on a rough-hewn bench made from reclaimed barn wood. Fresh tulips brighten each table. And since slow food replaced fast food, with scratch cooking and fresh, organic ingredients, something else has changed: People want to stick around. Late one night, well after the dinner rush, I watched patrons sip coffee and polish off a bottle of wine, deep in conversation. They'd been at the restaurant for well over two hours and showed no sign of leaving.

Tucked between Lake Harriet and 35W, the Kingfield area has a lot more residents interested in dining at neighborhood restaurants than it has opportunities for doing so. Within a month of La Chaya's opening, some neighbors returned five times, according to chef and co-owner Juan Juarez Garcia. "Now I know them and they know me," he says. "They're already asking for special meals."

La Chaya is a partnership between Garcia and his father-in-law, Dave Kopfmann, who owns the landscape company Yardscapes, which explains the restaurant's lovely, vine-like iron fence, rain garden, and stone patio. Kopfmann and Garcia met in Playa del Carmen in Mexico. It was the Kopfmann family's annual vacation spot, and they frequented a restaurant where Garcia worked. Garcia went to cook in Italy for a few years, and when he returned to Mexico, he happened to run into Kopfmann's daughter, Summer, on the street. That chance meeting eventually spawned a marriage, a move to Minnesota, a house in Kingfield, a son, and a new restaurant.

While most executive chefs tend to stay tucked back in the kitchen, Garcia, dressed in high-top sneakers and a white chef's coat, his hair tied back in a ponytail, spends a fair amount of time each day scooting around the dining room. Sometimes he'll pull up a chair and chat with customers—which include everyone from preppy lawyers to people with face tattoos—while bouncing his two-year-old on one knee. If you didn't know better, you'd think you were in Garcia's living room.

Although La Chaya is named after a bush, native to the Yucatan, that has edible, spinach-like leaves, it's not strictly a Mexican restaurant. The menu also features a large selection of pizzas and pastas that reflect Garcia's time in the Mediterranean. With Mexican and Italian among the most popular ethnic cuisines, Garcia's strategy was to cast a wide net. But my first reaction to La Chaya's dual menu—house-made cannelloni alongside halibut with pumpkin seed sauce and poblano peppers—was the same skepticism I feel toward those multibranded fast-food joints where, say, a Taco Bell and a Dunkin' Donuts share the same storefront. In optimizing popularity, might Garcia sacrifice focus?

That didn't seem to be the case when I was dining light. After several visits, I found La Chaya to be a great spot for relaxing with a glass of wine and a little something to nosh on. My favorite appetizer was a plate of oyster mushrooms sautéed with garlic and chiles, scooped onto slices of grilled bread. I also liked the lightly fried snacks—one with shrimp and calamari, another cubed mahi-mahi—especially the bright cilantro chutney served with the fish kebob. One night I made a simple, healthy meal from a spinach salad and a rustic celery soup that has a pleasantly pulpy texture.

In the course of my visits, I expected that one of the cuisines might outshine the other, but both the Mexican and the Mediterranean sections had strengths and weaknesses. I disliked two very different entrées for the exact same reason: The homemade squid ink fettuccini with shrimp and tomatoes, and the halibut with achiote and sour orange, both had muddied flavors. The fish, cooked in a banana leaf, was a beautiful-looking dish, yet its flavors weren't as vibrant as its color scheme, with the exception of a tangle of pink pickled onions.