Restaurants in Golden Valley

Andrea and Mario Gambino opened their first pizza place in 1972 with a family recipe that was created in Palermo, Sicily, and honed to perfection on the streets of New York. After decades of baking, Andrea Pizza has grown into a New York–style pizza conglomerate with locations spread across the Twin Cities like pepperonis. They still cook their signature thin-crust pizza that was called Best of the Cities by Minnesota Monthly magazine in 2007, but they also decorate pies with some newer tweaks. Patrons can order their pizzas with eight distinct sauces ranging from traditional marinara to feta cheese, buffalo, and creamy alfredo. More than 23 toppings such as jalapeños and pineapple can bedeck hand-tossed disks that are available by the slice, as a full pie, or crusts that your friends don't feel like finishing.

Described as an “unlikely savior” of a “decades-old bar,” by the Star Tribune, retired research analyst Bob Rick took over when the former Bullwinkle’s shuttered its doors in early 2011. After myriad updates to the kitchen and bar, Bullwinkle’s reopened as Bullwinkle Saloon, a neighborhood pub that serves Coney Dogs alongside wings and full glasses of beer. A lineup of daily specials ranges from 33-cent wings to 400-cent buckets of Lucky IPAs.

Chefs at Copper Pot Indian Grill fire up clay tandoori ovens to bake yogurt-marinated chicken and prawns seasoned with carom seed and red-chili powder. The chefs pick recipes from different parts of India to feature the country’s varied flavors, rotating their selections every four to six months, or whenever they complete a game of Monopoly. They stock a lunch buffet with fresh naan and pudhina paratha and maintain a well-rounded wine list with varietals from California, France, New Zealand, and Argentina.

Hotel restaurants can sometimes blend together in a generic parade of pork chops and mashed potatoes. Rare Steak & Sushi, however, bursts out of the mold with its selection of grass-fed steaks and innovative sushi. Located on the second floor of the Grand Hotel, the eatery charmed Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Minnesota Monthly, who raved about its grass-fed steaks. To complement cuts of filet mignon and New York strip steaks, Chef Chano also rolls up 30 varieties of sushi. The creations range from the simple—such as freshwater-eel sashimi—to the complex, including a hawaiian roll packed with tuna, pineapple, and fried almonds or the vegetarian salad roll, which Grumdahl was “especially wild about.” A quick scan of the dining room reveals a diverse collection of clientele, as the eatery—open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—appeals to locals, businesspeople, and hotel guests alike.

Shawn Richardson and his hunting buddies were on a fishing trip, exchanging stories and admiring the natural beauty of Lake Superior when one of the fellas struck on a crazy idea. Fun as it was to traipse around the coniferous wilderness—he explained as his friends’ rapt expressions held steady through intermittent bites of newly caught walleye—it seemed a shame that lake-fresh fish and wild game had to be wrested from the cruelly indifferent hands of nature. What if a person need only reach out a fork to enjoy nature’s spoils?

Long after the trip had ended, that notion reverberated down the mental corridors of Shawn, himself a seasoned chef. Every time he joylessly cut a piece from a flavorless slab of frozen fish, or played an idle game of Oregon Trail it would return anew, like an unscratched itch. Finally, one morning—with resolve etched into his steely face—he said goodbye to his mounted yeti head, threw sand over the bonfire flickering on top of his living room coffee table, and strutted out the door to open up a neighborhood joint of his own, where he could serve fresh and local wild game.

Today, Woodsmans Gril’s kitchens sizzle with 13 types of unique game, including elk, bison, walleye, and quail. Shawn smokes his the meats himself onsite, while conducting a kitchen staff as they prepare an innovative menu that has enticed the palates of ABC Newspapers. Servers carry the weighty plates out into the dining room, where Shawn's taxidermy mounts gaze down from brick walls, and color photographs of wild deer, flapping fish, and rugged escaped bank tellers adorn the tables.