Mertens Prime hires James Beard Award-winning chef
James Beard Foundation
Paul Berglund, winner of the James Beard Foundation Best Chef Award Midwest, was hired to take the reins of the Mertens Prime kitchen in 2021.
Grand Rapids-based Mertens Hospitality said Tuesday it hired Berglund, former executive chef at The Bachelor Farmer in Minneapolis, to start as executive chef at the Mertens Prime restaurant at 35 Oakes St. SW in downtown Grand Rapids when indoor dining resumes.
As only the third James Beard Best Chef awardee in Michigan since 1984, Berglund said he is excited to bring his cooking to Grand Rapids, which he described as having a vibrant food landscape.
94 Twin Cities restaurants that closed in 2020
Pandemic, riots devastated the food-and-drink scene in the Twin Cities this year. December 28, 2020 9:50am
Saying goodbye to a beloved watering hole, a neighborhood café or a four-star restaurant is never easy. But in 2020, the pain kept coming as the pandemic brutalized the Twin Cities hospitality industry. Some restaurants, already hurting from dining restrictions, were swept up in the destruction that unfolded in the Minneapolis and St. Paul riots. Again and again, places that surprised and delighted us, that entertained and nourished us, served their last meals. Here are 94 of them nearly three times the number of closings we wrote about in 2019.
Former Bachelor Farmer chef guides Shoreview s newest restaurant A hardware store is being reborn as a restaurant, with a menu created by former Bachelor Farmer chef Jonathan Gans. December 23, 2020 6:12am Text size Copy shortlink:
First-time restaurateur Carly Gatzlaff is creating Churchill Street in Shoreview because, after 10-plus years of residing in the northeast suburb, she s grown tired of the paucity of dining options in her community.
Gatzlaff has spent the past decade operating a fashion consulting business, and since her restaurant experience is limited to a part time gig at Taco John s when she was a teenager in Mandan, N.D., she s looking to others to help guide the process.
Unfathomable loss: Reflecting on Twin Cities restaurants we lost in 2020 From four-star restaurants to skyway favorites, the losses have taken a toll. December 18, 2020 1:24pm Text size Copy shortlink:
It was the end of April, we were barely a month into the pandemic and the news on the restaurant front was sobering.
More precisely, it was a bombshell: Eric Dayton, co-owner of the Bachelor Farmer, announced that his restaurant which had been idle since March 17, when Gov. Tim Walz had shut down all indoor dining was never going to reopen. I do not see a viable path forward, Dayton said in a statement.