Cosmopolitan Heights

Me, I have experienced the miracle of the cosmos, here and there. One time it was when I stood in Giotto's Arena Chapel, with the blue plaster and gold stars above and the ring-around of heaven's grace come into the tragic life of man. Another time, it was when I confronted the sideways rocks jutting like crashed flying saucers out of the rushing rapids in the St. Louis River, up by Duluth. And, you know, a few weeks ago in this bar. The bar at Cosmos.

Which is contiguous with the restaurant at Cosmos--one stretching, segmented, art-filled room that ends in a lilting sculpture of tilting mirrors. One cathedrallike space planted with vast pillars of blond and brown striped wood, wondrous columns that soar to vast heights, each wrapped with razor-thin sheets of wood matchbooked together so that each sheet of grain reflects itself as if it were looking in the mirror, as if it were a tree turned inside out, the organic pattern both varying and invariant, as human faces are.

Everywhere are organic and geometric glass walls, glass shelves, and glass lamps, everything glowing, turning, yet serene. And everywhere is marble, thinly striped and well-ordered, threads of gray and brown elegance. And as I have sat at the bar at Cosmos and had my heart race at the spectacle of this restaurant Cosmos, I think: When and who and where and why, what Kool-Aid did I drink?

Have you ever wondered what might happen if Charles and Ray Eames fell into a supercollider with a print of the Matrix? Here it is: Everything is completely organic and completely technologic; utterly calm and utterly fierce; irrefutably church-like and irrefutably sexy.

That's some room.

Why, they could serve nothing but single Saltines on giant porcelain platters, and this place would be a premier Minneapolis destination for hipster anniversary dinners and earthshaker power lunches. They go a titch past that, though. At lunch, you'll find simple, elegant American fare, like an open-faced lobster club sandwich ($14)--an eggy platform of bread crowned with a snowball of fresh, hand-picked lobster and clean green half-moons of avocado, the whole united with an understated mayonnaise given a bit of a bottom note with the char imparted by roasted red bell peppers. A quarter-chicken, potato hash, and string bean lunch ($13) would be familiar to any farmer, except that here it's local Wild Acres chicken, the potatoes are given salt and depth with serrano ham and broadened in appeal with celeriac, the green beans are thin, elegant haricots verts. Please note that the lobster club, a burger, and other sandwiches are served, with fries, in the bar until 2:00 a.m.! The restaurant is also open for breakfast daily and brunch on the weekends.

It's at dinner that the restaurant shines brightest, though, because that's when diners have time to ooh and aah over the elaborate bits of artfulness the kitchen is capable of. In one unforgettable appetizer a pair of scallops, seared brown without, glimmering limpidly within, had their tender ocean taste amplified in the most refreshing, understated way by a bowl of cucumber broth as green, clean, and focused as a single blade of grass, the whole of it given festive color by carefully cut confetti of tomato and bell pepper ($9).

It's in dishes like this that the cooking of executive chef Seth Bixby Daugherty, who heads both the restaurant and massive banquet operations of the hotel, is strongest. Whenever two strong flavors are allowed to play against--and thus amplify--one another, the cooking truly shines. A terrine of yellow beets and goat cheese ($9) looked like something you could pin to your blouse and wear to art openings: Alternating stripes of gold and pale cream, as precise as if they had been drawn with rulers, made a large square on the plate and rested upon a salad of wilted basil and white truffle oil. The earthy taste of beet and truffle leaned against the meadow sharpness of basil and chèvre, each brightening each.

One of the standout dishes of the year has to be the veal cheeks braised in red wine and set in a lentil stew thickened with foie gras ($25). Tasting this tender, tender dish is like understanding the word velvet for the first time; it just dissolves in plush, vanishing spoonfuls. Chef Daugherty prides himself on getting his ingredients from the greatest American farmers he can locate, so the menu is chock-a-block with the various Guccis and Puccis of farming: Tender greens and teensy little micro-herbs are Fed-Exed in from Ohio's Chef's Garden, and lamb chops ($28) come from Summerfield Farms (and they are in fact herbal, subtle, and fine).