1850 Map of Minneapolis
As I have recently moved to Minnesota, I thought I would take a tour of the kitchen stores in Minneapolis. Once I reviewed Chowhound, I identified most of the better kitchen stores, and there are several good options in the city. I also identified a couple of wine/cheese shops and a knife sharpening place too.
First Stop: Surdyk’s. This excellent wine and cheese shop was having their thrice-a-year sale, so that was good luck. I was able to get some good deals on their great selection of wines and their cheese shop was the best I came across all day. As for cheese, I picked up some Minnesota award-winning cheese. I will be back.
Second Stop: Let’s Cook. This kitchenware and cooking class establishment was no longer ‘established’ and out of business. Of all the kitchen stores, this was the one I had the lowest expectation for, so I wasn’t that disappointed. Move on.
Third Stop: Eversharp. This business used to be part of the Wusthof knife empire when the knife company had one of its main import/distribution warehouses located next door. It has since moved to New York state, but the Wusthof tradition has continued. The shop claims to have the largest selection of Wusthof knives in the United States, and I believe it. Eversharp is also one of the only stores to have refurbished Wusthof knives, and they are probably the best knife sharpening service in Minneapolis. I highly recommend this place if you want to buy or you already have Wusthof knives. And they also have a good selection of Epicurean cutting boards and the prices are really good. I found this Epicurean Recycled Cardboard Cutting Board
Fourth Stop: Hockenberg’s Food Service and Restaurant Supply Company. This store is open to the public, but is mostly geared towards restaurants — obviously. They did have good deals on wine glasses, and I also picked up some Cambro containers/brining buckets and a Lincoln Foodservice rimmed baking pan. Both were very good deals, and the Cambro was much cheaper than the exact same product in a kitchen store I later visited. The cutlery was comparable to what you can find on the internet though.
Fifth Stop: Kitchen Window. I have heard good reports on this store, and it didn’t disappoint. The range of products is vast, and it feels as much like a good hardware store as a kitchen store. They seem to have almost everything one would need to cook any dish, and they clearly are reading cooking magazines and knowledgeable about cookware. The knife selection is large, and they even had some other kitchen-related items I have featured on this site. In December the store will be moving just up the block into a larger location, so I will have to go back in a couple of months as the store did look a bit crowded. They also offer cooking classes that are very popular, but I haven’t taken one as of yet.
Fifth Stop: Kowalski’s Market in Uptown. It is a very good, higher-end grocery. I picked up some Cowgirl Creamery cheese (hard to find in Minnesota) and some nice imported butter from Italy. (Note: my car smelled of stinky cheese from this point on.)
Sixth Stop: France 44 Wine & Spirits. This was a very good wine store and probably had one of the best selections of French and Italian wines I have seen in Minnesota. It was very well organized and displayed wine information in an orderly way with ratings and staff recommendations. There is also a good cheese shop connected to it that also had Cowgirl Creamery cheese. Maybe it is easier to find than I first thought. I picked up a few bottles of wine and some Comté cheese and moved on.
Seventh Stop: Cook’s of Crocus Hill. This is another independent kitchen store in the city that has been around for a long time. It had fewer products than Kitchen Window, but it was very well organized and less overwhelming. They also carried Iittala glass and cookware there, which was a nice surprise. The Iittala skillets were beautiful and they even had the Finnish casserole I wrote about on this site. I haven’t tried the cooking classes offered, but I hope to in the future.
Eighth Stop: Sur La Table. This is a high-end boutique chain store out of Seattle and is right down the street from Cook’s of Crocus Hill. The store was predictably well-organized and they had some very good sales. All-Clad and their bistro dishes were on sale, but I only picked up some smaller items. It was also great to see the Bob Kramer Shun knife series in person. These knives were stunningly beautiful, and the picture doesn’t do it justice in the link.
Last Stop: Williams-Sonoma in Maple Grove. Ok, I admit that I know what these stores mostly carry, so I didn’t really check it out for that, but it was the closest store to where I live. It is located in a mall-like town on the west side of Minneapolis in the burbs — think Disney Mall Land. Compared to the other stores, this one just didn’t cut it. The other stores attracted foodies and were filled with people who cared about food and cooking, and this one had a mall browsing clientele. Now with that said, I have been to very nice Williams-Sonoma stores in other urban areas, so they do carry some good items and it is worth checking out if a store is convenient.
