Chef-owner Kevin Champlin shifted the focus of Brazin American Pub and Eatery earlier this year, trading burgers and bar food for housemade focaccia and authentic Italian ingredients. Two months in, the change to Kevin’s Italian Bistro has been worth the effort, he said.
Champlin took over the restaurant at 6399 City West Parkway after Woody’s Grille closed in June 2023. It quietly reopened as Brazin that July. He was inspired to shift the focus of the restaurant when the nearby Italian restaurant Campiello was replaced by the pub-style TJ Hooligans. He originally planned to offer a wide range of Mediterranean food, spanning from Spain to northern Africa. To narrow down the menu and keep customers familiar with the cuisine, he decided to fill the void left by Campiello and focus on Italian food.
“Italy has got so many different regions, from Sicily to the boot to Campania to Tuscany to Bologna,” Champlin said. “There are so many different regions that you can pull from, and I prefer more rustic myself, so that’s why I went for the Tuscany route.”
The transition from American pub to Tuscan bistro had two primary components: redesigning the decor and reconfiguring the menu. The restaurant closed from March 23 to April 15 before emerging as Kevin’s Italian Bistro.
Champlin opted to paint the walls forest green to darken up the space. To block some of the bright light emanating from the kitchen, he put up a wall of produce bins filled with an array of ingredients. The decor reflects the Italian countryside as well as the colors of the flag.
“I wanted to make it more cozy, but I also knew that I wanted to incorporate the Italian flag in it,” he said. “If you look at my signage, it all incorporates the Italian colors.”
The menu has gone through about three variations, but eight weeks in, Champlin said he won’t be making any changes except minor tweaks. He started with a staunch desire to keep everything 100% Italian, though he’s now compromised on a few menu items.
Friends let him know that he had to keep the artichoke dip around with minimal adjustments to the recipe, so the customer favorite remains on the menu. He’s also added a section of American-inspired pizzas as well as more Americanized dishes like chicken parmesan, a seafood-heavy puttanesca and chicken marsala. But there’s one point he won’t budge on.
“I don’t have butter to serve to the guests, just because bread in Italy is not served beforehand,” Champlin said. “It’s served with the meal. It’s used to mop up the sauce, so I really wanted to stick to that one.”
He’s made a minor concession by offering olive oil alongside the bread, but he’s staying true to Italy in other parts of the menu. A big part of that is importing ingredients like European wheat and other authentic components that differentiate the food.
Champlin imports all of the pastas, including the gnocchi, from Italy. The menu also features ’nduja (a spicy spreadable pork from Calabria in southern Italy). The dessert menu offers a classic spumoni gelato and a citrus olive oil cake made with a fruit-forward Castelvetrano oil pressed from mild Sicilian olives.
“I really wanted to hone in on truly what Italy was,” he said. “I knew that I wanted to do a really nice bolognese. I am dabbling a little bit in making more pastas now.”
He’s workshopped the meatball and bolognese recipes to a point where he’s not only thrilled with the result, but he personally eats them nearly every day. He decided to do his own spin on Caesar salad, making it a wedge salad with housemade dressing.
The tiramisu cheesecake is also a unique creation that calls back to his early days in the kitchen. Champlin has been cooking for 32 years, but before he became a chef, he started baking bread. Rave reviews about his bread encouraged him to continue honing his skills at an early age.
“It’s not often that you hear from a judge at a county fair that says, ‘This bread is better than any bakery’ at 12 years old, so that was the comment,” he said. “I started baking bread, got into baking cheesecake, so that’s why I have a cheesecake on the menu instead of just a plain tiramisu. It’s my history.”
One of the hardest parts of building the menu was finding the right focaccia. He felt local bakeries didn’t offer a version of the bread that was light, fluffy and still had a nice chew to it, so he returned to his roots as a breadmaker and crafted it himself. It’s been a challenge to perfect the process, but after incorporating cast iron pans, he’s reached the light and crispy final product he was after.
Along with Italian food, Champlin aims to bring some of the Italian culture around meals to Minnesota. It can be hard to get Americans to sit down and eat a multi-course meal like Europeans, but he hopes more people will come by for the full experience. He offers a house-braised short rib ragu for dine-in only on Friday and Saturday evenings as an added incentive.
“For the most part, the response has been very good,” Champlin said. “Some even say the meatballs are best in the state, which goes a long way.”
Comments
We offer several ways for our readers to provide feedback. Your comments are welcome on our social media posts (Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn). We also encourage Letters to the Editor; submission guidelines can be found on our Contact Us page. If you believe this story has an error or you would like to get in touch with the author, please connect with us.