Groundbreaking Minneapolis restaurant Saffron is coming back

It's been eight years since Saffron, the influential Mediterranean restaurant, closed its doors in downtown Minneapolis. But for chef/co-owner Sameh Wadi, Saffron is not only still front of mind, it's in his inbox every day.

"I still have the same email from when Saffron was around, so I was like, that's got to be a sign you probably are not ready to give that one up," Wadi said in a phone call with the Star Tribune.

That old email address will soon come in handy. After a year of self-reflection, including a much-needed break from the restaurant business last summer, Wadi announced he will reopen Saffron. The news was first reported by Mpls.St.Paul magazine.

Wadi was 23 in 2007 when he opened Saffron Restaurant & Lounge with his brother Saed Wadi in a high-ceilinged warehouse loft. His menu spanned the Middle East, North Africa and entire the Mediterranean region, and quickly drew acclaim for his skill and the food's "sheer, unadulterated deliciousness," according to the Star Tribune's restaurant critic. It also made Wadi, who grew up in a Palestinian home in Kuwait, one of the most influential chefs in the Twin Cities.

A decade later, with a food truck and brick-and-mortar restaurant (World Street Kitchen) and an ice cream shop (Milkjam Creamery), the brothers decided not to renew Saffron's lease.

"We closed it at a time that it was making money and was successful, like, exactly the opposite of why people close down restaurants," Wadi said. "We closed that restaurant just because of the circumstances, because we couldn't see ourselves in that particular location for 10 more years."

Since it closed, Saffron has remained on a shortlist of restaurants that still trigger wistful memories of beloved dishes.

Wadi said he can't wait to bring some of those "fan favorites" back, while also creating new ones. He's still scouting locations, and can't say for sure whether the idea will come to fruition in 2024 or beyond. But he's ready.

"I have all the time in the world," he said. "You know, I waited this long, there's nothing wrong with waiting a little bit longer. But the timing right now just feels good. I'm energized. My team is energized. I have good, solid support in both of my places, and I feel like it's a good time for me personally."

We spoke to Wadi about what he's missed about Saffron, what's changed in Minneapolis dining since it first opened, and why it's coming back now. The conversation has been edited for length.

How did you decide to bring Saffron back?

It's been years on my mind and finally I just got off of my lazy bum and did something about it.

Why now?

Honestly, I think I just needed a hard reset from last year to really figure out what it is that I want to do. It was my first summer off since I was 13. I just turned 40. So I've just been going, going, going nonstop and not having enough time to really figure out what's next. So I took a summer and focused on the person, and that person told me what to do.

What did that summer off look like for you?

I did something called exploring. I don't know if you know what that is like, but you can just get in a car and drive somewhere. I didn't know that was an option as a human. It was really cool. I was like, Oh, our cities are actually really dope, like I can go eat at these restaurants with the patios and I can go around the lake and I can come home and cook myself a meal, bring some friends over, hang out with family, just connect to people. Just refill that cup, if you will.

I hosted a bunch of friends and family over and I would say, "Any requests for food?" And almost always, somebody would say, "Oh, I really miss this from Saffron," "Can you make this dish?" or "We want you to do something that brings you joy or comfort." Comfort food to me is going to be lamb shanks with rice. So that got me much closer to the food, got me much closer to my truth, which is that as much as I want to change the fact that I was cooking Middle Eastern food for years and years and years, that's my calling.

Why is it important for you to bring Saffron back rather than starting something new?

What is something new? I am who I am, so even if I was to open another restaurant that was Middle Eastern, it's going to end up being whatever I ended up cooking at Saffron. The name, the energy, that space just had so many great memories for a lot of people. We also look at closing a restaurant as a failure. But I looked at that closing of that restaurant as one of the best business decisions that I did at that time, because it allowed me to refocus, realign and get stronger.

So when I started thinking about what does this look like, whether I called it Saffron or something else, the food was going to be the same. It's food that comes from the heart, comes from the soul. Heavy influences from the Middle East, the Levant. This is how I cook at home. This is how I cook for my family and friends. It's not going to change.

How deep have you gotten into the menu?

It's interesting, because the menu has been done for years, right? There are some fan favorites that will come back, and then there are new fan favorites, because the way that I cook today and the way that I eat today is so different than the way that I cooked and ate when I was 23. In my mind, there's a lot of veg-forward options on the menu. A mix between lighter fare and heartier fare. Proteins get their own shining moment as the star of their own dish.

I'd love to, depending on the location, have coal-cooked foods. That's a core memory of mine is sitting on the rooftop with my dad and he's grilling little skewers, and the aroma of the drippings hitting that charcoal and reflavoring the meat, I want to re-create some of those things.

Will we see Saffron reopen this year?

It all depends on the location. There's a couple locations that we're floating around. You know, I fall in love very easily, and I just want to make sure that I pay attention to what this partnership is going to look like and hope that we can find a landlord that has the same outlook on the food industry and where things are headed, because truthfully, World Street and Milkjam wouldn't be where they are if it wasn't for our last landlord being there for us. They believed in us just as much as we believed in ourselves.

Between Saffron 2007 and opening a Saffron now, what's different in the Twin Cities food scene? Have people's ideas about Middle Eastern food changed?

A 13-year-old the other day was like, "I love preserved lemons" to me. I was like, What? How do you know what preserved lemons are? I had to teach people what that was. You go to friends' houses and they're like, "I just keep this harissa stocked up in the fridge." Are you kidding me? Like, "Yeah, I can't cook without seven spice right now." Here's a friend of mine sending me a picture of what they made for dinner and it's charred things on top of labneh with olive oil and za'atar. This is something that you're just cooking on a casual Wednesday? I was like, where was this when Saffron opened? That restaurant was eons ahead of its time and I think diners right now are very well versed on this food.

Saffron opens in a new world.

Exactly.