Downtown’s New Italian Eatery EaTo Opens With To-Go Pizza Puffs | Eater Twin Cities

"Flipping from Eastside, I see Jamie Malone’s reimagined space opening as an Italian restaurant and market called EaTo on Friday, August 6, at 305 Washington Avenue South. It’s launching in phases, starting with a roll-up takeout window and patio service (initial hours 3 p.m.–9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 3 p.m.–10 p.m. Friday and Saturday), with indoor areas—a sit-down café and an imported-Italian-goods marketplace—planned for October and a meat counter and bottle shop arriving in November where purchased wines can be popped and poured tableside. The menu emphasizes pizzas, salads, sandwiches, housemade sausages, coffees, and soft-serve gelato: La Pistola’s taleggio and rosemary-honey pizza returns alongside confit chicken and cacio e pepe pies, fried meats like steak culotte with mushroom cream and smoked button mushrooms, and sandwiches such as fried maitake, mortadella, fried chicken, and gruyere. EaTo also debuts takeout-friendly pizza puffs—cheesy pockets packed with spicy nduja or olive—which owner/operator Matt Monroe calls “like Totino’s pizza rolls for adults.” Mixologist Marco Zappia is shaking up classics like a mandarin negroni alongside espresso drinks, aperitifs, and digestifs, and Scarlett Carrasco-Polanco will curate wine selections (including August picks for the Eater Wine Club focused on “grape migrations”) for the bottle shop and subscription service. Malone, whose acclaimed French restaurant Grand Cafe went dark on Grand Avenue last fall, remains in a consulting role at EaTo with chef Matt Henrickson, and Monroe Enterprises retains ownership." - Tierney Plumb