Fine dining under a giant stuffed moose head

By Taylor Carik

A lot of people have been talking up the Alaska Eatery in St. Louis park, so we went to check it out and see if the restaurant lives up to the rave reviews and the several recommendations that it has been receiving. 

The verdict? Yep, this place is awesome. In fact, the only bad part of the entire dining experience was the potholes in parking lot (and we're told those are getting fixed).  

Walking into the Alaska eatery, it's easy to imagine that you're walking into an actual Alaskan steak and seafood house. There's the day's catch right in the entry way, and immediately behind the ice bins sits the restaurant's wood fire grill. 

It's in that entry area restaurant goers will most likely get a chance to talk to the executive chef, Josh Hedquist. He might be busy cooking, but some quick conversation helps the customers feel at home. "Food tastes better when you know the guy who's cooking it," he say, "it's just like your mom's meatloaf."

The items on the menu are considerably more spendy than meatloaf—and with lobster mac & cheese and parmesan truffle french fries, considerably more creative—but with food, it's often true that you get what you pay for, and at the Alaska Eatery you're paying for top notch food by several top notch local chefs.

"Nothing we serve is pre-fabricated," says Hedquist, and that means the fresh seafood finds flavorful support with other fresh ingredients and all the details are hand-crafted. In fact, the dishes are prepared by the likes of the former sous chefs from Bellanotte and Chambers, as well as Carrie Summer, former pastry chef at Spoonriver and Cue by the Guthrie.

If the display in the entry way didn't give you the vibe of an upscale timberlodge, then the dining room decour surely will. Stuffed animals adorn the walls both above the wine cabinets and above the giant working fireplace, great mountain peaks cover the wall opposite the windows, and the chairs in the made look like they're fashioned from thick branches.

Restaurant-goers have have also been dining in this wooded decour to try out the restaurant for themselves—this past Saturday Hedquist told us that the Eatery had a record setting day, including a large crowd that went to check out the brunch. 

Does all that hard work chefing over a burning hot wood stove keep Hedquist sweating? Patting his stomach, he laughs and says "It's the only way I stay trim with all this good food around." 

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