Shrooom Dinner ToDoTC.com To Do in the Twin Cities Restaurants

	Shrooom Dinner & Vikre Distillery Tasting Emily Vikre PhD Date: Jan 29, 2026 At the Lofton Hotel, Mpls Phone: (218) 481-7401 www.vikredistillery.com

As E&I have learned about and have dined on more food and wine our tastes have changed. Ten years ago we were asked if we wanted the entree' with the mushrooms or Nebiolo we most likely would have turned them down. But with time and exposure hopefully one gets educated. But to our defense we never had shrooms and nebiolo for dinner in the hitherlands of Wisconsin or South Dakota. Both as without question educated/acquired tastes.

Shrooms have facinated us as of late. You may remember we learned about the MN Mushroom Society at the state fair and joined the organization and went on their annual field trip... What a trip! We learned a lot that day, enough to peake our curiousity. So when we found out on Eventbrite about the the Mushroom Dinner in the Cosmos Restaurant in the Lofton Hotel downtown sponsored by Vikre Distillery of Duluth we said sign us up. Even with the $150/person price tag. And it was great and worth the $300. (Hey can we deduct this is was Strictly for educational purposes.

We arrived at 6:24 to the Lofton Hotel on Hennepin in the area of First Ave, Ashab parked our SUV. Since we were early for the dinner we had a Josh Noir $16 and a Red Zin $16 from Coppola Vineyards both vineyards we have visited and are great places. If you remember the movie Tucker Frank Coppola has a Tucker car on display at his Sonoma Vineyards. the wines obviously were great. But it was not a night for wine it was a night to taste the spirits of Duluths Vikre Distillery and Shrooms!

At 7PM the banquet room was ready for us to be seated. At the table were six men, five women mostly 35+ years old and our host Emily Vikre PhD half of the couple that owns and runs the Vikre Distillery. Emily has a PhD in food sciences, she designs the formula for their spirits. As her husband Joe describes it Emily is the pallate and Joel is the plumber in their distillery. They have been in business ten years. They have 40 employees at their Duluth facility which occupies a building which once housed George Washington Foods and Totino Pizza manufacturing facilities.

The Mushroom food of the night was the creation of Cosmos Chef Taylor O'Brien and he did not let us down.

The courses were:

1. Braised Beet Salad: Spiced Apples, Lemon Inspired Chevre, toasted Walnuts, kale and shaved radicchio with honey tyme vinaigrette and pine bud syrup.

That was paired with warm Vikre Spruce Gin with gentle heat, apple peel & soda

2. Wild Mushroom & Barley Soup: Hen of the woods mushrooms, thyme, brown butter, porcini toast

That was paired with Vikre Aquavit chilled over an ice sphere

3. Slow Braised Beef Cheeks: Celery root, potato puree, roasted winter squash smoke onions jus

That was paired with Vikre Hay and Sunshine Blended Whiskey 3 drops of cinnamon hinted maple syrup, expressed orange peal, served warm or neat

4. Warm Orange Olive Oil cake: Toasted almond rosemary sugar & whipped mascarpone

That was paired with Vikre Aprtitivo Classico

Finally we were served Cold-Weather Negroni Sbagliato Aperitivo Cedar Gin sparkling wine and an ice sphere

The food and spirits presentation was good. That said we are more wine people than spirits.

Seated next to E was kind of a local celebrity the Mike Kemoenich Gentleman Forager he is known as the most interesting guy in the woods that can find and identify anything in MN woods. We will be doing a article on Mike hopefully next year.

The entire Shroom & spirits was a fun trip through local foods & spirits, thank that helped to make the evening fun & tasty.

Contact us Dennis@ToDoTC.com