Cafe Zentral

Café Zentral just opened this week in the Soo Line building in Minneapolis at the corner of 5th and Marquette. It is affiliated with Brasserie Zentral on the first floor of the same building, but Café Zentral offers quick service breakfast and lunch to the skyway dwellers. There is even some seating on stools at counters around the edges of the space, as well as windows with a view of the plaza below.

I stopped by the other day after seeing a few tweets in my feed about it last week. The menu offers salads, grilled cheese and Panini, crepes and Munchen dogs. The Munchen dogs offer a variety of choices: bratwurst, frankfurter or smoked Slovakian in a pretzel bun with a variety of sauces to choose from.

For my first visit I went with a frankfurter Munchen dog with sauerkraut sauce and spicy brown mustard inside. The pretzel bun is excellent, very soft with just the right amount of salt. The frankfurters had a nice snap and the sauces are served inside the bun. I think the sauces soaked into the bun a bit, so I did not get a lot of flavor from the sauerkraut sauce, but the spicy brown mustard sauce was good. I was almost wishing the sauces ere served on the side though. The top of the dog needs something to dip it in.

So far Café Zentral looks like an interesting addition to the skyway lunch scene. I will have to go back and try a few more menu items and do a few more posts on it I think. I want to try the salads and the Panini. The fresh bakery items such as croissants, blueberry muffins and other pastries are also intriguing, though it is a bit far from my office to get there in the morning.


Café Zentral
505 Marquette Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55402
612-333-0505
http://zentral-mpls.com/cafe/index.html