After depositions in Cincinnati last week, I decided to change my flight home to leave out of O’Hare, rented a car and drove to South Bend to spend a little time on campus and breathe some new life into these weary bones. Eschewing my usual haunts, I wanted to try a new place making ripples, if not waves, on the foodie circuit: Rockne’s. Frankly, I wasn’t enamored with the name, as it suggested, and still does, peanut shells on the floor and kitschy spellings of common words, e.g. “overstuff’t.” Still, certain of the Yelp-ers I trust (esp. 46619dine) raved and, seeing as how one’s fine dining options in the Bend are almost as limited as a North Carolina athlete at a job fair, I thought I would give it a try.
It turns out that Rockne’s has as much to do with football as Darrell Hazell has to do with fine dining. Or as Darrell Hazell has to do with high-quality football. Either way. Owned by Kurt and Gurli Dagmarfisk, formerly of Trondheim, Norway, Rockne’s, though named after the region’s most famous son of Norway, leaves any pretense to sport at the beautifully finished antique door that the pair salvaged from an abandoned ostrich ranch in Michigan. Once inside, any thoughts of football, even the last lingering wafts of ethanol, are quickly subsumed by the tantalizing aromas of baking lefsa and kniep breads.
The dining space is quaint and well turned-out, with a fireplace that both warms the room and provides a pleasant, onomotopoeia-ic accompaniment to amuses bouches of house-made local cheese topped with paddlefish caviar. To the Dagmarfisks, sustainable ingredients are far more important than gaudily-named (and -priced!) alternatives, such as Caspian Sea osetra, which we all know is just months from extinction.
“We, Gurli and I, came to America after serving together in Hans Majestets Kongens Garde and we settled in Chicago, because we thought it most like Norway, what with the cold and all the immigrants,” Chef Kurt told me while I sampled a flirtatious sauvignon blanc that he paired with a fine crudite plate. “Still, we grew more and more homesick. One day we visited South Bend. It has a river with tall banks, like a fjord, and it’s somehow colder and snowier than Chicago and it has lake-effect weather, so it’s gray almost the whole year ’round. It’s very, very much like Norway.”
Starters and salads are terrific. I especially appreciated the plate of mixed greens served cold and starkly on an enormous granite plate. “At night, Gurli and I go onto the Notre Dame campus and we pick the vines from the trellises between the Law School, Fitzpatrick Hall and DeBartolo. When I hear people complain that nothing has grown on them since 1994, I laugh!”
Main courses range from the humdrum, the walleye in parsley sauce, to the extraordinary, local venison with currants and baby carrots. Chef Kurt explained, “my wife drives very, very fast and has excellent night vision so she forgets to turn on the headlights many times. There are many, many deer in this area and they can’t see her coming, so they jump out in front of her truck and she hits them and that’s how we get our meat for the restaurant.” Personally, I wish more restaurants would concentrate as much on overpopulation as they do on locally-sourced ingredients. Could you imagine the options for pigeon and squirrel? I for one could go for a few more intriguing appetizers in exchange for a few less red-furred menaces begging for potato chip crumbs at the Knights of Columbus steak sandwich line!
The wine list is perfectly acceptable and, helpfully, a sommelier may be in the cards for next season. “After the Michigan game last year,” Chef Kurt told me, “we were absolutely packed and we thought about hiring one to handle the task. But, after the Northwestern game, I think the bitter taste in many mouths was too much to distinguish between a barolo and a chardonnay, even!”
If there are disappointments on the menu, they are found among the deserts. The flour-less chocolate cake was neither flour-less nor cake. The crême brûlée was poorly-formed and dour. Turnovers are frequent and soul-destroying. I liked the gelato best, a deft homage to Froyo that was at once fresh, minty, and insouciant.
Rockne’s. Corner of Colfax and North Niles Streets, South Bend. Reservations recommended. Phone (574) 867-5309. Follow them on Twitter (@RocknesSouthBend) or on Instagram.
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Ryan Ritter
Fair warning, I tried to schedule a reservation for football season and someone named Jenny said they don’t take reservations that far in advance.
Bayou Irish
I tried to call her before, but I lost my nerve.
DoubleDomer9495
I’ve been going to games, at least three per season, since graduation and have enjoyed many nice meals at the Emporium and have never heard of this place. I seriously doubt it exists. I suspect this is an April Fool’s joke. If so, you need to GROW UP. Stop wasting my time and yours.
Irish Elvis
Attending games in the expanded stadium (after ’95, presumably) is so passe. Give me the old 18″ wide seats any day of the week. And the Emporium?! I either dine at the old University Club (still in existence underneath the new Law Building, dontchaknow), or not at all.
I might give this new place Rockne’s a chance though, if it meets tricerapops’ standards.