When Joseph Forepaugh built this grand mansion as a family home in 1870 it occupied 3 lots on a hill on the edge of Irvine Park, with 5 more lots of formal gardens. As Summit Hill became more desirable the area gradually declined and the house fell into disrepair. It was re-birthed as an elegant fine dining restaurant in 1976, closed in 2019 and was completely renovated and rededicated as Forepaugh’s Restaurant in 2024. (A Little History of Forepaugh’s Mansion)
Over the years Forepaugh’s, known for its antique setting and resident ghost, has been a popular destination for weddings and special occasion dinners. We recently celebrated combined anniversaries there with our son and daughter-in-law and laughed about a memory from about 35 years ago when John and I had an anniversary dinner there. Those were the days when fine dining was more formal and cell phones were non-existent. I remember being quietly notified that I had a phone call… following the waiter down to a telephone… and hearing our daughter say “he won’t give me the remote!”
This dinner wasn’t interrupted by phone calls or ghosts, but the food was amazing. The Beet Fonduta in the photo above was fantastic, but it is the Sweet Pea Agnolotti with blue crab, lemon and dill that has been haunting me ever since… my most memorable dish all year!
I was so busy savoring it that I didn’t think to take a photo of the Sweet Pea Agnolotti… thanks to the Ramsey County Historical Society for sharing photos of their July’s History Revealed Event at Forepaugh’s Restaurant which included this outstanding dish and historical light fixture in the photo collage above.
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results – shensrud@homesmsp.com
