Serial Restaurateur Michael Mina Is Heading to Tahoe

Michael Mina may operate more than 40 restaurant properties including FiDi flagship Michael Mina and International Smoke collaborations with Ayesha Curry from Hawaii to Texas — but so far, the restaurateur hasn’t dipped a toe in lake Tahoe. That changes next winter, when MINA Group opens a business at Northstar Resort, replacing what’s now Northstar’s Tavern 6330. The current restaurant at 8001 North Village Way #8114 closes at the end of the 2019 ski season for a remodel, and reopens as Bourbon Pub Northstar in winter 2019.

MINA Group opened the first Bourbon Pub, a casual branch of his Bourbon Steak restaurant, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara back in 2014. A second Bourbon Pub is circling San Francisco International Airport, where it will open in the Terminal One food hall this summer.

Bourbon Pub Northstar will cater to the après ski crowd with upscale pub food: Snacks and starters like truffle tater tots, nachos (with a fried egg, beef chili, cotija cheese, and avocado), and cheddar brats brats wrapped in puff pastry with jalapeno yellow mustard. Entrees will include al pastor pork ribs, mesquite grilled steaks, and fennel stuffed salmon. To drink — the favored Tahoe pass time when not skiing or hot tubbing — Bourbon Pub will serve beer, cocktails, and domestic wines.

The new Bourbon Pub/current Tavern 6330 is located just off the gondola in Northstar’s commercial “village” area. It will be one of about 10 food and beverage businesses that make up the offerings there, and Bourbon pub could conceivably position itself as a happy medium between ski lodge pizza and the upscale menu at the Ritz Carlton’s Manzanita restaurant there.

• Inside Michael Mina’s New Bourbon Steak & Pub, at Levi’s Stadium [ESF]