Omaha’s Whole Brain Restaurants:
M’s Pub & Vivace
by Ann Summers
A view outside of M’s Pub
“W
henever anyone, but especially someone from out of
town wants a dinner recommendation, I send them
to M’s Pub because I know they will love their food, love the
ambiance, and feel like they are experiencing that cool urban vibe,”
Food & Spirits Magazine publisher Erik Totten told me. Erik is a
nut, but he knows restaurants, and he’s not alone in his opinion. I’m
not sure what a “cool urban vibe” is, since I am a country girl from
Arkansas. But as some other redneck said, I know what I like. And I
also know food.
I was skeptical. Omaha‘s Old Market is quaint and lovely. But
you can’t eat cobblestones. Well, picture this: turn of the century
architecture, wood in hulking planks that clearly came from big
trees, soaring ceilings, tradition that seeps through the air like
cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Now this: forward-looking
menu items, modern updates of classic dishes, killer mixology,
made from scratch to-order food. It sounded a little schizophrenic.
I mean, M’s Pub is one of the oldest running restaurants in the Old
Market. And it is modern enough to capture the hearts of some
heavy hitters (Google their website.) But M’s is considered by the
family of people who run it to be more of a community treasure
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than a restaurant. Strangely, though, that’s not what makes M’s Pub
and its “sibling” restaurant Vivace so special.
To understand why, a little food for thought:
A new model of brain health and development based on
integrating the emotive right-brain with the logical left-brain is
being promoted by neurologist and behavioral psychologist, Dr.
Daniel Seigel. In his book, The Whole Brain Child, he explains that
this integration is not only possible, but essential for psychological
balance and well-being, especially for the growing brains of
children. In other words, to be happy, healthy and function well, we
must integrate the number-cruncher and list-maker in our brains
with our internal painter and performance artist. Or, as Seigel says,
we must use our whole brain.
When I met Ron Samuelson, co-owner with Ann Mellen of
M’s Pub and Vivace, I saw that he is one of those rare restaurant
manager/owners who feels at home in both the front and back of
house. His mission is obviously to micromanage details, not people.
As his head chef, Robert Mekiny said, “our mindset is to ‘geek
out’ over the ingredients in any new menu item.” Perhaps a lamb
burger, (which Samuelson ate so many of during its development