by Ann Bauer
January 18, 2006
Excerpt from City Pages 

Mourning Meal

Hell's Kitchen

You might think the proprietor of a restaurant called Hell's Kitchen would run a tongue-in-cheek sort of funeral catering operation. But Mitch Omer approaches death with the seriousness of a preacher. In fact, he is one.

Back in 1978, Omer answered an ad in the back of Rolling Stone for the church of Mother Earth in Monterey. He was issued a minister's license by mail and has since presided over some 35 weddings, but only one funeral--which he catered as well.

It was back in '91, when Omer was head chef at the original Pickled Parrot. The restaurant's Sysco rep, Matt Vertin, had become a good friend to many on the staff, and they were stunned when he died, in his 30s, of an obstructed bowel.

"Mattie was originally from Ely," Omer says. "So there were two ceremonies: a Catholic funeral and burial up there, and the service down here that we had in the dining room of the Pickled Parrot. I'm more spiritual than religious, and I don't necessarily pray, so the best I could offer up was a song on the guitar that I'd written myself. Then we served a buffet of Matt's comfort foods."

Since he's a food supplier (and son of an Ely restaurateur), Vertin's "comfort foods" included shrimp, ribs, and lobster. But Omer says the menu was just a few years ahead of the curve. At the two funerals he's catered recently, as the owner of Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis, the bereaved requested a similar level of cuisine: fresh fruit, imported cheeses, beef tenderloin with garlic crostini. One of the most popular items, he said, was roasted new potatoes with asparagus and chipotle chiles.

"When you're catering a wake or a funeral, you don't want people to have to worry about anything but their loved one who's passed," Omer says. "You shouldn't be serving fancy, vertical-assembly food. Keep it simple; stay away from silverware. Have it finger food and room temperature. Because at a funeral, you want everything to be easy and you don't want people balancing a glass of wine and a napkin and a plate with a fork. The food should be comforting but in the background, so the guests can focus on things that are more important."

This is not just a professional concern for Omer. He's undertaken a personal study of death and funeral customs throughout history, from ancient Egyptian rituals to modern Native American rites. He's read up on embalming techniques, and though he's only 52 (and in excellent health), Omer plans to write his own obituary this year. Just in case....

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