After Florian Riedel came to Minneapolis four years ago to help open the Four Seasons Hotel there, he was presented with a problem: How to make the outdoor deck inviting in winter when the average high falls below 30 degrees.
Riedel tapped into his own upbringing in Munich, where the Christkindlmarkets have been part of the cultural fabric for centuries. Only he adapted it to Minnesota’s large population of Scandanavians and the state’s cabin-loving culture.
The result turns the rooftop deck at the Four Seasons into a village of wooden cabins along with a cabin-style bar called The Lodge. Customers can reserve the cabins at $175 per person and be treated to a four-course menu featuring items like Swedish Meatballs, Cedar Plank Salmon and Kvaefjordkake (KAY-fyoor-kah-keh), a Norwegian cake featuring meringue, toasted almond, vanilla custard and wild berry compote.
And it’s all served with a view of the Minneapolis skyline. “We thought about what we’re going to do about winter. It was our ambition from day one to figure out how best to embrace the winter,” said Riedel, the Four Seasons’ general manager. “We said, ‘Look, let’s celebrate the winter. And then we came up with these cabins—you know, a bit of my European background there.”
They opened three of them at first. “They were sold out in a week for the entire winter,” Riedel said. “And then we said, ‘Wow, it clearly resonates.’”
Each of the cabins is heated to keep them cozy during the winter.
The next year the Four Seasons added five more. It has nine now. It also added the Lodge, as well as SnowHaus, a snowglobe-like lounge next to the hot tub. “It’s really kind-of growing,” Riedel said. “It’s great to see the community embrace the Nordic Village.”
The Nordic Village taps into a consumer that yearns for experiences, particularly around the holidays.
Christkindlmarkets have long spread throughout Europe and have become tourist destinations during the holidays. They have since spread to the U.S., where European-style markets can draw large crowds. Well over 1 million will visit the longstanding Christkindlmarket in Chicago every year.
“There’s a certain level of romance about it,” Riedel said. “The winter, it’s cozy, and the lights are different, and the food.”
He wanted to tap into that with the Nordic Village. Four Seasons worked with the design house MartinPatrick3 to create the village’s sophistication.
Each of the cabins have a different name for a city or region in Minnesota and the design is inspired by that town. For instance, the cabin named for the Northern Minnesota town of Bemidji is decorated by pine, reflecting the Northern Minnesota woods.
The Lodge bar features a la carte food and drinks.
Five cabins seat up to four guests, three can seat eight. The Lodge has seating for 24 guests. Each of them has its own television for customers who want to enjoy dinner and a movie. The cabins are heated, obviously, given the at-times frigid Minnesota temperatures.
Four Seasons imported the wood from Canada and built the cabins over the summer. “They’re craned onto the pool deck at the end of October, and then we take them off in March, where we store them,” Riedel said.
The village will host winter markets on weekends featuring local artists, makers and creators, which give the village a definite feel of a European market. During an opening celebration this week, vendors sold jewelry and art from the cabins. So did the Minneapolis-based Love Your Melon, a maker of customizable knit hats started by the son of the owners of St. Paul restaurant Café Latte.
The markets run on weekends from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The village itself is open through the end of February.
“It was incredible to see the response,” Riedel said. “We couldn’t have gotten a better compliment, and I think the city really wants us to do this. You know, we are the Four Seasons, and they want us to create these wonderful moments, and we have plenty of other ideas coming up.”
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