The Best Restaurants in the Twin Cities

The 50 most essential restaurants of 2026, from old-school diners to elite tasting menu spots.

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Food

Hospitality, a word often used yet rarely fully considered in these busy days. However, let’s do it: Hospitality was core to the Old Testament; when strangers are outside, you have a sacred obligation to care and bring them inside. In the New Testament, hospitality was a sacred obligation too; as God has welcomed us to life, and to earth, so must we welcome others. In the Qur’an, hospitality is a key of expressing faith; Rumi, in his poem “The Guest House,” notes that even bad guests are a gift from God, “because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” For the Lakota, a key principle of life is wancantognaka, which is to say sharing and generosity. In Buddhism, monks sometimes are ordered to live on nothing but the gifts from community so that everyone involved may be ennobled by giving and receiving hospitality. That’s hospitality. Yes, it’s keeping water glasses filled, but it’s way bigger, too.

The “hospitality industry” is that essential part of being human, distributed over countless taco stands, 20-course tasting menu counters, banh mi shops, steak houses, pancake-and-bottomless-coffee diners, and all the rest. Ask anyone in hospitality and they’ll tell you there are easier ways to make a buck, but they do it for the love, the camaraderie, and the sense that they’re doing the most human thing of all, giving food and care, and doing what they do well.

Every year, we here at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine anoint the best 50 restaurants in the Twin Cities. This year, with ICE in the streets and so many local spots teetering inside this new instability, naming our leaders in hospitality seems more important than ever. Who’s in here, in our MSP 50 this year? The folk who feed and care for us, the guests, like it’s the most important thing that they could ever do—and we appreciate it, more than ever.

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Vinai

Chef Yia Vang’s new(ish) Hmong restaurant may have been one of the biggest Minneapolis openings in the past several years, but when you gaze beyond all the accolades and the national press, you’ll see that it draws its power from a simple, vital source: the open flame. Vinai is named for the Thai refugee camp where Vang was born, where his parents met after fording the Mekong River to flee persecution of the Hmong people at the end of the Vietnam War. Vang’s skillful use of the open-fire grill draws a direct line back to his ancestors’ nomadic ways of cooking, feeding their communities as they moved through high mountain jungles. The ginger-and-coconut Hilltribe grilled chicken, for example, is cooked so that the fat drips from the meat onto the coals below, sending a kiss of smoke up above; the hefty pork chop gets a tamarind lemongrass glaze right on the grill. Whatever patchwork you make of the highly shareable menu—maybe fried catfish with bright vegetables and delicate rice noodles, maybe Texas-thick shrimp toast, maybe charred cabbage with a smoked carrot puree—no order is complete without a side of Mama Vang’s legendary hot sauce.

World Street Kitchen and Milkjam Creamery

When Saffron closed in 2016 for real estate reasons, foodie circles mourned—no more king crab through an eastern Mediterranean prism, making everything you ever knew about restaurants up for grabs? Ugh. But Sameh Wadi and his brother, and Saffron partner, Saed Wadi resiliently adapted, turning their full attention to their Lyndale Avenue restaurant World Street Kitchen, and their ice cream spot just next door, Milkjam Creamery. And so WSK became our life anchor: The food is always reliable (oh, that curry-filled burrito, the legendary Currito!); entirely family friendly (some part of Minneapolis’s Gen Alpha is entirely made of the chicken and rice kids’ meal); always bold, changing, and surprising. (Did you ever get the Korean short rib hummus bowl? Sounds terrible. It’s amazing.) Milkjam, meanwhile, created a hip-hop culture global ice cream destination that reimagined ice cream cakes and sundaes in our time. Currently, news of Saffron’s return has electrified Minneapolis, following the Wadi brothers’ purchase of the former Young Joni space. Still, let’s not forget the fearless hip-hoppery and tight culinary stylings of our ride-or-die homies, WSK and Milkjam.

Mama Safia’s Kitchen

Chef Safia Munye’s original location burned down in the 2020 uprising, but her legacy restaurant continues to serve some of the Cities’ finest Somali food in a snug, sunny spot on Lake Street. Slip in for a light breakfast of coffee and sweet cardamom-laced malawah (Somali crepes) or feast on a dinner of aromatic waslad (lamb shoulder) and biryani rice or classic chicken suqaar. A side of crispy sambusas is a must. Pro tip: The 19th- and 20th-century Italian occupation of Somalia introduced pasta to the region, but East African chefs have since made the staple their own. At Mama Safia’s, find carby comfort in a plate of grilled tilapia over spaghetti with red sauce.

The Camden Social

The most important contemporary restaurant in north Minneapolis, The Camden Social carries on great Black Minnesotan culinary traditions—like that Minnesota-style chicken wing with the sweet-salty dry rub that you’d find at places like the dear departed Shorty and Wags and from the King of Wings truck. Plus, it serves a whole menu that draws on both Southern and Midwestern cuisines. (Think smoked salmon croquettes, collard green dip topped with corn bread streusel, and garlic butter mashed potatoes with steak tips in red pepper sauce.) Pull up to the bar, get a plate of wings and something with Hennessy, and enjoy the taste of our heritage—almost lost, now treasured.

Band Box Diner

The Band Box is Minneapolis’s last surviving prefab diner made by a silo manufacturer—once, there were 14! Pop in and owner and grill master Brad Ptacek and coffee-and-everything maestro Heather Ptacek will set you up with the diner food of all our collective dreams: fresh, just-cut, thin french fries brown as roast potatoes—are they the best in America? Find out for yourself. While you’re at it, add a perfectly flat-top-super-heat-sizzled diner burger on a super-fresh bun, pancakes as big as your plate, and a sense of continuity in American history you can only get exactly right here.

Bûcheron

Adam Ritter and Jeanie Janas Ritter’s humble-yet-elegant Bûcheron, which won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant (in all of America!) in 2025, combines the technical precision of fine dining with the warmth of a neighborhood restaurant. Bûcheron means “lumberjack,” and fittingly, the menu is just as French as it is Minnesotan: Venison tartare is garnished with spruce tips; celery root tortelloni floats in acorn-chicken broth; and the very popular steak-and-potatoes dish is a Minnesota-raised Wagyu.

Myriel

Chef Karyn Tomlinson, the first woman to win cooking-and-butchery contest Cochon555, has won just about every cooking award, including the 2025 James Beard Award for the best chef in the Midwest. But she has long claimed the award of our hearts, for she’s both a technical master of her craft (her duck confit could live in a museum as the definition of a cooking masterpiece) and a devoted caretaker of both customers and staff, which makes Myriel feel like a place of succor, where life’s distresses are eased away not with prizes but plate by plate, glass by glass.

Oro by Nixta

Oro by Nixta is defined by just-ground-heirloom-corn tortillas and the probing, big-flavor work of a pair of chefs, Gustavo and Kate Romero, who fell in love working at elite coastal kitchens and then turned their capacious restaurant intelligence to Oro, plating Indigenous Mexican cuisine presented through no-holds-barred Michelin-star-level cooking. Snag a booth; decide if you’re splurging (suckling pig terrine?) or taco hunting (so fun). Summon a few culinary-informed margaritas and raise a glass to love that makes Minnesota brighter!

iPho by Saigon

Minnesota’s best banh mi? The University Avenue iPho. For a drippy, salt-acid-heat bada-boom in a baguette, get The Special Sandwich with four types of pork (roast, loaf, meatballs, and pâté). For vegetarians who will not be denied sensual overload? Saucy mock duck, add pickled veggies and extra scallions. Are you new to the banh mi, that triumph of Vietnamese French fusion, with airy rice-flour baguettes stuffed with a world of Southeast Asian street food? Oh, the fun ahead of you!

112 Eatery

Chef Isaac Becker and Nancy St. Pierre’s 112 Eatery has won, now, as many awards in the MSP 50 as we can count on two hands. It’s remarkable what fine dining power emanates from the circa-2005 space, a  true institution of the Warehouse District: legendary foie gras meatballs and Parmesan-dusted gnocchi, an inimitable tres leches cake with a marshmallow-like sheen, and that famous butterscotch budino.

Herbst Eatery and Farm Stand

Voluptuous but focused, chef de cuisine Grant Wann’s way with tip-top American farm ingredients is intelligent, subtle, and elegant: Why not take one of America’s cult best-of-the-best cheeses, the once-a-year release of Rush Creek Reserve by Uplands Cheese, and use it to turn a risotto into something that tastes like a prairie meadow in full flower, but also roasty and tangy? Why not take earthy fennel, grill it for char, then give it zip and spine with a kumquat vinaigrette, but also anchor it with a grounding foil of heirloom-varietal Le Puy lentils turned into something that tastes brand-new in this world—licorice, earth, and nut, from an encounter of lentil with a basil-pepita pesto? If you’ve ever thought that plant-first life is sort of stalled and has become repetitive and unadventurous in Minnesota, get yourself to Herbst to see how Wann is using his good intuitions about flavor, knowing when to go bold and when to stay subtle, in the same ways a composer understands that there’s no music without pauses and meaningful quiet.

Juche

Living the K-beauty, K-pop, K-everything lifestyle, but want the best of chic youth-culture K-food too? Report to the east side of St. Paul for the neon-purple-and-black hipster foodie heaven that is Juche. Chef Chris Her is one of Minnesota’s great cooking talents, and you see it in everything from the fine-dining-level handmade juicy beef dumplings to his winky fusion fun bombs, like his dakgalbi. What’s this? Just imagine if a Korean pop star had a five-star private chef and a sudden late-night craving for chili cheese fries.

Pizzeria Lola

For anyone still reeling from the loss of Young Joni, find solace in chef Ann Kim’s very first restaurant, Pizzeria Lola, which churns out lightly charred wood-fired pies with equal precision and grace. Classics like the Korean barbecue and the My Sha-Roni live on in south Minneapolis, so grab a booth with a view of the gleaming copper pizza oven and end the meal with an olive oil–drizzled, sea salt–sprinkled soft-serve swirl.

Demi

Gavin Kaysen has remade the Twin Cities in his star-chef image, but the several-hour procession of Demi’s ultra-cheffy treats is its own special magic. Helmed by chef de cuisine Alan Hlebaen, Demi presents tiny dishes one after another with chat and ceremony, now a tiny celeriac tart, now a Wild Acres duck breast, now wild rice porridge or a bit of American Wagyu rib eye. It’s like a theater show that you can talk through and eat with your own guests, but then Kaysen usually wanders through to say hi too. Rarely is a great and ambitious restaurant this intimate; rarely is an intimate restaurant this much fun.

Diane’s Place

Much as we love national press for our local restaurants, we didn’t need Food & Wine magazine to tell us that Diane’s Place, from Hmong American chef and pastry queen Diane Moua, is one of the most exquisite places to eat in the whole darn country right now. Go family-style on sour pork short ribs, garlic-and-lemongrass-laced duck stew, and bamboo salad dressed with palm sugar and mint—or pop in early and kick off a sweet weekend with a coconut pandan cream–stuffed croissant.

El TacoTorro

Don’t be fooled by the name—owners Paola Morales and José Haro hail from Aguascalientes, Mexico, and if there’s one thing you should order from their Midtown Global Market counter, it’s their home state’s signature gorditas, griddled sweet corn cakes stuffed with pork belly and salsa verde, classic al pastor, or other meats. As far as tacos go, however: This is one of the rare restaurants in the Cities where you’ll find mole tacos—chocolate, pepitas, bananas, and spices blended into a velvety sauce. They’ve got some kick, so a horchata is a must.

Dream Creamery

All cities need a good burger-and-a-malt spot, and we’re big fans of Dream Creamery, the Travail Collective’s neighborhood sweet spots where nostalgia meets a modern edge. First: The crispy-edged smash burgers are served with a slick of tangy “Dream Sauce” and garlic dill pickles; the Kramarczuk’s hot dog comes cradled in a griddled milk bun that is softer, we’d argue, than the softest of clouds. Second: The ice cream comes in every flavor you crave but would never think of yourself: spiced piña colada, roasted sweet potato pie, the works. Or maybe it’s a chocolate malt night; nobody’s arguing with that.

All Saints

Kim Tong and Denny Leaf-Smith have mastered a restaurant niche that few others have: not vegetarian but “vegetable forward,” a place where roasted miso carrots are given as much attention as duck confit served lovingly with bitter greens and currants. Bar lead Scott Weller’s cocktails are also exceptional; start any breezy patio meal with an Amalfi Spritz. Pro tip: The salt-and-pepper mushrooms, served with a punchy scallion dip, are an All Saints all-timer.

Pinoy Fusion

Pinoy is the cafeteria restaurant back inside Phil-Oriental Foods in the heart of Frogtown, and it’s where Minnesota’s many, many Filipino medical workers go to be healed—of homesickness. Pinoy posts its weekend menu on Facebook, and cars from around the state spark up as fans drive in to pack massive to-go coolers of lechon kawali (super-crisp pork belly), lumpia (Filipino egg rolls), some of the half dozen stews or noodles of the day, and, in summer, for the drive home, textbook-perfect cups of the layered shaved-ice treat halo-halo.

Jax Cafe

Jax, open since about a minute after Prohibition ended in 1933, is one of America’s greatest surviving supper clubs. Pop in for flaky chicken pot pie and tender-as-can-be prime rib, wedge and Waldorf salads, Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, and maybe a classic American ice cream drink for dessert, like a Pink Cadillac? Drink it in—not just the cocktails, but how uniquely Twin Cities it all is, from the wood-paneled walls to the custom matchbooks for your big night out.

Wrecktangle Pizza

Would we say that chef Jeff Rogers and the crew at Wrecktangle Pizza single-handedly catalyzed the rise of Detroit-style pizza in the Twin Cities? We would, with a Grape Ape in hand. It is hard to deny the power of a thick Wrecktangle slice, topped with pepps and pickled jalapeños and dunked in spicy house-made ranch. It’s hard to deny, too, the power of a restaurant that shows up for its community time and again.

P.S. Steak

Oh, that legendary restaurant and lounge at the 510 Groveland building, all delicate moldings and soaring lines, our reigning see-and-be-seen. In the main room, it’s all about beautiful steaks and smart cocktails; the lounge is for the Twin Cities’ historically significant, unbeatable La Belle Vie lamb burger with some fries while your besties sing happy birthday. That’s how generations of Minneapolis’s most tasteful best and brightest have done it, looking great and eating even better.

Lynette

When the Riverview Cafe and Wine bar closed in 2021, Minneapolis’s Longfellow area—rich in hungry neighbors, relatively short on dinner options—desperately needed a new restaurant to take over the vacant space across from the Riverview Theater. Enter Lynette, from Travis Serbus, Billie White, and Ben and Melissa Siers-Rients, the same group behind Eat Street’s Little Tijuana (alongside co-owner Bennett Johnson) and Kingfield’s Company Bar (formerly Petite León). Slip in for brunch and be equally delighted by the rhubarb cream cheese–stuffed French toast, a towering focaccia BLT, or a simple croissant and coffee from the breakfast counter; a lingering patio breakfast or a quick morning pop-in. But the dinner menu is where Lynette’s steady warmth and skill really shine through: Glazed short rib falls off the bone into a golden khao soi sauce; pizzas arrive tableside lightly charred and beautifully chewy; a saffron budino gets a little tang from a swoop of whipped yogurt. Nobody’s going to rush you out of Lynette after a neat 90-minute reservation block, either—this place is truly made for neighbors to gather and linger. Pro tip: For a light dessert, Lynette serves free soft-serve cones at the end of the meal.

The Lexington

There’s a reason that The Lexington has remained a stalwart of Grand Avenue for nearly a century. Yes, it’s the steak Diane, served with a saucière of velvety mushroom cream sauce; yes, it’s the famous smoked chicken pot pie; yes, it’s the exquisite wedge salad, all crunch and blue cheese brine and fresh tomato sweetness. But it’s also the exceptional staff, the hospitality of another era living on in the present.

Crasqui

Soleil Ramirez’s Venezuelan Crasqui has big windows and lots of light. It feels like a breezy beach vacation inside, all turquoise, ivory, and beachy. Get a tropical cocktail (or mocktail) along with cheesy sweet corn pancakes called cachapa, the vibrant arugula and heart of palm salad, and the Chilean sea bass with mango chutney for a real beachy treat. Pro tip: Crasqui sells frozen soups, stews, and lasagnas to go.

Lito’s Burritos

Miguel Hernandez’s wildly popular Chicano burrito pop-up operates out of his family’s restaurant, El Tejaban, in Richfield (and a second location is now open on Lake Street). For a proper  breakfast burrito stuffed with garlicky chorizo and eggs and hash browns and served with an ice-cold horchata, this is the place. You simply must get yours wrapped in a layer of crispy cheese (yes, the cheese is on the outside). Pro tip: Lito’s salsas and cremas are unmatched—order the fresh salsa verde, the morita crema, the diablo salsa, all of it.

Gai Noi

Chef Ann Ahmed has taken her perch in Minnesota as chef-owner of stylish Khâluna and food-party-all-the-time Gai Noi to redefine the food of Laos globally. For her efforts, she’s been nominated for prize after prize, including best darn chef in all of America by the Beard Foundation. Still, to us, she’ll always be the chef who has redefined chicken satay in our time (the irresistible char-grilled lemongrass chicken skewers) and who keeps a dining room humming and hopping with the most fun people in town, all raising a piña colada in joy after slurping creamy, spicy Panang spaghetti.

Chimborazo

Chimborazo, do you know how much Northeast loves you? Few spots can match the neighborhoody warmth, the longevity, the reliable bustle, day in and day out, of chef Marcos Pinguil’s Ecuadorian restaurant, which has held down the corner of Central and 29th Avenues for nearly two decades, now with a satellite location in St. Paul. The über-tender stewed seco de pollo, the llapingachos (potato-cheese pancakes), and the lomo saltado may be the stars of the menu, but the beauty at Chimborazo is in the details: the fresh and herbaceous aji criollo sauce; the flawlessly fried plantains; and the sweet chicha morada, a drink made from purple corn. Pro tip: On a cold, gray day, the green plantain dumpling soup, served in a peanut broth, will warm you from the inside out.

Marty’s Deli

God bless the bread makers, the early risers at Marty’s Deli making the finest and fluffiest focaccia in the city. After going viral a few times on TikTok, the Northeast sandwich shop typically has weekend lines stretching down the block for its garlic aioli–slicked egg-and-cheese sandwiches. But it’s worth planning strategically to get your hands on either those coveted breakfast bites or the lunch options, like the classic chicken salad sandwich, the vegan pickled-beet-and-roasted-cauliflower Seward sandwich, and the bevy of fresh-baked cakes and cookies made on pastry chef Paulina Poehlman’s skillful whim.

Lulu Ethio Vegan Cuisine

One of Minnesota’s tastiest, least-told stories is our role as a center of the diaspora of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Christians, who fast some 180 days a year and have a complex and unique vegan cuisine born of the spice culture of the Arabian Sea. Chef, owner, and founder Tigist “TG” Feyisa has made it her mission to serve Minnesotans Tewahedo vegan food using contemporary American vegan ingredients. Order a sampler platter and let the newest great local story in.

Black Market StP

Texas-style brisket takes days to do right—season it, smoke it, rest it, wrap it, smoke it some more, cut it like a pro—and honestly, at the end, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll end up with the all-important charred and spiced exterior bark, interior smoke ring, and meltingly tender meat. That’s why Minnesotans advance order and line up year-round for the brisket from chef Robert Lorch-Benysek, a veteran of many an old-school Minneapolis restaurant, including Zander Cafe. Order online, pick up on Fridays, and, weather permitting, carry it over to Harriet Island for an instant picnic featuring the best brisket this side of Texas.

Reverie

You know your vegan food is something special when meat eaters file in for crispy bulgogi cauliflower and jackfruit Cubanos every evening—not to mention that Kirstin Wiegmann and Jeff Therkelsen’s Powderhorn mainstay has one of the best patios in the Cities, lights glittering among the hackberry trees in the restaurant’s side yard. Pro tip: End any meal with Reverie’s butter-free, dark chocolate–filled beignets.

Mandalay Kitchen

Of all the rich Southeast Asian cuisines the Twin Cities has to offer, Karen food represents just a small slice—but that’s what makes chef Chris Tunbaw’s Mandalay Kitchen all the more special. Tunbaw weaves together Burmese, Thai, and Karen influences throughout the menu, dishing up silky pumpkin curries; fermented tea leaf salad (lahpet thoke, a Burmese classic); mohinga (a hearty fish chowder); and crowd-pleasing delights like cream cheese wontons, khao soi, and fried rice.

Kado no Mise

Tranquil as a temple, artful as a bit of calligraphy inscribing a poem, the food at Kado no Mise is something apart from ordinary restaurant practice. It’s really an astonishing thing to experience the way that chef Shigeyuki Furukawa gives his whole heart and mind to the spiritual aspects and communication possible in a bite. Consider, for instance, just a little bit of rice porridge that might start a meal to awaken the senses—just a bite! Or is it? First there’s the ground and earth, in the good, bready, creamy rice. Next, the flowers of spring, fruits of summer, and sparks of electricity and life that animate us all, represented in the porridge’s tart, salty dried pickled plum. The sea is also here, in a bit of herring roe, while the growing, sun-loving world is represented by a few leaves of mitsuba. The earth, the sea, the sun—eat! It’s all like this at Kado no Mise, which feels not just like a restaurant stuffed with rare and precious Japanese delicacies and imports, and not just like one of America’s best sushi bars, but most of all like a way of carrying on Japanese spiritual and serenity practices to allow us all that rarest gift: to see time, nature, and ourselves as part of one grand and precious interconnection.

Soul Lao

Owners Sabrina Boualaphanh and Eric Phothisanh have always known how to hustle—beginning in 2017, they ran a food truck and a successful brewery pop-up before establishing a permanent home in Highland Park’s Sibley Plaza. Not only does Soul Lao run a bustling takeout and dine-in business; it also feeds the hungry beer drinkers at next-door Wandering Leaf Brewing Co., where customers order via QR code. Understand what skill it takes to whip up such soul-fueled and meticulously prepared food at such a scale in such a small kitchen. For an introduction to Soul Lao’s menu, start with the sai oua rolls: handmade Lao sausage packed with lemongrass and lime leaves, rolled up with bright herbs and veggies and an (ingenious) fried wafer of rice paper that lends unexpected crisp. Then there’s the irresistibly fatty pork belly, roasted on a spit till its skin crackles and browns; whole branzino with red curry; and goong yai (giant prawns) swathed in lemongrass curry butter over garlic rice. Pro tip: Regulars know that ending the meal with an order of mango sticky rice is a must.

Cecil’s Deli

Open since 1949, humble and homey, Cecil’s is the rare midcentury Jewish deli still standing between the American coasts—our precious treasure. Get the matzo ball soup and a corned beef sandwich or potato pancakes to connect to America’s delicatessen history. Or if you’re a neighborhood elder teen, just get pancakes and refills of diner coffee till you’re old enough to look back and realize your hangout was a legend.

Hyacinth

Chef Abraham Gessesse is at the helm of this Grand Avenue gem, an understated and warm slip of a space on Grand Avenue. Hyacinth’s signature dish is its cacio e pepe, the tender bucatini noodles twirled in a swath of peppery silk, but don’t overlook its other home runs: charred cabbage in briny bagna càuda, risotto al salto with a fried golden top, and panna cotta to end any meal on a simple sweet note.

Picnic Linden Hills

This is a family restaurant for the shape of families today—food from 11 am to 11 pm, toddler finger-food spreads for the littles, buttered noodles for the slightly-bigger-than-little littles, wine and a little finger food for a quick parents’ date before the school play, giant ooey-gooey, rich cacio e pepe plates for the moms out on the town—and more. No wonder Picnic is packed day and night with neighbors leading our neighborly, tasteful lives.

Dario

Few places blend soft glam and punk rock as seamlessly as Dario, chef Joe Rolle and Stephen Rowe’s pasta-focused restaurant with a genuinely divine cocktail list (including nonalcoholic concoctions!). Sumptuous handmade pasta from Rachael Cornelius McLeod of Cornelius Pasta Co. comes stuffed with sunchoke and ricotta or swirled in a Thai basil bolognese; the walls are pink and the booths a plush sky blue; the drinks glitter in diamond-cut glasses. But listen closely and you might just hear Motörhead blasting in the kitchen.

Taco Taxi

Brothers Carlos and Hector Lopez, natives of Mexico’s Jalisco state, just celebrated their 20-year anniversary—two whole decades serving as a pillar of Lake Street in the heart of Minneapolis’s Latino community. Birria itself originated in Jalisco, so let that guide your order: If it’s chilly, go straight for the slow-stewed, chili-rich birria soup; any other day, it’s all about the authentic Jalisco-style quesabirria tacos, stuffed with ample gooey cheese and served with a side of savory consommé, which will drip delectably onto your plate as you feast.

Dong Yang Oriental Foods and Deli

Our critics first noted Dong Yang, the little hot-food restaurant tucked in the back of a grocery store in Hilltop, near Columbia Heights, as a “jaw-dropper of a find” in 2004, and it’s been making our lives great ever since. Here’s how you do it. First: Bustle in the doors, beeline to the back, and assess whether it’s busy or quiet. If it’s busy, get in line and watch the highly skilled women by the stoves juggle tureens just a few degrees cooler than molten lava and boiling cauldrons as big as washtubs. As you wait, contemplate the big wall photo menu. Grilled beef short ribs? Bubbling kimchi hot pot? Both? Order and definitely add a couple plastic-wrapped rolls of kimbap, those Korean pickle-filled sushi rolls, for tomorrow’s lunch. Now, start maneuvering for a table, or go grocery shop—do you need seaweed snacks, gochujang to amp up your weeknight buttered noodles, or some house-made fresh cucumber kimchi from the deli case? By the time the ladies behind the counter load up your food tray with whatever you ordered—all the good banchan and, depending on the dish, rice—you’ll understand why Dong Yang has been a go-to for foodie insiders for decades. It’s the flavors, it’s the deep skill, it’s the devotion to the culture and tradition—and we return decade after decade, with our greatest gratitude.

Pho 79 and Caravelle Restaurant

In one of the most pho-dense corridors of all of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Pho 79 and Caravelle Restaurant, owned by succeeding generations of the Tr`ân  and Tru’o’ng families, stands out for its spice-laden beef broth, shimmering with gelatin and suffusing notes of star anise, white pepper, and cloves through the air as it steams on the table. The correct order here is the Tô Đăc Biê.t, the Special Pho 79 Bowl, teeming with  meats and offal: fatty brisket, tripe, tendon, meatballs, flank, and rare lean beef. Pro tip: If your dining group is divided on the question of pho, adjoining Caravelle Restaurant serves both Vietnamese and Chinese fare.

Nightingale

Chef Carrie McCabe-Johnston opened farm-to-table Nightingale 13 years ago, and ever since, her restaurant has grown ever more chicly rock and roll, with forthright inventive cocktails, a devoted following of artsy types of every stripe, DJ nights, the best deviled eggs in town, and great hearty-healthy-stylish food for people who had a long day and want a big plate of roast salmon. It’s a timeless Minneapolis joke to argue about where Uptown begins and ends, and while Nightingale is obviously in Whittier, it’s a rare spot containing the spirit of old Uptown, a little bit punk, a little secretly earnest and hardworking, a whole lot of fun.

Clancey’s

Don’t call it a sandwich—it’s a calling. At Clancey’s, owner Kristin Tombers has been working to fill her butcher’s case, sausage grinders, freezers, and ovens with the best of Minnesota farms. For her sandwiches, she roasts turkeys, roasts beef, poaches tuna loins, and bakes little rounds of airy scrambled just-from-the-farm eggs to stuff between bread legend Patisserie 46 baguettes and milk buns. Why work so hard? She’s on a mission to link rural and urban and to try to heal the world by supporting the little guy, both customer and farmer.

Namaste Café

Spices really are like fruits in a lot of ways, ripe and fresh one minute, dry and stale not too long after. Fresh peppercorns, fresh cardamom—it sounds a bit odd in American ears. Even if you wanted fresh cardamom, what would you do, head out to the cardamom farms? Actually, yes. One of Namaste Café’s owners is Saujanya “Sunny” Shrestha, who has deep connections to spice farmers around his native Kathmandu. Most in the Twin Cities know by now that Namaste has the best chai in the state. Try the black pepper clove or the fresh turmeric curry versions to prove this conjecture to yourself. But Shrestha and his wife and Namaste co-owner, Nadine Schaefer, also use fresh spices to gorgeous effect in Namaste’s Nepalese farm-to-table and organic fare. Try any of the curries to see what a difference fresh spice makes—they’re never hotter, just bigger and more fragrant in every dimension. You’ll particularly want to add a mango curry to your table to taste what fresh mustard seeds, well toasted, really can mean culinarily—an evocation of smoke and fire without actual heat, a quirky fermented pumpernickel quality, a subtle glide of earthy notes that electrify the mango, making it taste totally alive.

My Huong Kitchen

Tracy Wong’s snug My Huong Kitchen, just across the street from Quang, punches well above its weight for its small footprint, dishing up mock duck spring rolls, lemongrass chicken com tam (broken rice), and fresh noodle salads at lightning speed. Tempted as you may be by meat-loaded Phô Đăc Biê.t, regulars know that Wong’s curry noodle options—their broth creamy with coconut milk and swirling with soul-warming ginger, lemongrass, onion, and chilis—might just be the most nourishing bowls of soup you can slurp down anywhere around town.

Rosalia

It’s not the swankiest of the Daniel del Prado restaurant empire, but Rosalia hits all the classic DDP notes: crudo crowned with fresh herbs, vegetables given ample attention over an open fire, strong Italian influence with global flourishes (za’atar chopped salad, carrot tahina dip, and more). If you’re struggling to choose just one pie, make it the Funghi, a creamy, cheesy, beautiful tangle of mushrooms, scallions, Gruyère, and porcini crema.

Kramarczuk’s

Pick one restaurant in Minnesota that’s raved about both by foodie insiders and local grandpas in vintage duck-hunting Pendletons? Definitely Northeast’s Ukrainian cafeteria line, Kramarczuk’s. Pursue your Northern bliss within through legendary stuffed cabbage rolls (meaty or vegetarian), subtle and exquisite house-smoked-and-ground sausages, and Eastern European dumplings, such as varenyky and pierogi, both plump and perfect.

Bull’s Horn

If you want to do Bull’s Horn right, pull up with your weeknight bar crew and order a nine-piece dill pickle fried chicken bucket, which is about the saltiest, crispiest, most satisfying complement to a cold Hamm’s you could ask for. Amy Greeley and Doug Flicker serve some of the best damn bar food in the city: cheese curds, deviled eggs, Kentucky-fried gizzards with French onion dip, and a killer $11 burger. Pro tip: Like any righteous Minnesota dive bar, Bull’s Horn has pull tabs.

Moscow on the Hill

The dumpling crew gathers mornings at Moscow on the Hill, hand-filling Russian pelmeni, pinching hundreds of little bundles, keeping them cold so they stay tender. By nighttime, near every table has a plate of perfect little plump dumplings, usually paired with a house-infused vodka cocktail, a khachapuri (traditional Georgian cheese bread), and cabbage rolls, too. Ever since the Libermans opened the family restaurant in 1994, no one has done more to make long Minnesota winters our coziest and most comforting season.

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