Photographs by Caitlin Abrams, food styling by Diana B. Scanlon
Union Hmong Kitchen
Union Hmong Kitchen
This wasn’t the year that the biggest chefs opened their grandest palaces of fine dining. But the Twin Cities has never seen a greater collection of next-wave steakhouses, food halls, burger dives, and 20-seat dining labs.
Gavin Kaysen
Gavin Kaysen pouring the opening broth course, which welcomes each diner.
Demi
»Edible Art
212 N. 2nd St., Mpls • 612-404-1123 • demimpls.com
Of course, it’s both annoying and pretentious to call food “art,” because 99.9 percent of food is just food. And that’s good and noble enough. And yet, opera at The Met is not just “singing,” and some food is indeed art. If you want to swallow some art in Minneapolis, you now go to Demi, Gavin Kaysen’s ticket-only, no-expense-spared restaurant, tucked behind his flagship North Loop landmark, Spoon and Stable. Your first course may be caviar on a coin of hay-smoked panna cotta, set in tiny nests of grapevines. Later courses tell a sensory story of place and time through spruce tips, beef, and octopus. Art collectors, as it were, have been snapping up all the tickets they can, and that seems right: Opera, too, lives by its superfans. In a life that’s mainly morning toast and rice bowls, some people feel truly alive only when they’re experiencing those leaps toward the sublime—whether onstage or rendered in venison tartare served on tiny porcelain antlers.
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Demi
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Foie gras with local apples
Kieran's Kitchen Abundance Board
Something for everyone: The Abundance Board abounds with Red Table meats, Alemar cheeses, and Baker’s Field breads, plus ferments and flourishes from the kitchen.
Kieran’s Kitchen
»The Butcher, the Baker, the Cheese-Course Maker
117 14th Ave. NE, Mpls • 612-354-5093 • kieranskitchen.com
Our food scene likes to talk about collaborations. But too many cooks in the kitchen is a cliché for a reason. The provisioners at Kieran’s Kitchen—Kieran Folliard’s counter-service café in the Food Building—have already earned enough individual glory to make a collaboration really work. Mike Phillips (Red Table Meat Co.), one of the country’s premier artisan meat crafters, gives fat new sausages to the kitchen for first tastes. Steve Horton (Baker’s Field Flour & Bread), one of the country’s best millers and bakers, brings things he loves, like donuts and bagels, along with his famed breads. Alemar Cheese Company makes fresh cream cheese, because the friends 20 feet away need it. And Ian Gray, the chef putting it all together in the kitchen, essentially gets the kind of sous chefs that money could never buy.
The concept is this: Minnesota makes the best food in the country. Come see and taste how it’s done. Connect the dots. Take pride in it. Appreciate the values and value. Buy it and enjoy it.
Giulia
Twirl into a tangle of textbook-perfect cacio e pepe at Giulia, but don’t ignore the pizzas.
Giulia
»New Lobby Hobby
215 S. 4th St., Mpls • 612-215-5450 • dinegiulia.com
Almost at first glance, you can guess that Giulia, at Hotel Emery, is no ordinary lobby restaurant. Check out the jungle’s worth of greenery surrounding the curvy warm woods. It’s the kind of sleek décor Neapolitans like—but it doesn’t pander to our Nordic expectations. Chefs Steven Brown and Josh Hedquist pull the same trick in ornamenting a familiar Italian menu. They’ll wow you with a mozzarella, pulled fresh at the table, then comfort you with a textbook cacio e pepe. Happy hours feel buzzy, as the downtown crowd orders up creative takes on the negroni and glasses of red wine from Tuscany and Abruzzo. If Giulia’s chewy Neapolitan pizzas don’t make it to your table, you’ll have to come back for more.
MN BBQ
MN BBQ
»Start Smoking
816 Lowry Ave. NE Mpls • 612-315-4967 • minnesotabbqco.com
Sometimes the craziest food technicians can stun you with simplicity. The Travailians and Kale Thome finally opened their barbecue spot in Northeast. And while there’s plenty of smoke and fire, here it’s focused on the meats instead of the show. The takeout-only shack puts up a daily menu of ’cue favorites, such as brisket, pulled pork, ribs, turkey, and pork belly. But don’t miss out on the action at the margin of the menu board: a thickly piled BLT sandwich; a creamy and smoky brisket mac ’n’ cheese sandwich; and sides like fried brussels and chili tots. These wonders help elevate MN BBQ above the onslaught of new barbecue joints this year.
Graze Food Hall
No fork required. Counter clockwise from top left: Double A sandwich from Soul Bowl; Beef + Blue Cheese sandwich from Carbon Pit Beef; Chorizo Megadilla from Flagsmash.
Graze Food Hall
»More Than a Food Court
520 N. 4th St., Mpls • 612-414-4532 • grazenorthloop.com
A food hall counts as one of our Best New Restaurants? Hey, you’ve got to be open to tasty innovations, or you’re going to miss out. Graze Provisions + Libations, located just two blocks from a light rail stop and Target Field, brings two floors of local food stalls. And these purveyors pump out everything you could want: mind-bending jackfruit tacos from Flagsmash; crisp chicken sandwiches from Soul Bowl; banh mi burgers from Lu’s. Grab your bakery from Honey & Rye, your churros from Midnord, your Maryland-style beef sandwich from Carbon Pit Beef. If it’s not clear already, this is no mall food court. Sure, the vendor variety makes this place family friendly. But grownups will appreciate the two craft cocktail bars, a rooftop deck, and one of the only green spaces in the neighborhood.
Burger Dive
Bring cash for the house burger (double patty, american cheese). That green drink? Yup, that’s a Greenie.
Burger Dive
»Join the Greenie Party
2500 NE Marshall St., Mpls • No phone • burgerdivene.com
A particular torture involved in loving a city for a long time is witnessing its unique spaces sputter out. You start with a dive bar like nowhere else on earth, and suddenly it becomes a Tim Hortons. But sometimes all it takes to save those places is one special thing. Which brings us to Tony Jaros River Garden, a divey Nordeast spot serving Greenies to people who remember when the Lakers still played in Minneapolis. Its special thing? One perfect burger: meaty, griddle-smashed, cheesy. The burger comes to us from Nick O’Leary and Josh Thoma, who know their way around both white tablecloths (The Lex) and food trucks (Smack Shack). They run the kitchen here under the name Burger Dive. But wait: You were wondering, what’s a Greenie? It starts with vodka and runs to the fluorescent.
‘We cleaned out the kitchen and brought in [...] a new 4-foot griddle, so we’re ready to smash some patties,’ chef Josh Thoma told me.
Boludo
Empanandas get diners in the door, but the pizza (and the music) keeps them there.
Boludo
»Take Nicollet to Buenos Aires
3749 Nicollet Ave., Mpls • 612-965-2858 • boludoempanadas.com
Learn a new language and you get a new soul, goes the proverb. When you step through the glass door into Boludo, you start to feel very certain you’re speaking a new language entirely. Maybe call it Argentinian urban chic. Tuck into the tiny, candlelit, always-packed storefront as the rock and tango thrum, the South American wine flows, and the patrons blush at the killer style and movie-star looks of Facundo De Fraia, the Argentinian chef and co-owner. Once a board of flaky, lavishly flavored empanadas hits the table, you start to feel like you’ve stepped through some fun portal into Buenos Aires. But it’s the pizzas that somehow change everything. The crust is a buoyant cloud that is simultaneously black-charred and intensely flavored, with light glosses of sauce and fierce accents of herb, cheese, and sausage. You’ll want to make it your new mother tongue.
"Plan for takeout, or stand there and shove warm stuffed pastry in your face."
P.S. Steak
A Denver steak, cut from American Wagyu beef.
P.S. Steak
»The Grande Dame of Groveland
510 Groveland Ave., Mpls • 612-886-1620 • psmpls.com
Have you been? If so, did you instantly swoon for the new back bar, whose mood and décor suggest what Edgar Allan Poe would make of a steakhouse? Or did you fall back on your love for the timeless pale grandeur of the front lounge, all but unchanged since the glory days of the 510 Lounge and La Belle Vie? Both back bar and lounge offer that luxurious Denver steak, those hash browns better than cake, and those strongly poured drinks in Nick-and-Nora glassware. It’s clear that chef Mike DeCamp can do steakhouse as well as anyone in the country. So, of course, it’s fun to taste all that. But P.S. Steak has accomplished more than that. To build a new, great bar into an already beloved restaurant space is like placing a ship in a bottle on the deck of a ship in a bottle.
Copper Cow
You can dip Copper Cow’s Swiss Forager burger into beef au jus. But can you keep the sauce off your shirt?
Copper Cow
»Don't Fear the 'Burbs
5445 Eden Prairie Rd., Minnetonka • 952-297-8066 • coppercowkitchen.com
Take the suburban restaurant... please. Given the way diners cry foul when yet more chains fill up their suburbs, you’d think more restaurateurs would follow Danielle and Chris Bjorling’s lead. The duo behind Copper Hen on Eat Street branched out to Minnetonka this year with a fresh take on suburban dining. Cool but simple design has transformed a former DQ into a stylish burger shop with a full bar, street-side patio, ice cream counter—and oodles of loyal locals. It’s no small thing that within a year of CC’s opening, one of its juicy burgers nearly took top honors in our burger bracket. But the Bjorlings also know how to keep the later-evening crowd happy with crispy brussels in cider gastrique, prosciutto-wrapped chicken roulade, and kale slaw the keto set would kill for.
Snack Bar
Isaac Becker (left) at the pass of his new slice shop, which also serves full pies, small Italian plates, and craft cocktails.
Snack Bar
»The First Slice of 2020
800 Washington Ave. N., Mpls • 612-383-2848 • snackbarmpls.com
When James Beard Award–winning chef Isaac Becker and Nancy St. Pierre said they were planning to open a slice shop across the hall from their North Loop pioneer, Bar La Grassa, we should have known they were underselling it. The revamped Be’Wiched space now includes a bar that stretches the length of the cozy room. For drinkers and snackers, the kitchen churns out small, creative Italian plates, such as crisp triangles of perfect polenta or pork shoulder steak confit lolling under brisk tonnato sauce. For slice lovers, it’s a choose-your-own adventure. Pick your sauce: spicy amatriciana, simple béchamel white, or classic red. Then choose your toppings from a list that includes anchovies, kalamata olives, robiola cheese, pesto, Calabrian chilis—basically the best works you can find.
Yia Vang
Chef Yia Vang
Chef of the Year 2019
Yia Vang, Union Hmong Kitchen at Sociable Cider Werks
1500 Fillmore St. NE Mpls. • 612-270-4252 • unionkitchenmn.com
Chef Yia Vang didn’t see it coming. What could have led him to imagine that one day he would be guiding reporters from CNN and National Geographic through St. Paul’s Hmong kitchens and markets? He surely didn’t expect to be featured in the pages of Bon Appétit magazine. And yet, here we are in 2019, and Vang has become the towering and jovial ambassador for Hmong cuisine.
“I never thought I would be a cook, but this industry keeps hooking you back in,” Vang told us earlier this year. We chatted with Vang while he was breaking down a whole hog for Cochon555, a national pork-cooking competition. And he explained that from his earliest memories—living in a refugee camp in Thailand—food played a central role in his family life.
“You know how other kids grew up playing T-ball?” Vang said. “I didn’t do that. My dad would take us to an Amish farm, point to a pig, and then hand me a boning knife and say: OK, this is your section, go! I probably saw more things than I should have at that age.”
Vang laughs. “It would last us three to four weeks. Hmong families always look for homes with a big garage so they can throw freezers in there.”
He started cooking outside the Hmong community with Union Hmong Kitchen: a project in which Vang and a cousin, Chris Her, riff on family recipes at venues all across the Cities. You had to follow them on Facebook or Instagram to know where the kimchi fried rice would land next.
That is, until this year. In January, Sociable Cider Werks in Northeast gave the pair an open-ended residency in the food trailer outside the taproom. Suddenly, you could regularly warm your guts on chili-kicked khao sen or “Hilltribe Fried Chicken,” prepared with Mama Vang’s hot sauce. The chefs were able to host kamayan feasts this summer, setting a communal table (in a Filipino tradition) with an abundance of smoked fish, sausages, whole chickens, lotus roots, sticky rice, noodles, and more. Guests ate this spectacular feast by hand, standing around the table with eyes agog.
We’ve watched Vang do cooking demos and presentations all over town—from The Good Acre to the State Fair—and he’s an enthralling presence: a winning ambassador for Hmong cuisine. With stories and flavors from his family’s homeland, Vang gives voice to a rich Minnesota culture and invites us all to the table to listen and eat.
Where to find that table? This winter, it appears, will bring the moment many of us have been waiting for: Vang will be moving Union Hmong Kitchen into its own space as a sit-down restaurant. We’ll be there for the food and the stories—and, of course, the smoked chicken laab.
